Via 🤝Uber, Tier ✅ England, Getir ❌ Spain, and Doordash offers per-(active)-hour pay 💵

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐

Via and Uber partner; Via-powered microtransit and paratransit riders can now receive their rides with Uber. This makes perfect sense, as sometimes microtransit vehicles, usually ±15 seats in size, travel long journeys to accommodate only a few riders. Now these Via-booked rides, whenever financially reasonable, could be supplied by Uber.

Liftango and National Express join forces in the UK to launch Trio - a commute solution utilising Liftango’s fixed route and carpooling technology and National Express coach (bus) fleet. This partnership strengthens National Express' position, adding technology to what was once a non-digital commute solution.

How ‘Uber ad tablet' works and looks like. To qualify for a tablet, a driver has to complete 300 trips a month. That comes to >10 a day, i.e. only full time drivers qualify for the scheme; driver compensation is 7 cents per ride.

Kakao Mobility (South Korea) and Phenikaa Group (Vietnam) sign a collaboration agreement. Technology collaboration will centre on MaaS, autonomous driving, high-precision mapping, and AI technology. On the commercial side, the companies will work together to integrate solutions and identify expansion targets across Southeast Asia.

InDrive granted licence to operate in Kenya, joining Uber, Bolt, Yango, Little Cabs and others. InDrive’s competitive advantage is in its ‘haggling’ function, which allows riders and drivers to negotiate on a fee between them. InDrive launches in ​​Ibadan, Nigeria.

Halo.Car launches remotely piloted rental car deliveries in Las Vegas. The plan is to grow Vegas operations to hundreds of vehicles before expanding to new cities in 2024.

MobilityIQ is a new tool from TMC, which allows employee transportation management in ride, rent and rail based on three parameters: Cost, carbon footprint and clock (time).

Yango expands in Israel, mostly to the West Bank and to the south of Israel. Last week Uber announced it is leaving Israel. Shotl introduces on-demand transportation in Alto Garda, Italy. Ioki launches in Upper Franconia, Germany. FreeNow partners with Revolut, a finance app, to offer drivers benefits and rewards.

MTA (New York) expands paratransit e-hailing pilot. The expansion, tripling the number of participants to 3,600 users, comes with a cap on the number of rides per person of 25 per month and a price increase from $2.75 to $5 a ride, due to the financial instability of the current scheme. In total, there are 175,000 registered paratransit customers, meaning the expansion is still only relevant to 2%.

Spain is preparing a new set of ride-hailing restrictive regulations, following an EU court ruling that existing restrictions were discriminatory. VTC companies are preparing to sue the government.

The Shakti Scheme of the state of Karnataka, India, allows women and transgender people unrestricted free bus travel across the state. Similar schemes exist elsewhere in India, but those are limited to a specific city or short routes.

Sharing/renting 🚗🛴

McKinsey consumer survey on shared urban mobility. McKinsey divides shared mobility to (1) hailed; (2) micromobility and (3) shared cars. McKinsey expects future disruption to focus on autonomous shuttles, micromobility and micro-cars (minimobility). Highlights: people plan to increase all types of public/shared transportation and reduce dependency on private cars; and surprise (!) people want better public transport and are willing to experience new modes of transportation.

Tokenized car-sharing by Eloop in Vienna. Eloop acquired 100 Teslas, which it allows users to co-own and get a share of the revenues they generate.

Shared mobility in Berlin by Friedel: Jelbi (MaaS) covers ±50% of the ±20 shared vehicles services in the city; Bolt pilots car-sharing; moped consolidation; 3 million e-scooter trips and >1.7 million car sharing trips per quarter.

60% of Traficar’s users are under 34. The company has 500,000 active users (no definition in the interview) and the average distance travelled is 12km. Electric cars constitute 8% of the fleet, and profitability on those vehicles is challenging. More in this interview.

Karshare’s Founder/CEO ‘end of the road - thank you’ LinkedIn post. Karshare was a P2P solution in the UK, set up in 2016, and closed down a couple of weeks ago. Worth a read.

Micromobility 🚲🛴

TfL (London) publishes data on its 2 years; 5,000 vehicles; 600 parking bays; 2.5 million trips; over 6.5 million kilometres - trial. Yes, trial. Anyway - on top of the figures above we also learn that the average ride is 17 minutes / 2.5km. There have been 22 series injuries reported (no deaths), which is fewer than 0.01% of rides. For more data.

Tier wins West of England micromobility tender. Expected fleet of up to 4,000 scooters, 1,500 bikes and 20 cargo bikes. Tier is replacing Voi, which operated in the region for the past 2.5 years. Bolt launches e-bike service in Wicklow County, Ireland.

Paris Moped tender results are in - winners are Cooltra, Cityscoot & YEGO, each operator initially deploying 2,500 mopeds, and a possibility to increase to 3,000 each before the contract ends in 2028.

Bird founder VanderZanden leaves the company. VanderZanden, founder/CEO of Bird, stepped down as president back in June 2022 and was replaced by Torchiana, the company’s then COO and now CEO. Since then VanderZanden has been the board’s chairman; now he leaves the board.

Delivery 🍽🧺

DoorDash starts offering an option of hourly wage instead of a per-delivery model. This comes after NYC has regulated such a model in the city. An hour is defined as “from the moment [a worker accepts] an offer until it’s dropped off — plus 100% of tips” - i.e. it is ‘active’ time, not an hour as defined by the clock you are familiar with. The rate per hour and which countries/states the scheme will be offered is still unknown.

DoorDash also announced new features. For couriers, the ability to select where they want to start their shift; post-checkout tipping; and location sharing. Customers will see a new universal search bar and the ability to manage multiple shopping carts.

Getir to leave Spain, cutting 1,560 jobs in the process. Last week the company announced it is leaving France. The existing delivery competition in the country includes Glovo (by Delivery Hero), JET and Uber Eats.

Zomato introduces ‘Food Trends’ data analysis platform. The platform, accessible to the general public free of charge, will allow restaurant partners to view demand and supply gaps that have been zoomed in to a locality level; price distribution and demand trends for different dishes or cuisines; and demand-supply comparison for multiple dishes or cuisines. Restaurants can use these insights to decide on dishes, locations and prices.

Glovo and DELIVERS.AI autonomous deliveries in Gdansk - 23 sec video. JET Ireland numbers: total spend €2.2bn per year on food delivery and takeaways; average monthly spend is €46.49 and ordering average is 2.9 times per month. Swiggy’s losses grow by 80%(!) in 2022, from $100M to $180M, while growing 26% in GMV. Oda, Norwegian online supermarket, closes online grocery operations in Germany and Finland. Reason: change to logistic business and the pursuit of profitability.

Autonomous 🤖

The vote on expanding robotaxi service hours and zones in San Francisco has been postponed to July 13 for further review. In short: California state is pro - but transport official, fire and police in SF - against, and have managed a fine PR effort against the decision for the past month. TBC.

A robotaxi race in San Francisco - Tesla finished the route in 20 minutes, followed by Waymo at 25 minutes, and Cruise at 29 minutes. For the full account + videos.

Kodiak Robotics, autonomous trucking, partnered with Loadsmith, a marketplace that connects shippers and carriers, to put 800 Kodiak-equipped trucks on its platform. Trucks will be owned and directed by Loadsmith, with Kodiak charging a per-mile fee.

Zoox (by Amazon) expands to testing in Vegas and grows headcount by 16%. For now the testing will be limited to Zoox employees on a one-mile loop route. Yandex Netherlands subsidiary launches self-driving car tests in Belgrade. Waymo stops in the middle of an intersection - again. See video. Roger French detailed account of an autonomous bus ride in Oxfordshire.

Flying cars 🚁

Joby Aviation receives permit to fly first eVTOL built on a production line. The company is getting closer to commercial flights in 2025.

OEMs 🛺⚡️

Lucid Motors strikes deal to power Aston Martin’s future lineup of EVs. Lucid will supply electric motors and batteries for Aston Martin, in a deal valued at $450M, which is based on cash and stock.

VW in talks to adopt Tesla’s charging standard. This follows recent Tesla similar partnerships with Ford, GM and others.

Lordstown Motors files for bankruptcy and sues Foxconn for not honouring its investment agreement. Details story here.

In other news 📰

Record-high pedestrian deaths in the US can be explained by the transition to larger vehicles (SUVs, pickup trucks) and by increasing post-pandemic speeding. Drunk driving also has to do with the numbers. There are a number of strategies being put in place to tackle the problem: the NHTSA is suggesting a ‘pedestrian safety rating’ for cars; some states add educational materials; some offer homeless communities, where accident rates are high, more support; some increase traffic enforcement; and some plan higher taxes on larger vehicles.

NoTraffic, AI-based traffic-lights management platform, raised $50M. Funds will be used to expand in the US and also reach markets in Europe and Japan.

Percepto, industrial drones, raised $67M. The company recently received nationwide Beyond Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver from the FAA in the U.S. Funds will be used for US expansion.

Google is cutting jobs at Waze, bringing Google Ads into Waze, cancelling Waze’s own ad platform. Back in December Google announced the merge of Waze into Geo, its Google Maps division, and these layoffs were widely anticipated.

Police want robotaxi video footage to help solve crimes. These vehicles take videos of everything in their way, and evidence of police asking for warrants, and receiving information from autonomous companies, have been recorded. This is still early days, but it would be an interesting reality when these vehicles are rolled out in cities in large numbers.