The Future of Micromobility in Smart Cities

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By Dominique Bonte | 3Q 2019 | IN-5533

Two-wheel micromobility is taking on many forms as it spreads across the globe, from soon to be ubiquitous dockless electric scooters for short-term rental from the likes of Lime, Bird, and JUMP to motorbike ridesharing from Grab in Southeast Asia that includes the additional convenience of a driver. Thailand is even considering legalizing privately owned two-wheel vehicle ridesharing, such as GrabBike. At the same time, traditional docked bike-sharing, deployed across many cities over the past decade, is quickly evolving into dockless electric bike-sharing, for obvious convenience reasons. Larger electric motorbikes are now also becoming available for short term rental in many cities across Europe.

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Two-Wheel Mobility Addresses Urban Congestion and Pollution Challenges

NEWS


Two-wheel micromobility is taking on many forms as it spreads across the globe, from soon to be ubiquitous dockless electric scooters for short-term rental from the likes of Lime, Bird, and JUMP to motorbike ridesharing from Grab in Southeast Asia that includes the additional convenience of a driver. Thailand is even considering legalizing privately owned two-wheel vehicle ridesharing, such as GrabBike. At the same time, traditional docked bike-sharing, deployed across many cities over the past decade, is quickly evolving into dockless electric bike-sharing, for obvious convenience reasons. Larger electric motorbikes are now also becoming available for short term rental in many cities across Europe.

The shift toward electric micromobility not only allows the replacement of regular taxis and car sharing (and, to a lesser extent, car ownership) with two-wheel vehicles that are able to use the road space more flexibly and efficiently and thereby reduce congestion, but is also expected to contribute to the reduction of air pollution, which is quickly becoming a key concern in megacities across the globe. Even shifting as little as 10% of existing car traffic to micromobility options can go a long way toward addressing some of the worst instances of congestion and pollution.

Operational Challenges and How Technology Can Help Solve Them

IMPACT


Despite the rapid rise of micromobility, multiple operational challenges remain:

  • Demand-Response Problem: Making sure the supply of micromobility matches demand in terms of geospatial and temporal dimensions can only be achieved through advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI)-informed data analytics approaches. However, getting bikes, scooters, and motorbikes to the right locations can only be done manually through expensive transportation methods. The use of driverless vehicles at night offers potential to reduce the cost of this redistribution. The use of AI is instrumental in both increasing utilization rates, improving availability for end users, and reducing the mileage and number of redistribution trucks. Driver-based two-wheel ridesharing has the intrinsic advantage of being able to guide motorbike drivers to the right locations, with possible additional pricing incentives.
  • Charging: Closely related to the demand-response problem is the requirement to keep dockless two-wheel electric vehicles charged at all times. Collecting dispersed vehicles, charging them, and redistributing them is a complex and costly operation, though this is needed anyway for demand-response imperatives. The use of swappable batteries somewhat alleviates this problem.
  • Dockless and the Use of Urban Space: Many cities have started to act against the unbridled expansion of micromobility and its intrusion into public spaces, cluttering sidewalks and other hotspots. However, any regulation curbing unconstrained disposal of dockless two-wheel assets after use will inevitably negatively impact overall experience and convenience. Recuperating some of the parking space that will become superfluous in the driverless era and retrofitting it into designated micromobility areas is one example of how cities will have to redefine and reorganize public space. To this extent, cities will need to obtain data about temporal and geographic usage patterns, as is already happening through initiatives like SharedStreets. And parking is not the only issue. New forms of micromobility also need to be subject to rules where they can operate. For example, starting September 2019, electric scooters will be banned from riding on sidewalks in Paris, a city with an estimated number of 15,000 scooters. City-governments will have to walk a thin line between leveraging the benefits of micromobility and regulating its use.
  • Safety: Two-wheel vehicle users are inherently more vulnerable to injuries and fatalities. Companies like Bosch and Ride Vision have started to develop Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) solutions optimized for two-wheel vehicles. Additionally, smartphone-based Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) offers the potential to warn cars and commercial vehicles about two-wheel vehicles’ speed, direction, and position in real time or, reciprocally, let them receive information from nearby cars. However, these technologies add cost and complexity, further compromising profitability. Another option is to redesign streets and curbs to isolate vulnerable road users by giving them their own dedicated lanes, something the city of Toronto is already considering. Vehicles with advanced levels of automation will largely be able to avoid collisions with two-wheel vehicles in the longer-term future.
  • Vandalism and Theft: Mobike and GoBee have reported that up to a shocking 10% of their bikes are destroyed and/or stolen every month. While telematics tracking solutions can go a long way in tracing lost bikes or scooters, retrieval is expensive. Connectivity cannot avoid loss of assets through vandalism or theft in many cases. This fact alone has forced many operators to retreat from certain cities. Maybe ubiquitous urban video surveillance and community-based social control tools and apps will drive crime rates down in the future.

The challenges outlined above somewhat compromise the future of micromobility in cities, both in terms of operational complexities and the impact of associated costs on profitability. Future driverless carsharing and smart mobility help mitigate these issues. Driverless cars can be programmed to independently go back to charging locations when needed or be parked outside city centers during off-peak times. Future dynamic wireless charging infrastructure will allow them to be charged while in operation, but this will not be feasible for two-wheel vehicles. Additionally, driverless cars will be inherently safer due to advanced machine vision technology and better protection of their passengers. Finally, driverless cars will be far more convenient, requiring neither a driver nor the user having to drive him or herself. However, for two-wheel assets there is no realistic outlook for autonomous/driverless operation.

Lack of Profitability Is the Biggest Threat to the Future of Micromobility

RECOMMENDATIONS


As outlined above, micromobility players are facing numerous operational and regulatory challenges. The biggest issue they are facing in the longer term—not unlike their four-wheel vehicle ridesharing operator counterparts—is how to turn new smart mobility solutions into profitable operations. After the initial Venture Capital (VC)-driven hype in 2018, with a wave of acquisitions of micromobility companies including Uber acquiring bikeshare startup JUMP, the first reality check and fallout is already happening, most notably with bike-sharing operators. In China, Ofo and Mobike face cash flow issues and have already downsized their operations. The biggest victim seems to be bike-sharing, with operators pulling out of cities at an alarming rate.

Consolidation is already happening, with Lime recently acquiring Scoot, enlarging its geographic footprint. Clearly, micromobility players will only be able to survive if they build ultra-efficient and super lean organizations by heavily relying on all possible next-generation technologies while at the same time maximizing scale and reach. Combining two-wheel vehicle sharing with other types of mobility can improve overall profitability as well.

However, despite all of these issues and challenges, micromobility is here to stay not as the solution to all urban mobility issues, but as a key paradigm for sustainably solving the ultra-last mile conundrum in urban contexts. It will become a critical component of a wider smart mobility offer that combines and integrates many transportation options, including transit under a seamless Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) roof. This also means pure VC plays will be replaced by Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) through which the public and private sectors will jointly fund and operate these aggregated mobility services.

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