Category: News

Shared scooter schemes suffered a setback yesterday in Paris. I will leave it to others to delve into the merits of the poorly executed referendum or whether the results – with a meagre 7% voter turnout (~100K votes) – are even meaningful in relation to the estimated 400,000 unique users of the modality. My take on scooters in Paris was expressed last month in Zag. However, I do want to point out that this should be a wake up call for the operators to take a more proactive approach in deploying proven measures that address cities’ concerns before finding themselves at the mercy of the ill-informed opinion of a vociferous minority.

Several of the larger shared micromobility operators recently released a set of industry recommendations intended to “ensure cities receive safe and well-managed mobility services that can be sustainably delivered in the long term.”

We at Drover AI would like to humbly submit some recommendations of our own to help guide the process of evaluating, understanding and selecting technologies that will help produce results desired by cities and operators alike. For too long, operators have cried wolf over certain regulatory requirements while conveniently ignoring the fact that those requirements are in place to enforce existing laws which, when flouted, expose cities to unwanted risks and repercussions.

While public sector organisations like NACTO have previously (in 2018) released comprehensive guidelines designed to establish some best practices for cities struggling to regulate and manage nascent scooter deployments, this latest release is, to my knowledge, the first made by five operators joining forces in a common cause. Many of these recommendations are sound and are borne out of the operators’ cumulative experience in numerous cities across the globe, and signal a maturation and newfound solidarity from the VC funded collective. However, part of this experience has long included posturing with respect to technology and specific capabilities – or lack thereof – which is such an integral part of making shared micromobility “safe and well-managed”.

Specifically, in Section 6d of their joint recommendations, the operators allude to an approach focused on outcomes desired rather than specific technologies. I wholeheartedly agree that technology should be in service of specific outcomes, but then cities must be clear on exactly how a technology proposes to deliver on those outcomes. This is where, historically at least, there has been some publicity driven hyperbole and unfulfilled promises that have led to misalignment with cities. A prime example of this is the tender application process, where cities request descriptions of capabilities that will help them produce their desired outcomes. Operators dutifully put their best prose forward with declarations of capabilities and pedigree to meet those expectations. Unfortunately, most cities do not have the technical expertise to separate the signal from the noise and effectively discern what is real from hyperbole, or complete fiction. This is compounded by the fact that the questions posed in the tender language aren’t suited to properly gauging readiness.

The devil, as they say, is in the details and those really only surface in practice. Enter the technology demo that many cities require as part of the tender process, where all of the written promises are meant to spring to life. Sadly, most of these demos also tend to fall short of evaluating performance that might be expected at scale, mainly due to the following:

• They are typically held in a location shared with advanced notice, allowing for operators to prepare a very controlled environment
• The location is usually something like an open sky parking lot with none of the actual infrastructure you would see in a city – sidewalks, bike lanes, tall buildings, varied surfaces, and so on. This is akin to evaluating a ship’s seaworthiness in a swimming pool
• Testing in real-world urban settings is sometimes impossible because the behaviour being tested is against the law in those very locations…!

While taking a technology-neutral approach, it is nevertheless important to ask the right questions of any proposed solution to make sure reality doesn’t fall short of expectations. Cities should set specific, measurable performance thresholds for each desired outcome – for example, operators must detect sidewalk riding within three seconds of entering a sidewalk with at least 95% accuracy. Some additional helpful questions to ask include:

• Does the technology require cellular connectivity at all times to function or can it function at the edge?
• Does it require GPS signal availability to function? What happens if that GPS signal is compromised?
• How will it perform in different conditions? Day vs night, seasonal, weather related?
• Does it require additional supporting infrastructure to ensure consistency of performance? Things like RTK base stations to enhance GPS signal strength, for example.
• Does the tech require accurate groundtruth to be available at the outset and maintained over time? Either in the form of accurate GPS mapping or 3D visual mapping?
• Does the tech require extensive data collection prior to launch? And similar data collection over time to maintain performance?
• Is the tech in question available at scale on day one of a deployment?

The industry and technology has evolved at a tremendous pace thanks to significant investments from the private sector, and while the above recommendations will help cities make more informed choices, it’s all meaningless if the cities don’t actively enforce them evenly across the board. For example, in the case of sidewalk detection, if Operator A has invested in a very effective solution that detects sidewalks accurately and even slows vehicles down on them, but Operators B and C have much less reliable tech which is not good enough to take real time action on the speed of a vehicle, then unless the city holds Operators B and C accountable to the requirements, Operator A will find itself effectively bearing a ‘tax’ while also losing ridership because they are the only ones preventing unlawful rider behavior.

Drover AI technology has been successfully deployed across more than 10,000 vehicles over three continents, yet some in the operator ranks still push a narrative that attempts to undermine the technology’s effectiveness. Cities have the unenviable task of enforcing existing laws with new modalities in a rapidly shifting environment filled with countless opinionated stakeholders – I believe the best approach is to bring them solutions that will allow them to embrace shared micromobility while mitigating their concerns about it. Technologies evolve and new solutions arise, but in the meantime, operators should be supportive of the ones that are proven to solve existing problems today. Paris sneezed yesterday; let’s hope the rest of Europe doesn’t catch a cold!

Like many American disruptors and innovators before them, shared scooters went to Paris only to fall madly in love with it and find the best versions of themselves as a result of needing to adapt to the city and local culture.

Under the stewardship of the 3 permitted operators, Tier, Dott and Lime, Paris has grown into one of the largest global markets for shared scooters with approximately 15,000 deployed scooters, over 2 million unique users and many millions of rides taken annually.

Many cities have had their flare-ups about free-floating bikes and/or scooters over the years, but Paris’ current crisis is unique in several respects – operationally it is a hugely successful program, scooters enjoy favorable popular perception, and the current administration is a proponent of active transportation in favor of cars. To be sure, incidents have occurred, including highly publicized fatalities.

Without benefitting from the glazed indifference with which similar (and far more numerous) car-based instances are met, these unfortunate incidents resulted in some knee-jerk overreaching regulations – lower overall speeds, strict parking restrictions, and multiple extra-slow geofences – which produced a markedly worse rider experience yet did not dampen the love affair between the riders and this new modality.

Safety

Shared scooter safety, or lack thereof, is often listed as a driving concern for many of these policy decisions. It is important to note that micromobility engineering and design has iterated at an incredibly rapid rate in the few years since the industry was born and safety continues to improve as a result. Recent data have shown that shared scooter incidents have fallen by ~60% across 29 EU countries over a 2 year span. Paired with increased awareness, ubiquity, and improved infrastructure designated for micromobility, this trend is sure to continue.

Over the last several months, the diligent operators have held meetings and presented plans intended to assuage the concerns defined by Mayor Hidalgo and the program administrators, seemingly to no avail. The Mayor recently announced that the matter will now go to a public referendum scheduled for April 2, 2023.

Referendum

While reportedly 85% of Paris’ shared scooter users are Parisian locals, who knows how many of them will have the time or ability to vote in this referendum? What of the commuters that rely on the scooters as part of their last mile journey after taking the trains into town? What of the voices of the millions of tourists that make Paris the most visited global destination on an annual basis?

It is undeniable that traveling through Paris on a scooter in the wonderful growing network of bike lanes is a far more enjoyable way to take in the sights than in a car or by metro. It should also be noted that several studies point to considerable economic benefits related to shared scooter deployments, from the United States, to the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Effects

I’d like to point out that this potentially shortsighted course of action could have several negative unintended consequences. As is the case in all cities with similar shared scooter programs, regulators have the ability to mandate all the rules and restrictions they deem necessary, while also collecting operating fees and fines from violations from the permitted operators. A predictable effect of a program termination will be a substantial spike in the adoption of owned scooters as a substitute modality.

The vacuum would also undoubtedly be filled by smaller rental companies operating online or out of store fronts, purveying similar offerings to the current program by working around any new laws – see Levy Electric operating in Manhattan.

It should come as no surprise that these substitutes for the regulated operators are not subject to any geofences, speed limitations or other restrictions and it is not uncommon to see riding on sidewalks and speeds in excess of 20 MPH (some can go as fast as 60 MPH). In the case of different rental schemes, the task of tracking and regulating these would be a vastly more complex task for the city than is currently the case.

Integration

Let’s also not forget that research shows that shared scooters have been proven to act as a feeder modality and to fill gaps in public transit services, both geographic and schedule based, particularly in the outer rings of cities such as Paris. I’m not entirely sure the city has taken these users and trips that might not otherwise happen into careful consideration. As I posited in an article several years ago, cities may find much greater benefit by leaning in and making shared scooters an integrated part of the public transit ecosystem.

Further, as a recent study conducted in Atlanta after the nighttime ban of scooters illustrated, a likely result of the demise of scooters in Paris would be an increase in car vehicle miles traveled and increased commuting times spent in cars. This consequence certainly conflicts with Paris’ ongoing efforts to reclaim the city center from cars.

Regulation

At Drover AI, we have consistently advocated for the intelligent proactive regulation of shared micromobility to mitigate against the worst outcomes and ensure the smoothest possible integration of modalities. If cities and certain vocal constituents find themselves opposing a few thousand (mostly) well regulated scooters, what will happen when it turns into tens or hundreds of thousands of unregulated private scooters?

As cities like Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego and Santa Monica have witnessed, and EU cities like Oslo, Milan, Rome and Madrid will soon see, Drover technology is quite effective at managing undesirable behavior and ensuring responsible use of shared scooters, while simultaneously delivering unparalleled data driven insights into these new modes of transportation. Drover is confident we can help Paris overcome its shared scooter malaise.

As the mid-19th century Austrian Chancellor Metternich famously said: “When Paris sneezes, the rest of Europe catches a cold.” Paris has long been a trendsetter in innumerable ways, such as adopting the “15 Minute City” urban framework based upon development by Carlos Moreno, which resulted in allocating more space to active transportation modes and reducing car access through Paris under the bold leadership of Mayor Hidalgo.

Shared scooters are active transportation and arguably helped enable the huge success of the mayor’s transportation initiatives – let’s not treat them as a disease but as part of the cure to our car dominated condition. Liberté, égalité, fraternité…et trottinettes!

From a growth in microcars and e-moped/bike hybrid vehicles, to more tenders for shared schemes in Europe, the micromobility market is set to advance rapidly in 2023.

Zag spoke with leading players from across the key segments in the industry for their predictions on the trends to watch in the year ahead.

Shared e-scooters

Shared e-scooter operator Voi expects that more European cities will use tenders to award contracts this year as an easier way to regulate operations.

Voi operates in more than 100 cities in Europe, including the three largest in the UK (Bristol, Liverpool and Northampton).

“Finland and Germany will both take this path this year, following countries like the United Kingdom and Spain,” said Matthew Pencharz, Head of Policy for UK, Ireland and the Netherlands.

Pencharz also predicts that policymakers will not impose overly restrictive regulations, such as unrealistic fees and taxes, that would hurt an operator’s viability.

“Only in this way will shared micromobility be both a viable and sustainable solution for less car dependent cities.”

Microcars expansion

Both mobility platforms Invers and Joyride predict an expansion of the microcar segment.

“An increasing number of operators are piloting carsharing with microcars,” said Enrico Howe, Market Researcher at Invers. “In many regions, there are separate regulations to normal cars with relaxed requirements for registration and licensing.”

Vince Cifani, Founder of Joyride, a global micromobility software platform that also sells vehicles, said that minicars offer efficient charging, are easier to park, and have much lower price points.

“It’s refreshing to see continued innovation and additional EV alternatives to gas-guzzling cars,” said Cifani. “Take a look at recent McKinsey stats. If interest and regulations continue to move in favour of minimobility, this segment could reach a total addressable market of $90 billion annually across China, Europe, and North America by 2030.”

Howe also pointed out that the number of new providers is growing with companies like Gowtu in Amsterdam (microcars from Biro), Qari Electric in Georgia (running on Citroën Ami), and Italian Enjoy by ENI and Wheego in Germany (running with XEV YoYos).

E-moped sharing

Invers foresees larger space for the e-moped/bike hybrid vehicles in 2023, which are often legally considered a bike, but visually a moped. The platform estimates they make up at least 15% of the global moped-sharing fleet.

The entire industry is mapped out by the company in its annual Global Moped Sharing Market Report.

“More and more moped-sharing markets introduced vehicle sharing in between the classic use cases of a bike and a moped,” said Howe. “It’s not so much a European trend currently, but countries such as India, Indonesia, Turkey or the USA have seen substantial fleets being deployed.”

Capital fund EFO Ventures Managing Partner Sean Flood said that reservations for Ottr e-moped subscription in the UK and Europe have outperformed expectations.

“This highlights a demand for this product, especially with consumer concerns of a market downturn,” said Flood.

Shared e-bikes

Shared e-bike operator HumanForest anticipates a growth in subscription-based models being utilised by the e-bike industry in 2023.

The London-based firm has become well known for its innovative in-app marketing model, which offers 10 free minutes of riding to every user every day.

“Although a number of e-bike operators offered subscription services last year, the ability to offer more benefits to regular users whilst increasing brand loyalty has an appeal that I suspect will contribute to an increase in popularity throughout the year as the micromobility sector continues to grow,” Michael Stewart, Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at HumanForest told Zag.

Last mile delivery

Micromobility will also make a stronger dent in the logistics segment, according to e-cargo bike delivery service Zedify.

Zedify was Co-Founded by Rob King who launched the UK’s first commercial cargo bike delivery service in Cambridge in 2005.

“Delivery services are creaking under the strain of price pressure, consumer expectations and gridlocked cities,” said King. “But the beacon of light offering hope for brands, delivery workers, shoppers, and logistics companies alike is micromobility.”

King expects a micromobility logistics takeover to crystallise in 2023.

IoT & connectivity

Tech firm Drover AI, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to precisely detect sidewalk, street, or bike lane riding, foresees a unification of previously separated systems into one component in the next generation of IoT technologies.

“This will help to achieve higher capabilities at lower costs – not only edge-based processing, cameras, and other sensors, but even motor controllers tuned to work with the new capabilities,” said Alex Nesic, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of Drover AI.

Fleet operation

Fleet optimisation solutions provider Zoba predicts that 2023 may present challenges for some micromobility companies.

The firm’s services are currently embedded with multiple industry leaders in more than 150 metro areas across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.

“In 2023, operators will continue to struggle to find funding and face difficult regulatory environments,” said Evan Fields, Zoba’s Head of Data Science. “This will put increased pressure on profitable operations, so I expect we’ll see operators exit overcrowded and low-demand markets and increase prices in the markets that remain.”

Fields explained that this will result in fewer rides and lower vehicle utilisation, which has already been picked up in the company’s data.

“In December, for example, we saw the decline in vehicle utilisation accelerate, down 10% from the previous year versus the 7% average decline we saw across all of 2022.”

But EFO Ventures pointed out that operators’ disproportionate overhead to revenue last year resulted in a flawed model, even at scale.

“2022 showed growth in the adoption of Light Electric Vehicles around the globe, but this news was overshadowed by a decrease in investment in the shared mobility space due to concerns around profitability,” said Flood.

He expects that this year, the market will see operators consolidate and investment return, favouring profitable models.

“A large driver of this will be subscription models offering all inclusive (vehicle, maintenance, and insurance) products for delivery and consumer.”

Drover AI’s PathPilot technology is being deployed on the shared operator Bolt’s e-scooters to help prevent e-scooter collisions on pavements.

PathPilot consists of a video camera attached to the front of the e-scooter. An AI system assesses the video feed in real-time to determine whether an e-scooter is being ridden on a pavement, street or bike lane.

When PathPilot detects pavement riding it provides audible alerts to encourage users to move off the pavement as well as automated speed control.

“We want to raise the bar for scooter safety across the industry,” Bolt’s Head of Licensing Welmoed Neijmeijer told Zag Daily.

“While our technical expertise allows us to develop safety solutions in-house, partnerships with innovative companies like Drover allow us to deliver the highest quality of safety expected by our users and the cities in which we operate. All the tests of the feature which were run on our fleet confirm that PathPilot is 95% accurate in determining whether the scooter is being ridden on the road, the pavement or on cycling infrastructure. This is an important result confirming that together with Drover, Bolt is able to tackle the sidewalk riding issue.”

Bolt is not the first operator to partner with Drover AI. Its technology has been deployed with Spin (now owned by Tier) in the US on more than 2,500 units for 12+ months across multiple markets. The firm also works with Voi, Beam and Fenix.

“Drover is thrilled to be able to support Bolt with our industry-leading technology in their continued efforts to deliver a comprehensive solution to rider and pedestrian safety,” Drover AI’s Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer Alex Nesic told Zag.

“We continue to see increased demand from European cities for safer and more responsible deployment of shared micromobility, and policy makers understand that Drover technology is uniquely positioned to help them proactively manage deployments and greatly mitigate the negative outcomes for all stakeholders.”

 

Over the past several years micromobility has evolved from a collection of modes (dockless e-scooters and dockless bikeshare) with minimal regulations in place across countless North American, European and Asian cities, to one that is highly restricted based upon a maximum number of operators, caps on fleets, and restricted riding zones (geofencing).

Here we examine this evolution by conducting a global survey of regulations and legislation across multiple cities to better understand how current and future public policy can be developed to ensure micromobility’s long term sustainability.

Micromobility public policy snapshot

Over the past four years we have gone through several phases in the evolution of micromobility public policy, legislation and regulation.

Today the market has reached a level of maturity in governance, and in the relationship between operators and the public sector.  Specifically, what’s in focus now is the tendering and procurement of multi-year micromobility operational contracts (each of which incorporate fleet caps, maximum # of operators and stringent safety requirements).

Tech-enabled regulation & enforcement

Throughout this evolution in regulation and changing emphasis between private and public sector stakeholders, there is an overarching trend.  And that is: tech-enabled regulation and enforcement is being scaled to address the range of safety concerns that regulators have been struggling with since the advent of micromobility.

As a result, micromobility operators are now being tasked with delivering solutions that reduce injuries and prevent infractions in the public right of way.  What has been a pain point for cities is the management of sidewalk circulation and reduction of conflicts between pedestrians and micromobility users.  In addition, the improper parking and storage of micromobility devices has caused much consternation by cities, many of which seek to support shared modes of mobility but have struggled to regulate effectively, and at the same time align with Vision Zero policies.

As a result, cities are now demanding that better safety measures be implemented when applying for permit renewals or submitting bids for new multi-year public tenders.

As noted in a previous article by Drover’s Co-Founder Alex Nesic, cities don’t have the resources or bandwidth to deal with reactive enforcement, operators lose money and credibility, riders endure a cumbersome user experience, and other stakeholders (pedestrians, persons with disabilities, private property owners) are left holding the bag.

Therefore, tech-enabled solutions that incorporate AI and computer vision capabilities are being leveraged by many micromobility operators to solve these challenges.  As such, regulatory compliance is now being achieved, in spite of the deficiencies in physical infrastructure and lack of resources to proactively enforce the public right of way.

Policy & regulatory case studies

We have run a global survey of recent micromobility policy, legislation and regulations.

The case studies outline public sector market demand for better safety measures to be employed by operators to ensure micromobilty’s long term sustainability in cities.

Chicago

Chicago first launched its Scooter Share Pilot Program through two separate e-scooter pilot evaluations in 2019 and 2020.  As a result of the pilot programs, a public RFP for three operational permits was announced in early 2022.  The new safety regulations incorporated in the RFP highlight that each scooter must be equipped with a system that sounds an alarm when it is ridden on Chicago’s sidewalks. The alert would be similar to the one made by cars when a drivers’ seat belt is not engaged, to alert both the rider and nearby pedestrians that the scooter is being operated in the wrong place.

Madrid

Madrid has taken a comprehensive approach to the incorporation of parking and sidewalk safety regulations in the enforcement of micromobility within its jurisdiction.

Specifically, recent legislation enacted on October 10, 2022 stipulates that Madrid seeks to harmonise the different uses, including pedestrian, circulation, parking, sports and leisure, and make them compatible in a balanced way with the guarantee of road safety, the mobility and fluidity of traffic, the protection of the environment and the protection of the integrity of public and private spaces.  Madrid has also incorporated in its October 2022 micromobility public tender the safety requirements for 1.) minimising the possibility of improper parking among users and 2.) minimising the possibility of circulation on sidewalks and through prohibited areas by users.

New York City

New York City (NYC DOT) just unveiled the results of the East Bronx Shared E-Scooter Pilot. This pilot was the first step towards city-wide adoption of micromobility in New York, beyond existing docked bikeshare programs, such as Citi Bike.

As a result of the program, NYC DOT has emphasised the following safety priorities: 1.) Explore tools to mitigate poor riding behavior, including underage riding, multiple riders using a single vehicle, and sidewalk riding, and 2.) to increase helmet usage among riders and explore alternative parking solutions to reduce sidewalk clutter and improve user compliance.

The pilot results also described how current GPS technology has not worked as suggested by industry operators and in some instances successful policy outcomes are reliant on good user behavior. New AI / computer vision sensing technologies such as Drover’s PathPilot Lite are being developed that address some of these issues.  NYC DOT has also issued an RFP to further expand micromobility, with the capacity to make the program permanent.

Shared mobility is here to stay

As succinctly described by micromobility expert Peter Griffiiths in the recent Episode 4 of The #CitiesFirst Podcast, shared mobility is here to stay.  The fact that cities are provisioning scooter parking corrals and other infrastructure improvements demonstrates that cities take these modes seriously and want to incorporate them into the mobility ecosystem.

In addition, the proliferation of public tenders demonstrates that regulators want to ensure these devices are procured in such a way that they will be balanced, equitable, and safe.
As a result, tech-enabled regulation and enforcement is the sensible way forward to bridge the gaps in the ecosystem.  Solutions such as Drover AI’s PathPilot Lite help operators proactively comply with safety policies and ensure that cities can benefit from these new sustainable modalities while minimising potentially problematic outcomes.

Electric scooter share as a business has undergone one of the most rapid evolutions over the last several years, with improvements and optimisation occurring on everything from vehicle hardware and software to fleet management and various uses of artificial intelligence. However, one of the areas of the business that has been slower to evolve in comparison is the insurance for these shared micromobility fleets.

In fact, insurance premiums remain one of the largest burdens on operations’ P&Ls. Now Drover AI is partnering with insurtech startup Connected Insurance to supercharge its data driven and AI-powered Transparent Insurance offering for shared micromobility with the goal of mitigating risk and offering more competitive dynamic pricing.

In 2017, as they entered into the urban transportation eco-system, shared electric scooters were a novelty loved by consumers but also cause for much consternation among other stakeholders. On one side were new companies backed by truckloads of VC money accustomed to ‘disrupting’ industries and on the other side were self-insured cities averse to said disruption and responsible for governing the public right of way and managing risk.

Unsurprisingly, not many insurance companies were lining up to underwrite policies for operators of free-floating scooter share. In fact, only one – Apollo of Lloyds – was even willing to jump in, effectively creating a type of monopoly as a result of their willingness to explore this new industry.

Risk averse cities demanded very high coverage and indemnification and, without any historical data, accurate understanding of rider behaviours or competition, Apollo had very little incentive to write affordable policies. The industry is now five years old and some things have changed – there are more insurers in the space, riders and cities are used to scooters, and some data exists to inform pricing. There is still much room for improvement.

While Connected Insurance is currently leveraging hundreds of data points from deployed fleets to predict risk and inform better policies, they are continuously in search of quality indicators to improve their prediction models, as many assumptions remain when attempting to understand vehicle/rider behaviour.

The GPS technology used to track vehicles is not accurate enough to provide precise insights into the high-risk behaviours that cities and insurers alike wish to reduce – sidewalk riding and improper parking. That’s where Drover’s PathPilot technology comes in – using computer vision to unlock the ability to understand exactly where vehicles are being ridden and parked. As touched on in a previous article, several opportunities present themselves:

• With a more granular understanding of what infrastructure (sidewalk, street or bike lane) is actually being used during rides, operators and insurers can empirically track and visualise rider behaviour to inform fairer pricing of actual vs perceived risk.
• Just like discounts are provided to car drivers and automotive fleets for implementation of safety technologies, PathPilot can be used to disable (or slow down) scooters when they are ridden on sidewalks which drastically mitigates the highest risk behaviour and can inform discounted pricing for Drover equipped fleets.
• Fraudulent claims are a persistent nuisance for insurers. PathPilot’s camera will serve as a dash cam to detect incidents and store relevant image data that can be used by insurance companies to verify or deny claims and reduce fraud.
• Some operators and insurers are trialling rider coverage options that can be selected for individual rides. In this instance, PathPilot data can be used by operators and insurers to compile rider profiles that take into account specific historical risk factors for each customer.

Insurers have always relied on data as the backbone of risk assessment and underwriting. With the continued adoption of machine learning to process this data for insights, the industry is getting smarter. However, the insights can only be as good as the data from which they are derived.

Drover and Connected Insurance are currently working with operator partners to monitor and collect the granular data provided by PathPilots in the field and looking at opportunities to reduce their insurance premiums and improve their bottom line. The combination of Drover’s edge-based AI-powered computer vision and Connected Insurance’s AI-powered data analytics will produce the type of dynamic insurance products the rapidly evolving shared micromobility industry needs.

Proper parking and effective right-of-way management are the biggest hindrances to the large-scale and long term success of dockless shared micromobility. With the popularity of these programs across the globe, the parking of these free-floating vehicles remains the biggest challenge and is a source of palpable friction between the various stakeholders in cities – including operators, regulatory authorities, elected officials and community advocacy groups. There are solutions, however, but it’s helpful to first understand some baseline facts.

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Fact: Right-of-way Management is Mandatory

The notion that the public right-of-way should be kept clear and accessible is not just wishful thinking. The obligation to regulate streets and sidewalks is mandated for all cities at the local level, with parking enforcement and public works usually responsible for issuing citations and correcting violations. In the absence of any local regulations, parking on pedestrian infrastructure is regulated federally by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – the longstanding foundation that requires a pedestrian right-of-way remain unencumbered in US cities. Since its passage in 1990, some version of the ADA (which celebrates its anniversary this week) has been adopted by 181 countries, making it one of America’s most successful exports.

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Fact: Dockless Micromobility is More Popular than Dock-Based

Without wading into the nuances of the topic, data and reporting demonstrate that dockless electric micromobility has been adopted more quickly than its station-based counterparts, both in terms of ridership and geographic expansion. However polarizing they may be, e-scooters and e-bikes are popular, with the convenience of going ‘door-to-door’ efficiently.

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Fact: GPS Technology has Shortcomings

GPS technology has been, and continues to evolve into an incredible technology that enables tracking and management of deployed assets across myriad industries and applications. However, in micromobility operations, the typical GPS chipsets used simply do not have the level of accuracy required to implement very finite geofencing which is inherently needed for things like precise parking management. To make things worse, GPS technology struggles even more mightily where it matters most – dense urban areas with tall buildings where high pedestrian activity is typical. Tall buildings clustered in downtown settings wreak havoc on GPS signals, and result in location inaccuracies of 30-100 feet, and sometimes more.