UK Public transportation, Uber Public Transportation & Uber post 22

Last week’s report on on-demand grocery in London left out Spain’s Glovo. In retaliation, the company raised €450M, now Spain’s largest start-up funding round. Golovo will open 200 more locations across Europe, adding to its presence in 23 countries world-wide. Maybe also in London. 

Uber & Drivers - chapter post-22

Before successfully implementing Prop22 in California, Uber gave drivers the ability to pick which rides to accept. The feature gave drivers more control over what they do, allowing Uber to claim that they are independent contractors rather than employees. 

According to the company, this resulted in plummeting reliability of service: a third of drivers declined more than 80% of their ride requests; a fifth of potential passengers were unable to get a ride, sevenfolds (!) than before. The company is likely to roll-back the change. 

In other (unrelated?) news, there seems to be a driver shortage in the US and that Uber & Lyft are stimulating (i.e. offering money) drivers to return to the platform. 

Did drivers decline more rides because of the rides’ attributes or is it because of the pandemic? Is the service reliability a matter of drivers declining rides, or due to a shortage of drivers? Also, it is very hard to understand trends in times of a global “don’t get near me” pandemic. What is clear is that now that drivers have their conditions set by prop 22, Uber can return to controlling the relationship. 

(new) Public Transportation (PT)

In the past I wrote about Uber’s plan to take over public transportation; in the US, Uber Transit offers a service that allows cities to subsidize Uber trips, replacing under-used bus lines. Data published shows (unsurprisingly) that 75% trips were to/from low-density neighbourhoods and that more than 50% were from/to low-income neighborhoods. 

Also. Uber is partnering with the city of Sydney to create a MaaS solution. Holders of the Opal card (Oyster equivalent) book Uber, Lime or (non-uber) Ingogo taxi using the card. If the ride includes use of public transportation as well - riders will receive credit to their account. A smart way to encourage use of public transport. 

Also new PT, in Hamburg. Local government ceased all buses and trains at night, to combat corona. The only public means of transportation allowed? Moia (DRT/microtransit).

UK Public transportation

Last month the UK government published its long term strategy for buses in England, outside London, called “Bus back better”. To cut a 84 pages long story short: Thatcher’s 1986/7 bus deregulation legislation is to blame. Since then, bus usage and number of services has gone down, and prices have gone up. Thatcher's deregulation needs to be reversed. This, by allowing franchise regulation similar to that used in London all over the UK; with more subsidies, ￡3bn more; moving toward electric buses; and by making buses more attractive (such as dedicated lanes, seamless contactless payment etc.). 

The city of Manchester already announced that services would be back under public control. It is expected to cost ￡135M in the first 5 years, but the city says the economic and social costs would be far greater. Stagecoach seems unexcited, and is trying legal action to stop the plan from moving forward. 

Yet, some think that the decline in usership goes back to the pre-Thatcher era; and that the main problem is that buses are uncool, and any plan needs to address that. This one doesn’t. 

For more: FT, more FT. The Conversation, 

More buses: Coming back from Corona, Flixbus faces competition from three main players - BlaBlaBus, Pinkbus, which offsets riders’ CO2 emissions, and Roadjet, focusing on comfort and luxury. And from trains and low-cost airlines, of course. 

Autonomous: Motional, an autonomous vehicle company born out of a Hyundai and Aptiv venture, signed with Lyft to operate robotaxis through Lyft’s app, starting from 2023. In my opinion, “Starting” being the key word here. VIA is already doing the same with May Mobility in Texas. Tim Cook hints of an Apple car. 

Micromobility: Tier acquires Makery, the company that builds their app. Lime introduced its first e-moped fleet. Go Sharing e-moped launch in Vienna. A Bike-Share survey report by CoMoUK finds that ~25% use bike share schemes as a result of the covid restrictions and fear of public transport. Also, from those who now are new to cycling, 29% hadn’t done so in the past +5 years. For the full report. 

Mapp apps (Google, Citymapper etc.) show public transportation with different precision; some do not show some option at all. A long read on who and why?