Flooding the market in China with shared bikes probably wasn’t the best idea.
© 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP
From an up-close vantage point of the news in the new mobility space, one might conclude that shared scooters and electric bikes are fated to implode as a transport option. There have been countless stories and reports about scooters and bikes being dumped, stolen and vandalized. There was even a story about how scooters were found immersed in a lake, presumably a demonstration of how offended some people were at the whole concept of shared mobility on their city streets. This is an oft-overheard narrative when the topic of micromobility comes up. “The space is over-saturated and it’s going to fail. Too many of the devices are being trashed or stolen,” is a common refrain.
On the contrary, evidence points towards micromobility entrenching itself even further as time goes on and the space adapts and evolves. Despite what many might think, the micromobility space is far from being saturated. China alone has around 200 million electric scooters and e-bikes on its roads. The U.S. is racing to catch up with its forays launched by the scooter giants. The difference between the two nations in this space is both simple and complex: China has as a matter of policy and urban planning included huge protected bike lanes on its city streets. This whole idea of making cities not only capable of but amenable to modes of transport other than cars isn’t uncommon around much of the world. In North America, however, cities and roads have been planned and built for the automobile for over a century. This is something that needs to change dramatically if the U.S. and Canada are to fully embrace what micromobility can mean to the average citizen.
This mechanically simple adjustment to roads around North America—the designated bike lane—could trigger a cascade of benefits in our cities.
AP Images for Pfizer Consumer Healthcare
And the changes are coming. North America’s top ten “smartest cities” are making strides in transforming their urban plans to a more people-friendly model. (#1 is Seattle, Toronto is #6 and my hometown of Vancouver is #7. Behemoth NYC is a very respectable #5!) As North America plays catch-up, Bird, Lime, Scoot and the other heavyweights will be busily looking for that elusive sweet spot where their mobility devices will endure longer while pulling in the most revenue, while at the same time keeping city authorities happy (or at least not annoying them). I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the community-based approach is also available, and for a people-friendly, neighbourhood-oriented solution, is arguably the better choice.
These changes can’t come at a better time. The U.S., known for its car-centric culture, boasts an eyebrow-raising statistic: in 2017, nearly 60% of car trips were 6 miles (or just under 10 km) or less. Given that scooters are ideal for trips up to that distance, micromobility has a massive opportunity here. McKinsey thinks that the shared micromobility market will reach up to $300 billion in the U.S. by 2030. Other organizations think the potential is much higher in that same time frame ($800 billion by the mid 2020’s).
If one were to regard this space from a high altitude, where, frankly, most if not all strategic transformations are properly viewed, we would see the world of transport under enormous pressure brought about by an alchemy of economics, demographics, technology and environment. Automobiles and fossil fuels are becoming less and less affordable; the younger generations demand access to a broader range of transport options; electric vehicle technology and computational power are moving up a hockey-stick curve; and we desperately need to densify our urban cores while making them more livable. This all points towards a growing, transformative demand for shared transportation in the short-to-mid distance categories. Whether people dump, steal and vandalize scooters or not is arguably irrelevant in the grand scheme. People want these options, and companies and governments will ultimately respond. Micromobility, in some form, will become a fixture in cities around the globe. Like so many nascent technologies, success will come after a long string of failures. But it will come.
