The key to turning a reactive process into a predictable one
Photo source: https://www.free2move.com
The idea of mobility contributing to the wellbeing of the environment and a sustainable future seemed unlikely not too long ago. In 2010, the major mobility events worldwide were focusing on improving horsepower, on SUVs as the main vehicle class and more generally on cars versus mobility. Fast forward to this year, when we’ve been witnessing a major shift in focus: EVs took over and replaced the roaring gasoline engine bolids boldly displayed for everyone to envision a future dominated by them. With the mobility market’s performance level rising and a sustainable change in consumers' behavior towards the adoption of environment friendly solutions, the future looks more than promising. We are optimistic when we see that the shared mobility is on a growing trajectory, with the overall mobility market sustaining a steady recovery. The sustainable change in consumers' behavior acted as an acceleration to an already natural process of adopting convenient solutions which are also environment friendly.
That being said, now more than ever we need to come together in identifying the gaps and the missing elements that help push this movement forward and continuously innovate in order to achieve the clean cities and the sustainable future we all want.
The practicalities behind the (r)evolution
In our experience in working with operators around the world, we’ve discovered that shared mobility businesses were not yet profitable, but it was only in the last couple of months when we could finally round up the numbers and see the exact impact. The results were loud and clear: 60%-80% of the market demand is not met. Yes, this is a major number. Having worked with different types of operators, we were able to identify a common issue, no matter how different the business model was: reactivity rather than proactivity. For any type of vehicle, the reality is the same: in order to meet demand, the vehicles need to be in the right place at the right time. If the higher utilisation potential of a car is reached, one can easily run the same quality service with fewer cars. Vehicle utilisation certainly has its limits, such as during the night or during maintenance. Given these conditions, increasing the usability rate is possible to the point where it can make all the difference to a company’s profitability. At Ubiq, that’s our main focus. Identifiying and meeting demand, as it is in real time, requires knowing where the demand will be in advance. This forecasting can range from basic historical data analysis (looking at demand in a certain place at a specific time), to more complex forecasting models which take into account data such app opening data, weather, holidays, special events and parking regulations. Knowing where the demand will be provides operators with the information to match demand with supply.
StreetCrowd: addressing the issues through the power of the crowd
Ubiq places vehicles in the right place, at the right time, to meet demand. This enables operators to increase revenue by 20% within 8 weeks while also decreasing operational costs.
How? By exploiting the full potential of the fleet. StreetCrowd is enabling over 15.000 citizens across 11 cities on 2 continents to contribute to the future of shared mobility. StreetCrowd matches vehicles requiring rebalancing or charging with crowd users, allowing shared mobility providers to automate operations.
As a solution, StreetCrowd can only reach its full potential when used together with the predictive services of our platform. With access to historic and live fleet and infrastructure data, Ubiq enables shared mobility providers to charge their vehicles predictively and proactively so that they are charged and redeployed when generating most revenue.
By utilizing the power of the crowd, mobility providers can benefit from a decentralized operational ecosystem for 24/7 fleet rebalancing. Ubiq takes care of recruiting, managing and steering of the crowd so the operators don't have to worry about whether their vehicles are in the right place.
Moreover, to keep fleet availability high, vehicles need to be charged when they aren’t in use, rather than when they are empty. This means exploiting nearby charging infrastructure and combining the charging with vehicle rebalancing to maximize operational efficiency.
A unique community in the mobility world
StreetCrowd is way more than a service. It’s a strong and diverse community that developed naturally and organically. Our users are the heart of the service and they never fail to bring their unique touches to it. By being in close contact with them, we’re constantly learning and improving.
As a general rule, Ubiq follows a city-taylored strategy in order to ensure smooth integration and user acquisition processes. Every city is different and has its own challenges. We were very excited to use our knowledge of our own city and personalize our fully integrated product-driven process and successfully apply it. As mentioned above, the user communities play a central role in what we do and our purpose is to always improve our processes so that we can provide the smoothest integration and daily contact with our services, through our UX strategies.
We are particularly excited about the concept of Ubiq’s StreetCrowd as it is truly aligned with our community approach. We can utilize the dynamics and power of the community with a decentralized operational system that addresses well our needs and the needs of our users. Elisabeth Müller, City Manager ELOOP
To be able to combine technology with the power of the crowd is an incredible way to get a live feel of the market and its dynamic. Each user brings their own story and personal contribution into the mix. Promoted as a side activity that you can engage in to benefit from an extra income, StreetCrowd soon presented other advantages for our users. One user in Germany, a bus driver, was spending time and money to get himself home from the bus depot at the end of his shift. So he became a StreetCrowd user and now, not only does he have transportation, but he’s also making money instead of spending it. And this is just one of their many inspirational stories.
StreetCrowd lets you make money every minute of the day except sleeping time and StreetCrowd support is there whenever you need and helps a lot! I am more than thankful to StreetCrowd for creating such an initiative to earn an extra income in these hard times. I am only sad that I found StreetCrowd very late. Mert - StreetCrowd user
Ubiq enables operators to effectively position fleets to serve strategic goals. For more information, contact sales@ubiq.ai
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