The shared e-scooter war in Rotterdam

8

October

2020

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Rotterdam is the main Dutch battleground for shared e-scooter companies. In this blog I’ll explain how these companies try to gain a foothold and the characteristics of the local market. Last, you get some tips for testing them yourself.

But first, how did it start? In 2018, the start-up Felyx was the first to arrive in the city. The founders weren’t unfamiliar with Rotterdam as one of them is a former EUR student. The business concept was born when driving a car2go in Amsterdam. However, a car in the big city is far from the fastest way to move around. The scooter is. To get a municipality like Rotterdam on board there needed to be something in it for them, too. The e-scooter was the answer as it isn’t loud and locally polluting (Hollingsworth, J., Copeland, B. and Johnson, J.X., 2019). The sharing functions are enabled by IoT technology.

Soon there were hundreds of free-floating scooters to be found all around the city. At first, students were the main target group later expanding into young professionals and freelancers as well (Top of Minds. 2020). The new concept was mainly appealing as it was fun to drive the scooters, but customers soon identified improved convenience and freedom of this transport mode in comparison with their own bike. In that way it is surprising that this concept can be successful in a biking country like The Netherlands.
Fast forwarding to now, there are yet two companies that have joined Felyx in Rotterdam: Check and GoSharing. They all have different ways in which they try to lure you to their platform. Felyx has the advantage of being the incumbent with Felyx being an acronym for e-scooter. They leverage this by charging a relatively high per-minute fee and no staring fee. GoSharing uses volume deals to get you addicted to scooter sharing. Starting with an average per-minute fee when using the scooters without a deal but getting pretty cheap when you buy large minute packages. They limit the amount of free minutes when joining the platform. Check did exactly the opposite by rampaging into Rotterdam with a low per-minute fee, no starting fee and 15 euros of worth of riding for free.

The market-entry tactics have led to a strange dynamic in this market. Felyx is going reasonably steady as they haven’t performed stunts to gain market share at any time. At Check, this is a different story: their market-entry tactics have lead to giving out so many free minutes of riding that it took them months to boost revenues. The upside is a considerable gain in the number of users. The upcoming months will tell if they can retain them now that riding is not free and a starting fee is introduced. GoSharing is found to compete less on price. What they are doing is connecting edge cities and suburban areas of Rotterdam by creating service areas in villages. Commuters are able to pick scooters up close to home and drop them in the city centre. At the end of the day they can find an available scooter again to travel back.

Time will tell whether this is a winner takes all market, like many recently disrupted markets are. In the meantime all of the providers have found investors with deep pockets, currently favoring the consumer. I think there will be space for multiple providers. Furthermore, I believe that the most important aspect is the availability of scooters in the right places at the right time and second is the ease of combining trips with other transport modes such as the subway.

Are you interested in trying one of these services out? Get some free riding minutes with Check promocode MMN-GN4, Felyx code RSqGv8CW or GoSharing code XZ26IZ.

If you’re already using shared e-scooters in Rotterdam I’m looking forward to hearing from you in the comments. Which provider do you like and why? And do you think the market will eventually head towards a monopoly or will there be space for 3 or more providers in the future?

References:
Hollingsworth, J., Copeland, B. and Johnson, J.X., 2019. Are e-scooters polluters? The environmental impacts of shared dockless electric scooters. Environmental Research Letters, 14(8), p.084031.

Top of Minds. 2020. Carrière Advies Van Quinten Selhorst En Maarten Poot | Top Of Minds. [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 October 2020].

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Does Uber have a future?

30

September

2019

5/5 (1)

Uber has updated its app in a way that CEO Khosrowshahi has branded as the beginning of Uber’s step to becoming the ‘Amazon of transportation’ (Hawkins, 2019). The app includes new elements such as Bike lane alert, Improved Real-Time ID check and Verify your ride (Vasile, 2019). Besides new safety features, the app will now integrate UberEATS so riding and ordering can be done in one app, under the same Uber umbrella. More about the safety features later, first let’s take a look at why the company decided to also integrate public transit information into its app and why it believes that this will be useful since we already have an app for this (Google Maps, anyone?).

Uber is trying to expand from simply being an app to becoming a true platform business, targeting city life and transportation. As Khosrowshahi put it: “We want Uber to be the operating system for your everyday life” (Nuttall, 2019), meaning that it is attempting to build a complete experience for their consumers and aims to become a city life partner on all fronts: food, ride-hauling and even public transit. In a recent interview with The Verge’s reporter Andrew Hawkins, Uber’s CEO revealed the company’s ambitions in providing a platform that not only provides information but allows you to take action, advancing previous CEO Kalanick’s goal to brokerage all human movement in cities (Hawkins, 2019). However, what makes the Uber app more special than for example Google Maps or Citymapper? Khosrowshahi demonstrates the app and explains how it will be a comparable experience but provide all services in one place and allows customers to take action in the application, increasing app engagement which will provide more business (read: data) down the road (Hawkins, 2019). The choice to integrate public transit information, and eventually ticketing, into the app was not motivated by money: Khosrowshahi simply explains that it hopes to complement transit, offer Uber users all options and therefore cater to the individual user’s needs, whether that be timeliness or budget. Khosrowshahi says the company aims for profitability in the long run, achieved by creating “the right solutions for consumers, even if it’s not making them money” (Hawkins, 2019).

The decision to incorporate transit information is not entirely random, as Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing apps have been proven responsible for declining rates of public transit usage; both rail and bus ridership falling by 1-2% after the entrance of a ride-hailing app into the market (Graehler et al., 2019). As clarified by the CEO, Uber wants to complement transit, beside the fact that it has competition anyways, it merely wants to provide its users with all options, not compete or draw customers away from public transit. Uber released its beta version where users can see transit schedules, directions and some ticketing options in a few cities like San Francisco, Mexico City and Paris on September 27th (Hawkins, 2019).

Some other features in the app were included to improve the privacy and safety of both riders and drivers. The most important feature being Verify Your Ride, which uses a four-digit pin code that needs to be verbally communicated to drivers, to ensure riders meet their paired drivers and do not take the wrong car (Vasile, 2019). Other features encompass a 911-alert function through the app, as well as Bike lane alert that notifies riders when they get dropped off near bike lanes to prevent ‘dooring’ bicyclers. Lastly, the company incorporated a better Real-Time ID Check to guarantee Uber drivers match the account in the company’ systems. All these features are implemented to increase safety surrounding Uber after significant security-related issues in the past.

This update sounds good, but these new features also sound like they should have been incorporated all along and are targeted at relieving the pressure the company has faced around privacy and safety issues in the past, think Grey Ball and God View (Hawkins, 2019). The company has improved its firewalls and introduced a Report Safety Incident function that allows riders to report concerns during their trip (instead of only after), to regain riders’ trust and prevent future reports of kidnappings, sexual assaults and sometimes even deaths that have occurred in the past (Silicon Canals, 2019).

Uber has not only struggled with safeguarding its users but also has reported billions in losses over the past years and is of yet unable to turn its business profitable. With a $3 billion operating loss and an accumulated deficit of almost $8 billion in 2018, the company could be in serious trouble now that its earnings are being monitored as it has issued its IPO earlier this year (Poletti, 2019). Since the innovative self-driving cars will most likely not arrive soon enough to save Uber business model, their unprofitable business model will probably result in price hikes for rides to cover costs and improve profitability, but will riders accept these higher prices or simply revert to one of the many alternatives (public transit, Lyft, grab etc.). Further, major investors’ lockup periods are about to end in early November, which might have disastrous consequences for the company’s stock. The financial and security matters are enough to get investors worried, yet Uber also faces legislative and environmental challenges. A few examples are the AB5 California bill undermining its current business model by enforcing drivers to be recognised as employees that receive benefits, democratic candidates placing blame on Uber and Lyft for increased congestion problems, and prolonged efforts to retain its operating licenses in European cities like London (Hawkins, 2019).

This leaves the question if Uber will survive the existential crises it is currently strung up in. Despite Uber’s positive claims that it expects to be around in the future, it will first need to survive the present. With many global and local challengers like autonomous driving, Grab, Lyft or Bolt (Silicon Canals, 2019), competition has arrived and a simple app update will not solve the bigger existential threats that are attacking Uber from all fronts: legislative, financial and environmental. Do you think Uber will crawl its way to the top and become the urban city life-app it desires to be, or will it fall from grace and be forced out of business by financial and legal difficulties?

Leave your thoughts and comments below!

References

Graehler, M., Mucci, A., & Erhardt, G. D. (2019). Understanding the Recent Transit Ridership Decline in Major US Cities: Service Cuts or Emerging Modes?. In Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, January.

Hawkins, A. J. (2019). Exclusive: INSIDE UBER’S PLAN TO TAKE OVER CITY LIFE WITH CEO DARA KHOSROWSHAHI. [online] The Verge.  Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/26/20885185/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-interview-exclusive [Accessed 30 September 2019).

Nuttall, C. (2019). All hail Uber’s everything app. [online] Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/85e5b38e-e149-11e9-9743-db5a370481bc [Accessed 30 September 2019].

Poletti, T. (2019). Opinion: Uber and Lyft IPOs mean the cheap rides are coming to an end. [online] MarketWatch. Available at: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-and-lyft-ipos-mean-the-cheap-rides-are-coming-to-an-end-2019-05-09 [Accessed 30 September 2019].

Silicon Canals (2019). Uber to focus on rider’s safety with new features, but here are 7 alternatives if you’re in London. [online] Silicon Canals. Available at: https://siliconcanals.com/news/startups/uber-focus-on-riders-safety-new-features/ [Accessed 30 September 2019].

Vasile, C. (2019). Uber launches new mobile app, adds important new features. [online] phoneArena.com. Available at: https://www.phonearena.com/news/Uber-new-mobile-app-new-features_id119278 [Accessed 30 September 2019].

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Hopper: the AI-Fuelled Travel App

8

October

2018

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Hopper: the AI-Based Travel AppScreen Shot 2018-10-08 at 12.20.34

 

 

Hopper is an award-winning travel booking app that can only be used via a mobile device. Currently (7 October, 13:31 pm), the application has been installed 30,830,065 times whereby in total 77,732,362 trips were planned (Hopper, 2018). Hopper was founded in 2007, yet already its current market valuation has surpassed $780 million US dollar.

Hopper falls under the category of online travel agencies (OTAs). This implies that booking happens in the application itself instead of re-directing the user to other websites. Thereby, Hopper’s revenue streams are derived from commissions based on the value of the flight. This combined with a focus on expensive, long-haul flights has brought Hopper great success so far.

This success is evident when looking at the user ratings of the application, whereby Hopper is rated as number 1 travel app in over 35 countries. What can explain these achievements?
Hopper is built on an AI Framework that helps users to monitor flight prices and accordingly informs them when it is the best time to purchase a ticket. Hopper watches planned trips of users’ multiple months before the actual departure. This allows the system to learn about the specific user’s intent. For this, it mainly uses push notifications. Whether a user responds to those notifications influences the ability of Hopper to further reshape the profile it has made of its users. It is hereby critical that the users trust the recommendations provided by Hopper. Hopper has managed to live up to this task, as it builds on billions of data points when producing recommendations. This ensures the high reliability of the application.
Additionally, due to the AI technology, users book 2.6 times more often trips they did not initially search for. This is an important determinant of the exponential growth of the application.

Hopper has recently started to focus on the hotel market too. This it is an interesting move. By getting more experience with the accommodation industry, Hopper could become more prepared to engage in a partnership with a private-home platform such as Airbnb. This could result in a strong AI fueled accommodation-platform, which could fundamentally change the industries as we know them

 

Sources

https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/03/hopper-raises-100m-more-for-its-ai-based-travel-app-now-valued-at-780m/

https://www.hopper.com/company

https://www.sabre.com/insights/hopper-making-a-splash-in-the-ota-pool/

 

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Tbh, let’s keep in touch

19

October

2017

4.5/5 (2)

Thanks to the rise of social media, we can keep in touch with our friends and families living on the other side of the world, and share our daily activities with them. Not only that, but nowadays it feels like our lives are revolved around the usage of social media and that it has integrated to be a part of our lives. Think about all the times we have spent checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or other social media platforms daily. Nevertheless, there is also a dark side of social media. According to Marsh (2017), almost half of the girls in the UK have experienced some sort of harassment or abuse on social media while 40% of boys have also experienced similar bullying experiences online. Sometimes cyberbullying could be much more worse, resulting cyberbullying victims to take their own lives when they couldn’t stand against the constant online bullying anymore (NoBullying.com, 2017).

tbh

Recently, an app has been created named “Tbh”, the abbreviation of “To Be Honest”, with the goal to encourage teenagers to be kind towards each other. This app has become so popular since its launch 9 weeks ago that it has been downloaded more than 5 million times (Lee, 2017). In fact, Facebook acquired the app recently for an undisclosed fee too, since they believe that they share the same goal of building community and enabling people to share in ways that bring us closer together (Liao, 2017). The cool thing about Tbh is that it allows you to send prewritten complements to your friends as seen on the picture above. How it basically works is that after you import your contact list into the app, the app will show predetermined questions such as “Who has the best smile?” and 3-4 names will pop up. Then you have to answer the question by selecting one your friends who you believe has the best smile. In the end, your friends who are selected will be notified, but who selected them will be kept anonymous.

This app strives to create a positive and interactive environment online, where it encourages users to give each other compliments in a fun and mysterious way. With the introduction of Tbh, I believe that more apps with similar positive interactions will start coming, as it will also help minimize cyberbullying indirectly. What do you think? Would you also like to use Tbh?

 

Bibliography

Lee, D., 2017. Facebook buys weeks-old app for teens to be nice to each other. [Online]
Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41646738
[Accessed 18 October 2017].

Liao, S., 2017. Facebook buys app that lets teens send each other compliments. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/16/16485428/facebook-tbh-to-be-honest-acquisition-ios-app
[Accessed 18 October 2017].

Marsh, S., 2017. Half of UK girls are bullied on social media, says survey. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/14/half-uk-girls-bullied-social-media-survey
[Accessed 18 October 2017].

NoBullying.com, 2017. The Top Six Unforgettable CyberBullying Cases Ever. [Online]
Available at: http://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/
[Accessed 18 October 2017].

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13 startups you should know about before planning your next trip

4

October

2016

4.82/5 (22)

We are all familiar with start-ups like Airbnb or old players like Expedia when it comes to traveling. But there are much more companies on the rise that can help you a lot in all aspects of traveling and make everything a bit more convenient. From planning and booking your trip to help you out in case of flight cancellation, there seems to be a great start-up for everything nowadays. If you’re about to plan your next trip, feel free to get some new inspiration on which apps to use from this list. Also, if you had great experiences with apps that are not included in this list, feel free to add them to the comment section below.

 

Planning your trip:

Flights:

Hopper – For finding the right dates to fly and the right date to book

Hopper is a flight-search engine that relies on data of trillions of flights they’ve collected and analyzed in the past. It lets you search for your itinerary and then tells you some useful information such as what a good deal on this particular route usually is and at what dates you are able to get the best deal. With all their analyzed data the app will also tell you if you should book right now or wait for a later date when the flight will be cheaper. They claim to have 95% accuracy in predicting flight prices, so it is definitely worth to check it out.

Hipmunk – Use chat bots to book your travel

Do you miss the old times when you would just walk into the next travel agency and discuss your plans with a travel agent? Good news, with the rise of AI and chat bots you can now chat with a computer about your travel plans. If you are curious and want to give it a try, head over to Hipmunk and try it out.

Screenshot 2016-10-04 18.07.55

 

GoEuro – Multi-modal travel search engine

If you are traveling on a budget or you just want the quickest option to go from A to B then GoEuro might be the right choice for you. The platform is a multi-modal travel search engine, which means you only need to specify your Destination and GoEuro will give you an overview about all means of public transportation to get there. It compares prices as well as total travel time for train rides, bus rides, and flights. The platform automatically includes transit time to get to the airport and gives you the option to sort all options based on your preferences. They are pretty successful and just scored $70m for their series C funding from investors to expand their services further. You can check them out here.Screenshot 2016-10-04 18.19.45

 

Accommodations:

TalkTalkBnb – a social network for traveling and learning languages

During my research for this post, I found TalkTalkBnb, which I think is fantastic. The service is a mixture between AirBnb and Couchsurfing. Travelers can sign-up, list their native language and where they’d like to travel. Hosts also create a profile, which lists the language they’d like to learn. Travelers are offered free accommodation in exchange for only speaking their native language throughout their stay so their hosts can really practice without with pricey language lessons. I think the concept is a great way to get in touch with local people and to travel on a budget. If you’re as eager as me to try it out, head over to www.talktalkbnb.com.

 

Plan the whole trip:

tripl – big data startup that predicts your next travel destination

tripl is a German start-up that will suggest you travel destinations based on your profile on facebook. They will analyze your likes and your posts from the pasts to find the right vacation for you. Their website definitely looks very appealing and I liked the recommendations they gave me. If you want to check it out head over to www.tripl.de

 

Travelcircus.com – full-service booking platform for exclusive weekend short-trip packages

Travelcircus gives you handpicked weekend getaways and I had to include this because the co-founder is indeed a former BIMer! He graduated two years ago here at RSM and is currently the Head of Operations of travelcircus in Berlin. The concept is pretty unique, you can just pick a city and the website will suggest you places (and nice hotels) where you could go for a weekend. You can find it here.

 

Activities:

Rungoapp – running app with offline turn-by-turn voice directions

Have you ever been in a foreign city and wanted go for a run without getting lost? With rungoapp, you can just pick a route and you will get turn-by-turn voice directions so you don’t get lost. The app works even offline so you don’t have to worry about your phone bill at the end of the month. You can check it out here.

Screenshot 2016-10-04 20.16.20

 

bimbimbikes – online search engine for bike rentals

Bimbimbikes lets you compare prices for local bike rentals and you can even reserve your bike and pay in advance. So if you’re used to biking everywhere you go and you don’t want to change this habit when you’re on vacation, this is a must have for you!

 

Komoot – plan you next hike or bike tour

Komoot is a great app if you want to go outside and be active during your vacation. It doesn’t matter if you’re into hiking, running or biking, with this app you have access to great routes wherever you are. They have very detailed maps that have information that Google or Apple Maps not have so that they can always come up with bike-friendly streets for example. If you want to read a detailed review follow this link, otherwise you can download the app here.Screenshot 2016-10-04 19.17.50

 

 

Photography:

Fripito – photography guides by locals

If you are into photography and also like to travel a lot, then Fripito might be for you. Fripito is a mobile app that gives you photo guides made by locals from hundreds of destinations around the world. These guides include tips on where to find interesting spots, local light conditions, recommended equipment and camera settings. If this sounds interesting to you, head over to Fripito to read more about it.

 

The roll – organise your photos smarter
Not sure which picture you want to instagram? Or do you want to show your friends the photos you took on vacation but exclude all the embarrassing selfies and photos of your food? Then “The Roll” might be the right app for you. The app uses image recognition technology and machine learning that not only group photos based on their content but can also highlight the best ones. Photos are automatically tagged and displayed in categories so you can search and share without clutter. I’ve used this app for quite some time now and the algorithm works really well, I definitely recommend you to check it out. As of now they only offer an iOS app, that you can download here.Screenshot 2016-10-04 19.32.55

 

Save money when traveling abroad:

There is already a post about this topic so if you think your bank asks a little too much as soon as you leave the country, check out this blog post

 

Back home:

Get refund for delayed or cancelled flights

There is this one thing when traveling, that has the potential to ruin basically every trip: delays and flight cancellations. But especially for somebody that is flying on a budget, delays and cancellations don’t necessarily mean only bad news. There is a EU regulation in place that can make you entitled for up to 600€ in case your flight was canceled or delayed. But airlines are systematically fighting this regulation and as long as you don’t get yourself a lawyer you probably will never see a penny. However, I wouldn’t bring this issue up here, if there is not a startup that proposes to solve the problem. Basically, there are two different ways you can cope with this issue. You can go to Flightright and they will use their lawyers to fight for your compensation. If they are successful and the airline finally pays out the refund, they will keep 25% of the sum and you get the rest.

In case you don’t want to wait that long you can just head over to WebuyyourFlight.com. They will check your claim within 48 hours and immediately send you up to 400€ for your flight if your claim was valid. You don’t have to wait for their legal team to get active, instead you will get the money right away. Bear in mind though, that you would get more money from Flightright, as their fees are lower than the fees of webuyyourflight.com.

 

I hope this list will help you for your next trip and you will try out some of the apps or services. Please feel free to add more start-ups to the comments that you think should be in this list !

 

 

References:

GoEuro banks another $70M to keep building out its travel planner platform

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