Uber to redirect focus to bikes and electric scooters

Uber intends to focus more on its electric scooter and bike business as it says individual modes of transport are better-suited to inner city travel. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, believes users will make more frequent, shorter journeys in the future, the Financial Times reports. "During rush hour, it is very inefficient for a one-tonne hulk of metal to take one person ten blocks,” he says. Uber’s Jump electric bikes are now available in eight US cities such as San Francisco and Washington DC, and are
August 28, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

8336 Uber intends to focus more on its electric scooter and bike business as it says individual modes of transport are better-suited to inner city travel.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, believes users will make more frequent, shorter journeys in the future, the %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Financial Times Financial Times website link false https://www.ft.com/content/986d878a-a7c4-11e8-8ecf-a7ae1beff35b false false%> reports.

"During rush hour, it is very inefficient for a one-tonne hulk of metal to take one person ten blocks,” he says.

Uber’s Jump electric bikes are now available in eight US cities such as San Francisco and Washington DC, and are set to launch in Berlin.

The ride-sharing company has also joined forces with electric scooter company Lime.

Khosrowshahi recognises that Uber makes more money from a car journey than a bike trip - but says this would be offset as users engage with the app more regularly for shorter journeys.
"We are willing to trade off short-term per-unit economics for long-term higher engagement."

The move comes as Uber announced it was to supply its proprietary self-driving system to %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Toyota Sienna Minivans Uber website link false https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-toyota-team-self-driving-cars/ false false%>. “Rather than owning and operating the fleet of self-driving vehicles, these minivans will be owned and operated by an agreed upon third party, a new business model for Uber,” the company said in a statement.

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Moxa high performance Ethernet products on show at ITS World Congress
    October 18, 2012
    Moxa, a global provider of industrial automation solutions, will be highlighting a full range of products that allow ITS operators access to high performance wired/wireless Ethernet networks with superb connectivity. The company will also be featuring full Gigabit solutions and wide-temperature HD IP cameras that are available for bandwidth-hungry ITS video surveillance applications. To easily extend data transmission over fibre communications or leverage the existing telephone grade copper wires to transmi
    Read More
  • eCall Days to be held in Berlin in September
    August 4, 2015
    The largest conference on the pan-European eCall in Germany will take place on 23–24 September in Berlin, Germany. Representatives of the European Commission, the HeERO 1 and 2 project partners and other stakeholders will present their agenda on eCall implementation, interoperability, eCall outside Europe and additional services. The first day of the conference covers the current status of the eCall implementation. In this context, when Andy Rooke of ERTICO will discuss the main results of the HeERO 1 an
    Read More
  • ETI seeks partners for commercial deployment of marine vessel technology modelling system
    December 2, 2016
    The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) is seeking partners for a project which will develop a tool to provide accurate and transparent data on the performance of different types of vessels for use by stakeholders involved in the shipping industry. One of the major challenges of reducing carbon emissions from the shipping industry is convincing vessel financiers to invest in technologies that will make existing and future vessels more fuel efficient. Although a number of fuel efficient technologies already
    Read More
  • Versatile laser sensors from Laser Technology
    October 18, 2012
    Laser Technology will be highlighting is TruSense T- series laser sensors which are designed specifically for traffic management applications including speed, vehicle height, vehicle length, and time between vehicles. An array of outputs including RS232, RS485 and output triggers allow the user freedom to choose the best output for their application, whether in parking, licence plate recognition (LPR), red light camera triggering, tolling applications including counting axles, counting vehicles, and trigger
    Read More

Highlighted Content