The document discusses the economics of shared mobility, highlighting various types of shared transportation, such as free-floating and station-based systems. It examines the challenges faced by operators in providing quality mobility experiences while controlling costs related to rebalancing and maintenance. The presentation also explores potential strategies for improving profitability through data science, user incentives, and technological innovations in vehicles.

1. The economics of
shared mobility
Karolina Chachulska
The Business of Autonomous Vehicles: An Intensive Bootcamp, Nov 2019

2. The author is self proclaimed skeptical AV
enthusiast...
Management Consulting & Performance Improvement Financial AuditMobility & Growth
Background
Education

3. AVs will most
probably be
shared

4. Shared Mobility - Trips
Source: CB Insights

5. Shared Mobility - Vehicles
Bikes Scooters Cars

6. Shared Mobility - Types
Free Floating Station Based Peer-to-Peer
● Commercial fleets
● Start & end trip anywhere
within the operating zone
● One way trips
● A → Z
● Commercial fleets
● Start & end trip @
designated station/dock
● One way trips & returns
● A → A & A → B
● Privately owned vehicles
/Airbnb for cars
● Start & end trip @ owner’s
garage
● Return trips
● A → A

7. Shared Mobility - Types
Free Floating Station Based Peer-to-Peer
● Commercial fleets
● Start & end trip anywhere
within the operating zone
● One way trips
● A → Z
● Commercial fleets
● Start & end trip @
designated station/dock
● One way trips & returns
● A → A & A → B
● Privately owned vehicles
/Airbnb for cars
● Start & end trip @ owner’s
garage
● Return trips
● A → A
● 20,000 vehicles
● 30 markets/cities
● 12,000 vehicles
● 380 markets/cities
● >170,000 vehicles
Focus of this presentation

8. UTILIZATION(as a key metric)

9. Operator key
challenge:
How do I assure
great mobility
experience?

10. How do I assure great
software experience?
❏intuitive UX/UI
❏ accurate location
❏ home zone
❏ street cleaning info
❏ user engagement
❏ pricing
❏ info for call center
❏ info for admin

11. How do I assure great
hardware experience?
❏rebalancing
❏cleaning
❏fueling
❏EV charging
❏maintenance
❏parking

12. The complexity of “behind the scenes”
●rebalancing - the biggest cost
●rebalancing + refueling +cleaning
contribute to 75% of all
operating costs

13. Despite obvious benefits for communities...
● Solving urban density problem: “Every Zipcar takes 13 personally-owned vehicles off the road”*
● Cost savings compared with ownership model “AAA estimates the average cost of car
ownership at $8,439 annually while the average car2go member spends less than half of
that.”**
● Solving Congestion: According to MIT Study annual congestion cost is around 160 billion in the
USA, including 7 billion hours of time lost to sitting in traffic and an extra 3 billion gallons of fuel
burned. ***
* Source: Zipcar
** Car2Go
*** MIT News: http://news.mit.edu/2016/how-ride-sharing-can-improve-traffic-save-money-and-help-environment-0104
Moving away from ownership based approach to trip
based approach

14. ...shared mobility is struggling with profitability
Car2Go the latest short-term car rental service to pull out of major U.S. cities
GM Scales Back Maven Car-Sharing Business
Lime shutters LimePod, raising questions about
viability of free-floating car-sharing model
Inside the abrupt shutdown of
BMW’s ReachNow car-sharing
service in Seattle and PortlandHit by Big Loss, Bird Seeks
$300M in New Funds
Lime’s Loss to Top $300
Million in 2019

15. Where are the dollars?
Revenues Costs
❏rentals ❏depreciation = asset
value/lifetime
❏ charging
❏ repositioning
❏ maintenance
https://canikickit.biz
❏ connectivity
❏ fleet management system
❏ consumer acquisition
❏ data science
❏ technology platform
❏additional revenue
sources

16. Hack 1 - Data Science
Source: Uber
Hot and cold zones
● Collecting and and understanding mobility patterns
● Identifying areas where vehicles have high
probability of being rented out at specific point in
time
Pricing sensitivity
● Experimenting and determining user propensity to
pay the highest possible price (yet not too high to
move to competitor)
Fleet Management Solution
● Most efficient ways to navigate a worker to a
maintenance job

17. Hack 2 - User incentives
Vehicle condition based
● Location based - price incentive for user to move the vehicle out of the low
utilization
● Battery level - price incentive for user to drop off the vehicle near charging
stations for vehicles with low battery level
Credits for fuelling
● Incentivising users to fuel the vehicle while on the go in exchange of $5
credit resulted in 30% decrease in fueling cost
More ideas on using incentives to optimize operations: https://player.fm/series/merge-now/ep-14-tarani-duncan-of-shared-on-scooter-20

18. Hack 3 - Adjacent Revenue Sources
Longer-term rentals
Example: Bird
● Monthly personal rental of the scooters (i.e. as a way to start operating
and collecting data in the cities where scooter sharing is not allowed)
Example: MAVEN
● Weekly mini-leases aimed at gig economy workers
Platform Sales
Example: Bird
● Sales of hardware + software (operating platform) for anyone who would
like to run the scooter fleets operations in their area

19. Hack 4 - Multi-Modal
● Average propensity to walk to the
scooter: ~ 2 blocks
● Average propensity to walk to the car:
~0.5 - 0.8 mile
● Scooter are more widespread -
enabling users to get to the car via
scooter all available on one platform

20. Hack 5 - Battery enhancements
Reusable battery
Example: WIND
● 40% of scooter value is the battery
● 80km (~50 miles) on one charge
● battery lifetime ~ 1000 charges
● “Battery can be easily extracted from a used/broken scooter and re-used
on other scooter” Eric Wang, WIND CEO
Swappable battery
Example: Revel mopeds
● Bat-swap: no need for taking the mopeds charging, a van with batteries
drives through during low utilization time and exchange the batteries

21. Hack 6 - Autonomy + teleops (1 of 2)
Scooters
Example: Tortoise
● Additional equipment costs ~ $100 (two cameras,
radar, processor, motor, training wheels)
● Autonomous mode on an empty sidewalk
● Teleoperations in case of more complex
environment
● About 8 repositions per day (i.e. to more
trafficked areas) will use about 10% battery
● Doubling the rentals, 10x operating cost
reduction, possibility to serve new areas

22. Hack 6 - Autonomy + teleops (2 of 2)
Cars
Example: Ridecell/Auro
● Late at night, lower speeds, less
complex and pre-mapped
environments
● Fleet repositioning, direct to
depot
● No passengers operations

23. Hack 7 - Form Factor (1 of 4)
Bikes Scooters Cars

24. Hack 7 - Form Factor (2 of 4)

25. Hack 7 - Form Factor (3 of 4)
Bikes Scooters Cars
Mini Mobility

26. Hack 7 - Form Factor (4 of 4)
Mini Mobility
Pros:
● Size adequate for most trips
● Electric
● Energy efficiency (smaller size, mostly
aerodynamic shape)
● Protection from weather
● Safety
● Maneuverability
● Easier parking
Cons:
● relatively high prices due to currently low
production volume

27. The sector is relatively
young, new hacks will
emerge soon