Shared mobility software developer Vulog has released a major update to its AiMA platform, making it the first technology provider in the sector to offer full multimodal and multi-city services in a single app.
The update follows research by Vulog linked to mobility schemes in Paris, France in early 2019, which revealed that the average shared-mobility user had seven different apps on their phone in order to move around the city.
It also found that the majority of shared mobility schemes started up in a single city, meaning that when users travelled to other cities, they needed to sign up to a different service.
However, with the release of the revamped AiMA, Vulog believes apps that offer a single service for different modes of transport across and between multiple cities will become the norm within the next 12-18 months.
The world’s first multimodal, multi-city shared mobility scheme, Poppy, has been operating in Belgium since the summer. Users in Brussels and Antwerp have access to shared electric mopeds, kick-scooters and cars, with the latter able to be collected and dropped off in either city.
Stockholm’s Aimo has also become a multimodal service, with 200 electric kick-scooters recently added to its 300-strong fleet of Renault Zoe EVs.
Both operations successfully trialled Vulog’s updated AiMA platform and saw user activity increase over the trial period by up to 34%.
Gregory Ducongé, CEO of Vulog, said: “Multimodal and multi-city capabilities give operators a crucial competitive advantage over their rivals, and we believe that such comprehensive and flexible services will be crucial to sustained long-term profitability for all operators.
“And, we’ve future-proofed our AiMA platform so that operators can add autonomous cars as soon as they will be ready to deploy.”
