European shared mobility breaks records in ridership and fleet size

Shared mobility forms broke a string of records in 2021, according to a new report by Fluctuo, a mobility intelligence leader.

Tracking 16 European cities and 306 services spanning docked and free floating bikes and scooters, through to car sharing and moped schemes, the combined fleet is now up to around 290,000 units in service.

While the headline ridership figures are interesting, what may catch the eye of many is the record numbers of trips taken in low season. Q4 2021 saw around nine million additional trips year-on-year, in part thanks to a 76% fleet growth proving that availability and convenience play a role in usership. During this period ridership doubled in five of the tracked markets. September was the peak month, racking up 25 million trips.

There is a strong correlation between vehicle availability and the ridership rates. The data illustrates a majority electric scooter vehicle preference in Berlin, Hamburg, Brussels and Stockholm city, but London’s users lean on the shared bike schemes thanks to a broad choice. London has Europe’s second largest growth year-on-year in bike share availability and the third largest trips per capita.

Oslo, Paris and Barcelona – each well equipped with infrastructure to make such schemes safer – top the ridership metrics, though the largest growth stems from Stockholm, Brussels and Hamburg.

Flagged in the report is the €250 million investment Paris has made to create 180km of permanent cycle paths and 130,000 added parking spots. Likewise, it is noted that the EU has just announced new funding to further develop green mobility, though analysts suggest at present cities are way off the mark on reaching goals set to reduce transport emissions.

What will be of greatest interest to the bike business is the gap in popularity emerging between docked and free floating bike hire scheme, which had 0.5% and 32% growth rates, respectively. This is likely reflective of the growth in private company fleets, versus a stalling of authority backed docked scheme growth.

So, who’s making the money?

As has been flagged often of late, micromobility firms are attracting heavy investment. Estimates for the first two months of 2022 alone suggest fundraising in excess of $725 million sunk into firms like Superpedestrian, Beam Mobility, Dott, Zoomo, Segway-Ninebot and many more.

Added to the above, in 2021 Bolt raised €600 million in Series E funding, Lime €462 million in Debt/Convertible Notes, Tier €177 million in Series D funding and Bird €141 million in post-IPO cash.

These huge transactions never come without some consolidation and significant deals flagged include NextBike’s buyout by Tier Mobility, which has since acquired Spin.

Read Fluctuo’s report in full by signing up here.

To read more on the likely formula to success for mobility providers, CI.N has this column with expert Tom Nutley.