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goUrban CEO on Shared Mobility: Crisis or Key Factor?
Recently, the e-scooter ban in Paris and the new scooter regulations in Vienna have raised questions about the acceptance of shared mobility services. The increasingly loud calls for bans in Germany give the impression that an entire industry is in crisis. Is this perception misleading? Whether as a leisure activity, for public street races, as an obstacle on the sidewalk, or as hazardous waste in rivers and hedges: E-scooters and the shared mobility sector already have a bad reputation, bringing discredit to the entire industry – from micromobility services like scooter, bike, or moped sharing to carsharing services.
Criticism of the current state of shared mobility services is certainly justified: So far, the services on the market are far from fully realizing their positive potential at a consistently high-quality level: their potential as a safe, convenient, and always accessible complement to public transportation, to relieve traffic congestion in urban areas and to improve the quality of life.
"Because it cannot be denied: Currently, shared mobility is too expensive, too unsafe, uncomfortable, and unreliable."
However, to assess the state of such a complex industry in terms of a crisis situation, a differentiated view is required. Shared Mobility as a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) Looking at the challenges that shared mobility brings – beyond the vote in Paris – we see that we need many more developments before shared mobility can indeed significantly contribute to people giving up their private vehicles:
- Availability and reliability: It is frustrating when the desired vehicle is not available nearby or when one has to wait longer than expected to find a vehicle. In the worst case, the system might fail and users cannot open or close the vehicle.
- Convenience: Replacing a private car currently requires a lot of planning – just think of a weekend trip outside the city with two children and corresponding luggage. In this scenario, nobody wants to walk long distances to find the vehicle. Users of shared mobility rightly expect a condition that meets high safety standards.
- Condition of the vehicles: If the vehicle can be found, it is often dirty, has numerous damages, or has insufficient fuel or charge levels.
- Accessibility of the provider: Often, the support offered does not meet the requirements, and one cannot reach anyone or spends a long time in the waiting loop.
- Price: Considering the price across all providers, a mix of public transportation and shared mobility services is currently still too expensive – or it barely matches the monthly costs of a private car. Providers, in turn, can hardly operate shared mobility cost-effectively as a business model with the current low number of users.
Giving Up the Car Should Not Mean Giving Up Comfort
If you want to give up your own car, it should not be a compromise in terms of comfort, especially with regard to the associated costs, availability, convenience, safety, or even sustainability. Therefore, it is up to all of us to advance shared mobility to such an extent that it becomes easy to give up our own cars. Over its entire lifespan, a vehicle costs around 600,000 euros, with the average private car remaining unused about 97 percent of the time. In economically challenging times, fewer people will be able (or willing) to afford this investment. Additionally, 20 percent of CO2 emissions in Europe alone come from combustion engine traffic, with around 12 percent attributable to private cars.
From Ownership to Service: The Example of the “Netflix of Mobility”
To realize the sustainability effects and cost-saving potentials outlined here, mobility ultimately needs to undergo a development similar to what we've seen with popular streaming services: While we used to rent a videotape from the video store, we now have an entire universe of films available with streaming offers like Netflix and others at the click of a button—affordable and accessible from anywhere. Shared mobility must become just as convenient, simple, flexible, and cost-effective, so that owning a car soon becomes more of a burden than a help.
"Without a doubt, we will reach a new level of mobility: The higher the availability of shared mobility vehicles and the more convenient their use becomes, and the safer the vehicles are—for both users and non-users of mobility—the more people will take advantage of these offers."
In the long term, this reduces noise and environmental pollution, promotes quality of life, and improves the protection of ecological habitats. The more people use shared mobility, the more it influences the price offerings. After all, it must also be economically profitable for providers to operate shared vehicle fleets through intelligent management.
Conclusion: The Goal is a High-Quality Product that Makes the Car Obsolete
The ultimate goal must be to provide a high-quality product that becomes an unavoidable alternative to owning a car in the long term—as well as a sensible and widely used complement to public transportation. The criteria for this are not yet met at present. It will take some time to reach this point. From this perspective, this assessment views the development of shared mobility more as an opportunity to jointly overcome current challenges rather than being in a crisis mode.
Jonathan Gleixner is the CEO and co-founder of goUrban, the B2B SaaS platform for service-based mobility. Together with Bojan Jukić, he founded the company in Austria in 2016. goUrban is now present in 100 cities and connects a total of 30,000 vehicles for its customers worldwide. In addition to Vienna, the company now has a second location in Novi Sad, Serbia, and Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2021, Gleixner was named among the Forbes 30 Under 30. Originally from Waldshut-Tiengen in Baden-Württemberg, Gleixner studied Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Marketing at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, where he also met his co-founder Bojan Jukić.
goUrban was founded in Austria in 2016 and initially started with its own vehicle fleet in Vienna. The operating system offers a data-driven, modular, and vehicle-agnostic mobility ecosystem for shared mobility providers, corporate fleets, cities, and municipalities, aiming to optimize operational success. The system promotes seamless integration of use cases such as car-sharing or kick scooter and moped sharing, corporate fleet, subscription, and leasing solutions. The overarching goal of the entire business: to provide all people with access to affordable, demand-driven, safe, and sustainable transportation. The company is now represented in 91 cities and connects 30,000 vehicles for its customers worldwide. In addition to Vienna, the company has additional locations in Novi Sad, Serbia, and Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Around 100 employees currently work at both locations.
Translated automatically from German.
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