Zagster Blog News from the Fleet Management Front, October 17th Edition

Dan Grossman CEO In today’s newsletter, we look at booming scooter ridership in New Mexico, Utah, and New Jersey. We also examine fleet management technology as an enabler of operational excellence, the public’s love-hate relationship with scooters, and much more. Let’s get rolling!1. Optimizing Scooter RidershipWe’ve operated a fleet of Spin scooters in Albuquerque for less than six months, but we’ve already begun using data to drive fleet management efficiency for all. As local ABQ TV news station KRQE recently highlighted in this report, we’ve made two big changes to how we deploy scooters. As the city’s planning director Brennon Williams told reporter Coutney Allen: Zagster “saw there were areas of town where the scooters sat unused for extended periods of time, and then there were areas where scooters were wanted or needed.” Applying this usage data, we’ve now added scooter hubs to specific areas where we see more demand, increasing drop off spots from 46 to 100 all across the city. These two, data-driven changes have already had huge impacts on usage. Ridership went up from about 2,900 to 4,200 rides over a two-week period in September, with weekend scooter ridership jumping from 700 rides a day to 1600 rides a day. On October 5, The St. George (UT) News reported on the success of our Spin scooter program there, which began seven months ago. Ridership has exceeded expectations, reaching over 18,000 trips monthly, and over 100,000 trips so far. The program has been especially important in connecting students and staff at Dixie State University to campus and the larger St. George community. Marc Mortensen, the city’s director of support services said: “As you read news articles throughout the country, you’ve heard the horror stories in some cities about their scooter programs, and our experience has been entirely different. I think a lot of the success has to do with the partnerships we’ve developed.” We could not be prouder to partner with the good folks of St. George, delivering fleet management excellence and driving the ongoing success of our multi-modal (bikes and scooters) program! We have numbers from the first full month of our scooter launch in Asbury Park (NJ). We saw over 15,000 scooter trips, or more than 500 trips per day, in that initial month. One third of those trips (so more than 5,000) replaced car trips, and almost half of all trips (48%) ended at dining or entertainment venues. Equally important, nearly four in 10 scooter rides were connections to or from public transit. Asbury Park is a popular coastal destination, so ridership was balanced between local residents (46%) and visitors from outside town (54%). An article at NJ.com, Here’s Why It’s Easier to Find Parking in Asbury, explains how scooter usage has freed up more parking space in town, and also connected areas (and residents) of Asbury Park who were previously disconnected from the popular beach areas and amenities.2. Fleet Management Technology as Enabler “Everything we do is aligned with expanding our service capabilities, making our teams on the ground more efficient, and allowing us to adapt to the unique attributes of the markets and vehicles that we manage.” — Bob Mallon Success in fleet management requires operational technology that enables field teams in places like Albuquerque and Asbury Park to do their work, from optimally deploying scooters, recharging them, performing repairs, and beyond. We call our operations platform “Wrangler,” and it’s vehicle-agnostic and customizable for each local market team. As Zagster VP of Product Development Bob Mallon wrote in his October 1st ZBlog post about Wrangler: “our technology team is 100% focused on enabling our internal operations teams to deliver superior service for our micro-mobility partners and the cities in which they operate. Everything we do is aligned with expanding our service capabilities, making our teams on the ground more efficient, and allowing us to adapt to the unique attributes of the markets and vehicles that we manage.” 3. Others News from the Fleet Management FrontJames Carter of Toronto-based consultancy Vision Mobility recently wrote a great article for Electric Autonomy about reaching the twin goals of “cool” and “safe” for micro-mobility hardware. As Carter makes clear, scooters are cheap, convenient transportation options but also fun as heck: “25% of respondents who ride scooters cited this [fun] factor,” says Carter, “and it is likely a key attribute propelling their record growth.” Safety is a major concern for scooter makers, operators, riders, and the general public.  As Carter notes, safer scooter designs and safety-supporting transit infrastructure are important, but “rider training needs also to be substantially improved, including wearing a helmet." The scooter company that figures out how to blend “safe and cool will be an out-of-the-park success," concludes Carter. We agree 100% and also know that effective fleet management is a major component of this “fun + safe = success” equation.  Finally, a new CityLab article asks an important question: Why Do City Dwellers Love to Hate Scooters? As author David Zipper explains, scooter safety concerns are legitimate, but “should be put in context, as riders seem to pose minimal risk to anyone other than themselves. I’m not aware of a single pedestrian in the United States being killed in an e-scooter collision . . . for comparison, in 2018 alone, automobiles killed over 6,200 pedestrians in this country.” As Zipper explains, the novelty of scooters has fueled the backlash: “an automobile driver must suddenly share road space with a vehicle in an unfamiliar shape, moving in unfamiliar ways—which is stressful. Pedestrians, too, must adapt their behavior when e-scooters show up, keeping an eye out for a rider zipping along the sidewalk or an unused device blocking their path.” So how can we unlock the massive benefits of micro-mobility while navigating the risks? It will take time, as well as investments in rider and vehicle safety, coupled with close collaboration between community leaders and fleet management providers. Thanks for reading!