Citymapper integrates dockless bike information into app

Dive Brief:

Urban navigation app Citymapper has partnered with dockless bike-share businesses and others to provide information about alternative transportation options, according to TechCrunch.
Citymapper integrated information from bike-sharing companies Mobike and Ofo so app users can locate the nearest bike as a mobility option.
Users in select cities also now have the ability to locate shared mopeds where available, such as in Paris and Berlin.

Dive Insight:

Citymapper has been around for about seven years as a tool for helping people navigate and find the best mobility options in 39 urban areas around the world. Eight U.S. cities are included in the platform: Baltimore/Washington, DC, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle.

Users type in a destination and Citymapper provides numerous routes and mobility options for completing the journey. It creates route combinations with driving, walking, ride-share, bike-share and public transit, with a strong emphasis on transit including buses, ferries and rail. The app uses public data from transit authorities and has proven more reliable and detailed than most standard mapping apps like Apple Maps or Google Maps, which don't always accurately pinpoint transit stops, give real-time transit schedules or report how many bikes are available at a fixed bike-share station.

Citymapper previously had provided information about standard bike-share systems with fixed stations — a feature that Apple Maps added just this year — but this is its first plunge into displaying dockless bikes, which can be locked nearly anywhere in a city at any given time.

Although Citymapper shows the nearest dockless bikes or mopeds and provides viable bike routes, users still have to go to the other businesses' apps to unlock and rent a device. Thus far, the app update does not include information about electric scooters, such as those from Lime and Bird.

Citymapper recently launched its own shared mobility service in London that resembles a number of the microtransit pilots taking place in the United States.