Dive Brief:
- Uber has rolled out its new Jump bike mobility platform for cities via its insight platform, Uber Movement.
- Users can use the platform to view Jump data including total number of bike trips and miles traveled. Uber says the tool includes features to protect bike riders' privacy while still providing valuable data to cities.
- Additional features will continue to become available on the platform, including an expansion to e-scooters.
Dive Insight:
The bike mobility platform furthers Uber's goal of increasing its partnerships with cities to advance toward becoming a multimodal transportation business, not just a ride-hailing company.
This kind of transparency is an interesting twist, considering the well-known battles that ride-sharing businesses have had with some cities over data sharing. For example, San Francisco has a very public, ongoing conflict with ride-sharing businesses over their lack of handing over data the city requested; it has resulted in the city refusing to allow any public funding to go to ride-share companies or their subsidiaries.
Interestingly, some of the very metrics the bike platform displays — such as number of vehicles on the road and user trip details — are exactly the data sets that ride-sharing companies withheld from cities on the car front. Uber notes that cities can use the bike-share data to check bike use in underserved areas to promote equitable and affordable mobility access in addition to helping cities plan bike lanes and other infrastructure investments.
