With Wall Street investors evaluating shared mobility business fundamentals, and questioning the long-term financial viability of some shared mobility services, the pressure is on for the entire sector to develop intelligent and automated platforms that convert operational insights into profitable outcomes.
As our customer REACH NOW mobility services from BMW Group and Daimler AG, recently noted “To compete in the shared mobility space, it’s critical to balance speed to market and customer experience with operational cost.”
Turning Obstacles Into Opportunities
At Ridecell, we like to think of obstacles as opportunities. Building on the Ridecell operating platform, BMW became the first operator to run a carsharing and ridesharing service using a single fleet of cars. Based on this model, REACH NOW has had one of the highest utilization rates in the industry with services in Seattle, WA, and Portland OR.
“By leveraging the Ridecell toolkit, we became the first company to operate car sharing and ride hailing from a common fleet. This offers our Members choice in how they get to where they are going and improves our fleet’s utilization, helping maximize the number of trips we can do in a day.” – Jean-Francois Ganot, Chief Financial Officer, REACH NOW
Ridecell customers in other markets have experienced similar business benefits. GIG Car Share from AAA NCNU recently expanded its service to Sacramento, launching the largest EV fleet in North America. ZITY from Ferrovial and Groupe Renault; a car sharing operation in Madrid, grew from being a new entrant in a crowded scene to owning 27 percent of the carsharing market in just one year.
Introducing High-yield shared mobilityTM
Earlier this week, we announced the Ridecell High-yield Shared Mobility SaaS Platform. The SaaS platform combines intelligent software, services, and ecosystem partnerships for companies to launch, operate, and scale profitable shared mobility businesses.
As our customers know, building a shared mobility business takes more than an app and a fleet of vehicles. Success requires three things: A superior customer experience. A fleet that’s in high demand. Operations that run at peak efficiency. Bring these three things together and profitability happens. We call this High-yield Shared Mobility
For example with the Ridecell High-yield shared mobility SaaS Platform, our customers:
- Understand and anticipate their customers’ shared mobility needs
- Optimize car service and location, preventing cars from sitting idle
- Dynamically implement marketing promotion or maintenance crew, depending on the best option to address fleet service tasks
The result, operators delight their members and transform expenses into revenue. And the goal of building a thriving and profitable business becomes realistic.
By introducing High-yield shared mobility we are up leveling the conversation, addressing the topic of shared mobility profitability head-on. And importantly, demonstrating that Ridecell customers are already taking advantage of our platform to maximize utilization rates, and grow their customer base, while reducing operating expenses.
High Yield Shared Mobility Driven by Data
We believe High-yield shared mobility is the difference between starting a shared mobility business and operating a successful one. With years of on-demand mobility management and the latest machine learning capabilities we’ve assembled a toolkit to give our customers the advantage needed to stay ahead of their competitors, while building thriving and profitable businesses.
New functionality we announced this week, makes it even easier to streamline their operations and maximize revenue.
Ridecell Smart Zone Programs
Turn fleet repositioning from an expense into a revenue. Our advanced machine learning identifies “hot and cold zones” and high-propensity customers. Operators can adjust pricing dynamically to offer customers reduced rates when they choose vehicles low on charge or parked somewhere about to become a no parking zone. Operators avoid paying employees to perform these tasks.
Ridecell Dynamic Region Management
Enables dynamic service region creation, live parking and EV charging spots based on availability and status. By sending near real-time updates to the consumer app, operators can identify charging and rental zones, provide access to premium and private parking locations, and avoid extra parking costs or towing charges.
Ridecell Data Platform
Operators gain access to a near real-time feed of service operation events, including member activity, vehicle telematics and operations data. Integrates the data feed into customer business systems, facilitating customized marketing automation, business intelligence and mobile analytics.
There is no doubt that Shared mobility, whether driven or driverless is the future. Transportation is being disrupted in fundamental ways and across multiple dimensions, all at once. With growing global urbanization, mobility services are replacing personal car ownership and fleets will increasingly be electrified and autonomous. We are investing at the very center of the shared mobility revolution, focused on playing a critical role helping to build thriving and profitable shared mobility businesses.
Author: Fran Thorpe, Director of Product Marketing, Ridecell