Chinese bike-sharing company Ofo is entering a new phase. After a period of aggressive growth, the company is looking back at its international markets and focusing on the most promising ones. A couple of weeks ago, the company issued a press release highlighting some of the priorities outside of China. As part of this move, […]
View More Ofo shuts down many international markets to focus on profitabilityCategory: ofo
Behind the scenes with the vans and, yes, tricycles that make bike-shares ride smoothly
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It’s all about the fleet behind the fleet.
Bike-share programs have swept into cities across the globe. They let people open an app and ride away on a bike, paying as they go. The problem? Those bikes require a lot of TLC.
So behind the scenes, companies send teams in trucks, vans, and even tricycles to repair, maintain, and “rebalance” bikes, an industry term for making sure bicycles aren’t all clumped together or placed too far away from potential riders. That’s where software tracking each bike’s location and user behavior comes in.
More about Jump, Lime, Ofo, Bike Sharing, and Tech
View More Behind the scenes with the vans and, yes, tricycles that make bike-shares ride smoothlyCitymapper lets you find Ofo, Mobike and scooters around you
Urban transportation app Citymapper quietly rolled out an app update that lets you find many alternative mobility services in the app. You can now find the nearest dockless bike or electric scooter around you (not the Bird and Lime kind, the motorcycle kind). The integrations are already live in many cities. The company didn’t add […]
View More Citymapper lets you find Ofo, Mobike and scooters around youSilicon Valley scooter wars
Electric scooters have become the hot new area for startups and “innovation.” For those who haven’t been keeping track, there are three main players in the Silicon Valley scooter wars: Bird, Lime and Spin. Bird first launched in Venice, Calif. before expanding into San Francisco in March. It’s worth pointing out that Bird, for now, is […]
View More Silicon Valley scooter warsHow bike-share companies protect their fleet against vandalism, abuse
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It can be tough out there as a bicycle in a bike-share fleet, endlessly unlocked via an app, pedaled around and then left behind before the whole process repeats itself.
The companies behind the growing trend of bike-sharing optimize the vehicles for high frequency use — but on top of that, the bikes need even more protection from vandals.
The shared bikes get used a lot more than your average bicycle, so durability is an issue on top of any tampering. Bike-share company Ofo has logged more than 32 million rides globally. Jump bikes, the red e-bike-share Uber recently acquired, have about six trips every day per bicycle in San Francisco. The average bike trip is just over a half mile. Read more…
More about Design, Bicycles, Lime, Ofo, and Bike Sharing
View More How bike-share companies protect their fleet against vandalism, abuseBike-sharing has blown up in the past year, but cities are wary after the mess in China
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Friday is National Bike to Work Day, but this year it’s a bit different.
It’s the first year the U.S. will celebrate the two-wheeled holiday since the inundation of bike-share companies, with dockless bicycle fleets landing in cities across America over the last 12 months.
While the shared bicycles add another convenient commuting option for riders, they’re stressing out city planners and transit departments wary of bike litter, unsafe use, and overrun streets.
Dockless — bicycles that lock to themselves or can be locked to a post or rack — app-enabled bikes, like the green bikes from Lime, yellow bikes from Ofo, red bikes from Jump, or white-and-blue colored bikes from Pace, have arrived en masse since last summer, changing up how people commute and how cities regulate biking programs. Read more…
More about Scooters, Austin, Pace, Lime, and Ofo
Chinese bike-sharing pioneer Mobike sold to ambitious Meituan Dianping for $2.7B
Meituan Dianping, the fast-growing Chinese firm valued at $30 billion, is buying Mobike, a Chinese startup that helped pioneer bike-sharing services worldwide, in a major piece of consolidation. The deal was heavy rumored yesterday and TechCrunch has today confirmed with a source that it has been concluded at a price of $2.7 billion. TechCrunch understands […]
View More Chinese bike-sharing pioneer Mobike sold to ambitious Meituan Dianping for $2.7BBird expands to San Francisco, San Jose and Washington
The smash dockless scooter rental startup, Bird, is expanding beyond its Southern California nest with a new rollout in San Francisco, San Jose, Calif. and Washington, DC, the company said today. And as his company makes its migration across the country, Bird chief executive Travis VanderZanden is determined not to make the same mistakes that […]
View More Bird expands to San Francisco, San Jose and WashingtonChinese bike-sharing startup Ofo raises $866M in new financing led by Alibaba Group
Beijing-based bike-sharing startup Ofo has raised $866 million in new financing led by Alibaba Group to fuel its expensive competition with Mobike, which is backed by Tencent, one of Alibaba’s biggest rivals. Ofo and Mobike are the two largest bike-sharing companies in China. Read More
GoBee Bike throws in the towel in France
Bike-sharing startup GoBee Bike is giving up and shutting down in all French cities where it operates. GoBee Bike operates just like Chinese giants Ofo and Mobike. You open the app, you find a bike on the map and you unlock it by scanning a QR code. Once you’re done, you lock it again and leave it there — there’s no dock. And yet, the startup is blaming vandalism and says… Read More
Beijing-based Ofo wants to launch its stationless bike-sharing service in SF, but it’s not allowed to
Beijing-based stationless bike-sharing startup Ofo is crying foul at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency over its decision to have an exclusive pilot program with startup JUMP. Earlier this month, JUMP obtained an exclusive permit with the SFMTA to launch 250 dockless, electric bikes in San Francisco.
Now, Ofo is asking the SFMTA to consider reopening the permit process and… Read More
Didi has a brilliant plan to contain the threat of China’s bike-sharing services
China’s Didi Chuxing unveiled its bike-sharing platform today and, as expected, it looks like a very aggressive move to protect its position. When Didi first announced its plans to offer rides from Ofo and Bluegogo inside its app, I argued that this was far from a positive gesture since the ultimate goal is control. By introducing its own service inside its own app to its own… Read More