Bike share ridership grows steadily despite socio-economic pressures

Fluctuo’s latest European Shared Mobility Index benchmarks the industry’s performance for Q2 2022 across shared bike, scooter, moped and car services. It shows how European citizens, faced with inflation and rising fuel costs, are increasingly choosing bike share and other shared mobility options to meet their transport needs. Fluctuo’s report provides a quarterly snapshot of the market across 22 cities, selected to highlight diversity in size, geography and market characteristics. Here are some key takeaways from the report:
 

Six takeaways from the European Shared Mobility Index

• Shared mobility grew steadily in Europe during the second quarter of 2022 despite a looming recession. Compared to Q2 2021, ridership is up by 49% and fleet sizes have increased by 40%. Faced with inflation and rising fuel costs, European citizens are increasingly choosing shared mobility; a cheap and flexible option to meet their transport needs.
• Free-floating bikes saw the biggest growth in ridership (185%) thanks to the addition of more than 13,000 bikes to the fleets during the first quarter of 2022. Paris, one of the frontrunning cities, now has over 7,000 free-floating bikes.
• When looking at the share of total ridership per mode, station-based bikes lead with 40%, followed by scooters (35%), mopeds (10%), free-floating bikes (9%) and cars (6%). 
• A growing number of cities want to integrate private suppliers with public transport. During Q2 Milan and Turku were good examples of this. Milan wants to provide a service for users to access various transport options in a single place and Turku integrated its bike share scheme into its broader public transport system. This trend is expected to grow in the future and for shared forms of mobility to increasingly be seen as indispensable parts of the urban infrastructure across Europe.
• Paris, Barcelona and Milan pave the way as the bike share champions of 2022 with the highest number of trips per capita. 
• The world’s first 'tap and ride' ebikes were launched in Helsinki by a partnership between Freebike and Mastercard. Tap and ride allows you to get a bike fast and easy by swiping your credit card; no account or registration is needed. 

CIE’s Bike Share Expert Group is currently working on an EU level bike share strategy. Want to be part of the frontrunners and join the group? Please contact us for more information.