Helsinki-based Aavista provides insights into micromobility through data. The target is to help cities and operators manage the shared bike operations by locating empty and overfilled docks.

Aavista Platform for Future Mobility provides forecasts for the bike availability and insights for planning the operations. The platform for micromobility covers a number of cities around the world. 

1. What are you most excited about for 2021?

Daily commuting routines have changed during the past 12 months because of COVID-19. Longer commutes were replaced by shorter local trips. 

The commuting patterns will return back to the normal as people get vaccinated and the pandemic situation improves. 

Starting this year, employers in Finland can offer their employees a tax-free "company bike": hence, e-bike sales have soared. Tax offering like this is a good way to promote environment-friendly transportation. 

2. What do you see as a major challenge in the cycling industry and how can CIE play a role in overcoming that challenge?

Opening biking data in a standard format is important so that every organization will get access to it. 

Many cities in the United States already require bike operators to share bike data in a standard format as open data. European cities could follow this example even more.

CIE can act as the liaison between EU institutions and European cities to influence and promote opening cycling related data. CIE can also provide guidelines for cities and public mobility providers to adopt the commonly used standards for biking data. 

3. What/who in the cycling industry inspires you?

I admire the great standardization work for shared bikes done by MobilityData.

The GBFS standard for micromobility has been adopted around the world. When comparing other sectors in mobility (buses, trains etc.), shared bike systems are leading the way in adopting mobility standards. 

Cities have considerable influence on enforcing the use of common standards and opening the data. 

4. Describe in 5 words how cycling is saving the world?

Health and the environment benefit from cycling.