Citymapper is best known as a public transit app but last year the outfit expanded its horizons by starting a bus service using its own vehicles in London.
But nine months after launch, the company is ditching the effort and switching instead to private hire taxis, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, February 20.
The company was granted an operating license this week just as Uber announced changes to its own service as it battles to retain its license in the U.K.’s biggest city.
Details of Citymapper’s entry into ridesharing are yet to be unveiled but are expected soon. The company has just posted two of three articles reflecting on its bus-based efforts, while the third post is expected to detail its next initiative, including the type of transportation service it’s aiming at, the scale of that service, and a launch date.
Citymapper invested a lot of time, effort, and money in its night-time bus service, creating a special app, tracking software, scheduling systems, and a bus kitted out with USB ports and smart displays. It tried to make the ride fun for passengers, pumping pop music through speakers and creating personal “busmojis” that alerted riders via the displays to their approaching stop.
In the first of its three blog posts on February 20, the company said it had managed to run its service “at a fraction of the cost of what traditional bus systems do,” but that regulatory hurdles specific to the bus industry meant it was too hard to develop its service in the way that it wanted.
So it’s turning to private hire vehicles.
“Carry 9+ people in London and you’re a bus and have to follow strict regulations on fixed routes, schedules, and service frequency,” the company noted in its second post. “Carry 8 people or fewer, and you’re a private hire vehicle that can go wherever you want, however you want, how often you want.”
It added: “As a result, a private hire vehicle can respond to demand, a bus cannot. That makes it hard for a bus, even a smart green minibus, to be part of the ‘demand-responsive’ future.”
Now we’re waiting to what details it offers up in post number three …
Taking on Uber
Regulator Transport for London (TfL) refused to grant a new license for Uber when it came up for renewal in September, 2017, citing a number of problems, including its approach to reporting serious criminal offenses to the police.
The ridesharing company can continue to operate until its appeal is heard in the spring, and this week it announced changes to its service that it says improves safety for both riders and drivers.
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