With the increasing adoption of urban mobility solutions such as e-scooters and last-mile delivery services, access to already scarce public space has become a major challenge for cities.
Mobility data platform raises €1.8M
Now, with an aim to improve collaboration between cities and shared mobility operators, as well as to promote more efficient use of public space, Paris-based mobility data platform, Vianova, has raised €1.8M in its Seed round of funding led by RATP Capital Innovation and Contrarian Ventures.
Use of the funds
The raised capital will help the company to expand its European footprint and target new, adjacent markets.
Vianova claims it will integrate more mobility modes such as carsharing, robot taxis, drones, etc., and develop new use cases within the transport ecosystem, such as new connections to MaaS initiatives.
Initiatives on MaaS are progressing mainly in the EU, including Finland. Such initiatives are characterised by government policy for promoting the use of public transport and linking with private-sector technologies against the background of advances in ICT and IoT.
The Vianova Platform
The company was founded in 2018 by Thibaud Febvre and Thibault Castagne.
According to Vianova, it is building the digital layer between cities and mobility operators to foster collaboration, and jointly facilitate a modal shift toward more sustainable and accessible modes of transport.
The platform helps cities digest mobility data and provides insights on usage patterns, distribution, market evolution, as well as popular riding areas. Thus, cities can better comprehend and integrate new mobility solutions by taking more informed urban planning and transportation policy decisions.
The startup is a third-party data platform, facilitating mobility data sharing between 10 cities and 20 mobility operators across Europe. The company claims that with its API suite and policy knowledge, it helps cities make better, data-driven decisions about transport and urban planning.
Currently, the platform is making over 2 million trips per month, with city partners including Brussels, Helsinki, Zurich, and Stockholm. Besides, Vianova also recently joined, what it claims will become the world’s largest urban logistics and curbside management project, working with the Paris Region.
Other big mobility operators, including Bird, Voi, and Bolt, have also chosen to partner with Vianova to improve the compliance and operational efficiency of their fleets, and to enable new business opportunities.
Thibault Castagne, co-founder & CEO of Vianova, says, “Our city partners now consider data as an essential tool of their governance, and our close collaboration on this subject has led to the development of increasingly advanced use cases. Mobility operators also understand the major role that cities can play in their development and success.”
What can cities do with mobility data?
According to Castagne, the need for good and timely data is the key if city operators are to dynamically react to potential traffic incidents. Notably, qualitative mobility data is critical for cities to be able to:
- manage enforcement of transport regulations in real-time
- identify and enable timely intervention in incidents on the transport networks
- provide advice back to travellers on the real-time status of the network and nudging their transport choices
- measure the effectiveness of the current transport system’s operations and for developing long term transport models and forecasts
- enable penalties or other charges to be allocated to operators as agreed within the city
Image credit: Vianova
