More than 350 million Moovit users 

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is the mobility of the future — Global Fleet spoke with Yovav Meydad, Moovit’s Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, a leading MaaS provider and the world’s number 1 urban mobility app to learn more.

Where and when did Moovit start?
Yovav Meydad: “Moovit started about six and a half years ago in Israel, with a mission to simplify people’s experience when using public transportation. Since then, we have evolved and grown into much more, but the vision has remained the same. We always knew we wanted to help citizens who don’t own a car to get from point A to B in their city in the easiest and most convenient way. 

The way to do that was to create a free mobile app that would provide them with accurate information about all the mobility options within their city. Today, Moovit has more than 350 million users around the world. The app is available free of charge on iOS, Android and Web. Moovit provides its service in more than 2,700 cities in 88 countries around the world, and operates in 44 languages, making it truly global. 

In all these cities, users can find in one application all the alternatives to having a private car. It started with traditional public transportation like bus and train, but in recent years more and more types of transportation have entered the cities and into Moovit, for example Uber, Cabify and Gett are ride-hailing companies that we partner with and that we integrated into the Moovit app. Over the years we have also added over 200 shared bicycle systems, and dockless mobility options like bicycles from companies such as Mobike and Donkey Republic, electric-powered scooters from companies like Bird and Wind, mopeds (scooters) from companies like E-Cooltra, shared-cars from companies like Car2Go and DriveNow, and carpooling…the list goes on.

So, today Moovit is a lot more than public transportation, it is shared transportation, short-term transportation, any alternative that a citizen who lives in a city has to a private car — it’s all urban mobility options.” 

Is public transportation still the backbone of the system?

“Most of the new forms of mobility are very helpful to provide a comprehensive first and last mile experience. But the majority of people still use public transportation, and it remains the backbone of the system. 

What we see now is to make drivers leave their personal car at home and choose public transportation instead, the experience must be really clear, convenient and smooth for them, especially the first and last mile. A lot of the time, drivers simply don’t know what their options are. They might know that they have to get into the city, but they don’t know how to make their last mile to get to their final destination. Here is where Moovit comes in — it has the full trip plan that includes real-time information for transit lines arrival times, clear guidance for the first mile, the last mile, the leg in between, as well as public transportation and shared transportation, and even bicycles and scooters.” 

Is this wide mobility offer the core strength of Moovit?

“To consumers, Moovit continues to provide the best urban mobility app today that is no longer exclusively public transportation. That is why we are the number one urban mobility app. It has all the information that consumers need to get from one place to another in the urban space, including ride-hailing, car-sharing, bikes and scooters, even walking directions. 

What we also introduced about a year ago is a set of tools for the cities, governments and transit operators that help them plan and operate better and smarter public transportation and mobility services. These tools rely on a robust mobility analytics engine powered by a massive repository of mobility data that we collect from Moovit’s users. As a matter of fact, everyday Moovit collects over four billion anonymous data points that represent citizens’ mobility patterns in their cities — how, where and when people travel.

That means that today we can help both the citizens, who consume mobility services, as well as the organisations that plan and operate those services. 

What makes Moovit stand out from other MaaS providers? 

“What is very unique about Moovit’s tools is that our solutions are using mobility analytics data that is actually generated from our Moovit app users. By identifying their anonymous travel patterns, the lines they ride, the stops where they transfer and more, we draw a good picture of demand for mobility in a city — how, where and when people travel. 

So, we use mobility analytics in a very modern way to build and optimise the transportation layer in the city. This makes us unique, compared to other players who provide MaaS, because they might provide mobility solutions, but it is not based on analytics, or data. In our case the data component that is coming from the consumer is critical.” 

Do you use these data to adapt and optimise the mobility offer in a city or in the Moovit App?

“We definitely use data to optimise the Moovit app itself, but the main use is how we deliver the data in a meaningful way through our products for a city or transit agency to licence. These tools have the analytics layer, so the city or the transit agency gets insights that help them optimise and make changes. 

Through the reports and the analytics that we provide they can detect optimisation opportunities and then make changes. It could be the frequency of a bus line, or if they see that buses run half empty or are overcrowded, they could add or remove a line. 

The idea is that this layer helps our customers to optimise and adapt the mobility offering in the city.”

Image: Moovit CMO Yovav Meydad.