PRESS RELEASE - AN EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FOR SHARING MOBILITY (54 MILLION RIDES)

Covid and mobility: 54 million rides using sharing solutions, a record in 2020.

THE PANDEMIC HAD AN ENORMOUS IMPACT ON THE CHOICES OF ITALIANS ABOUT THE MOBILITY INDUSTRY. IT DETERMINED AN EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF SHARING MOBILITY (54 MILLION RIDES) WITH A GROWTH RATE OF 202% FOR MICROMOBILITY, FAR HIGHER THAN THAT FOR CAR SHARING (48%).

Based on data gathered by Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile and by the main platforms in the industry, GreenVulcano Technologies (www.greenvulcano.com) calculated the aggregated value of micromobility, highlighting the way its growth - compared to carsharing - can impact the future strategically and giving us quantified measures about it.

After a brief, initial drop we recorded during the first lockdown, the health crisis paradoxically brought to a boom of the sharing mobility’s phenomenon, especially for what concerns micromobility: kick scooters (+554%), scooters (+26%) and bikes (+25%) - since these are considered safer than closed vehicles.

These numbers - based on data gathered by Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile and by the main platforms in the industry - come from studies carried out by GreenVulcano (https://www.greenvulcano.com/) a leading company in Europe, regarded as the B2B player behind the curtain of the major smart mobility companies, as well as one of the most active «made-in-Italy hi-tech» research and development labs in the widest sectors.

The average value of the increase in the number of vehicles tells us that micromobility grew +202%.

If we consider the usage of the service - the analysts at GreenVulcano Technologies argue - 2020 will end with a total number of 54 million shared rides: an unthinkable number just a few years ago. However, there is an increasing tendency towards sharing mobility, so much that it pushed the automotive industry to adjust its business model, holding the sharing economy in higher regard.

However, driving licences decreased as well. This is a relevant indicator of how technology and the Internet replaced cars in the newer generations' minds - and often in the older ones too. Today, youngsters prefer to “travel” online always more frequently and - for physical movements - to adopt micromobility solutions, whose increase in the last year has been more than four-fold (+202%) compared to carsharing (+48%).

«Within 2021, the Italian sharing economy - including its 5 macro-areas (collaborative finance, temporary lodging, vehicle sharing, on-demand domestic services and on-demand professional services) - could reach a value of 1.3% of the GDP, that is 25 billion dollars. But the main characters of the industry’s growth are the transport services' sharing platforms which, within 2025, will represent 40% of the whole market value,» as argued by Marco D’Ambrosio, Business Development Manager of GreenVulcano Technologies, which - with more than 100 employees and a 20-year-old experience - introduced sharing economy to companies of every dimension, including leader companies: from Octo Telematics - the famous «Red Cinquecento’s» player - to eDriving, whose mission is to support more than one million drivers in reducing accidents and injuries.

The impact of sharing mobility on the economy will be - from a company’s point of view - 8 million euros: 40% of 25 billion dollars.

«However, from another perspective, the impact on people will be even greater: today, we can already enjoy a 20-minute journey at variable costs - according to the mix of means we choose - between 50 cents and 5.3 euros,» says Claudio Ortenzi, Senior Analyst at GreenVulcano Technologies.

The analysts of the big player behind the curtain of the major smart mobility companies, then, surveyed the current Covid-19 circumstances, which had Italy divided into 3 zones. According to the region - and often also to the assigned color - the citizens' behavior changes, as GreenVulcano Technologies verified.

Hence, Italians turn out to be divided into 3 kinds of behavior - besides being divided into 3 zones: bold, worrisome or balanced.

In some regions in the red zone - or that have been in the red zone for a period - the overwhelming movement limitations triggered the desire to infringe the rules: this is the case of Lombardy, where residents are “bolder” and are not worried to resort to carsharing.

Besides Lombardy, among the regions that GreenVulcano Technologies believes to be “bolder”, we also find Tuscany, Campania, Apulia and Abruzzo.

In Latium, instead, we find more “worrisome” profiles. Although they can choose to resort to car-sharing - and although the vehicle disinfection protocols provide high safety warranties - citizens prefer to avoid car-sharing and prefer open vehicles: scooters, bikes and kick scooters. Among the generally more “worrisome” regions we also have Emilia Romagna, Marche, Liguria and Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The “balanced” profiles, at last, prevail in Umbria, Sicily and Sardinia. In these regions, there is no tendency to scaremongering and people keep living as they always did, without letting their guard down.

«In the other regions, we don’t really find a marked predominant behavior: citizens are equally distributed among the 3 different profiles. The choice here depends more on the individual profile and the environment,» GreenVulcano Technologies’s analysts conclude.