NUMO Alliance launches micromobility data tool for cities

The New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO) has launched Micromobility & Your City: Leveraging Data to Achieve Policy Outcomes, a mobility data tool for cities to evaluate micromobility services against policy goals that foster safe, sustainable and equitable communities for all.

Micromobility services have grown over the last two years and they are known to be available in over 630 cities in at least 55 countries. What remains to be seen, according to NUMO, is how these services are reshaping communities, which often experience the disruptions of new modes and technology without the benefits. 

NUMO argued that data generated by micromobility services can help cities better understand how their communities, public spaces and existing transportation landscapes are being impacted by new technologies and services and where there are gaps in needed service.

“As of right now, most cities only track how shared micromobility services comply with existing regulations, not how they actually contribute to objectives,” said NUMO research lead, Sebastian Castellanos. “Micromobility & Your City represents a significant shift in how cities and micromobility service operators can work together to address transportation systems and mobility needs holistically and proactively.”

NUMO convened a coalition of over 50 experts from city governments, research organisations, mobility service operators and data aggregation platforms to discuss and reach consensus on how to use micromobility data to achieve city goals. The discussions were complemented by a survey of 16 local regulations governing micromobility services and evaluations of seven pilot programmes in Canada, Mexico and the United States to gather the underlying data and use cases comprising Micromobility & Your City.

The platform is said to provide a starting point for cities as they begin to address how micromobility services function within transportation systems, how those systems currently serve communities and how to articulate long-term outcomes and craft data-driven policies around those goals. 

“There is clearly an interaction between cities — their urban form and street networks, the quality and reach of transit, the mix of uses in neighbourhoods — and the utility of micromobility offerings in those cities. This platform can help cities, transit agencies and micromobility operators work together more effectively to meet their mutual goals of increasing affordable, safe, reliable, convenient access while lowering carbon and pollution,” said NUMO Director, Harriet Tregoning.