TOP STORIES 🔥

👋 Barcelona Says Adéu to Dockless Bikes

A fragmented system that never really worked

Private dockless bike-sharing arrived in Barcelona in 2019, when the city issued its first licences to commercial operators. By 2026, the scheme had grown to around 3,500 bikes spread across seven operators: RideMovi, Bolt, Bird, Voi, Lime, Cooltra, and Donkey Republic. The model appeared competitive on paper. In reality, it fragmented supply, diluted accountability, and created a poor user experience. Riders had to navigate multiple apps, pricing structures, and service areas, while operators struggled to achieve meaningful scale: the average fleet amounted to just 500 vehicles per operator is too small to guarantee consistent availability, operational efficiency, or strong local brand recognition.

Despite the presence of multiple competitors, the market never developed into a coherent mobility system. Instead, it became one of the most visible symbols of Barcelona's growing tensions around tourism and public space.

The history is telling. Bicing, the city's public station-based bike-share scheme launched in 2007, has always been deliberately exclusive: restricted to residents with a Spanish ID, priced through annual subscriptions, and designed as a daily transport tool rather than a visitor amenity. Today, it operates more than 7,000 bikes across 500 stations and is fully integrated into the local Smou MaaS platform. The private dockless system was its mirror image — open to anyone, payable by the ride, and immediately accessible to visitors. In theory, the two systems could coexist. In practice, Mayor Jaume Collboni has repeatedly noted that free-floating bikes are used "mainly by tourists," drawing a clear distinction between mobility infrastructure designed for residents and mobility services consumed primarily by visitors.

More than 5,000 sanctions in six months

The announcement came on 4 June 2026. Mayor Collboni confirmed that Barcelona would not renew the private bike-share licences when they expire on 1 January 2027. The justification was unusually direct: more than 5,000 sanctions issued in just six months, repeated crane interventions to remove improperly parked bikes, and a city administration that had simply run out of patience with operators accumulating complaints faster than they could resolve them.

Yet the issue was not merely one of compliance. It was also a consequence of market structure.

The seven-operator model was always structurally problematic. The December 2025 licence renewal had already exposed integration failures, with Lime and Voi both facing difficulties connecting to the city's tracking platform. Seven operators means seven geofencing systems, seven enforcement cultures, seven pricing logics — and no single point of accountability when bikes block a pavement outside a primary school in the Eixample or pile up at the entrance to the Barceloneta beach.

The seven-operator model diffused responsibility across the system. When residents complained about blocked pavements, bikes abandoned outside schools, or clusters of vehicles accumulating near tourist hotspots, no single operator controlled enough market share to be held accountable for the overall user experience. Collective performance mattered politically, but responsibility remained individual. The December 2025 licence renewal process had already exposed some of these integration challenges, with operators such as Lime and Voi reportedly encountering difficulties connecting to the city's tracking platform. Seven operators meant seven geofencing systems, seven enforcement cultures, seven operational approaches, and ultimately no clear owner of the public-space experience.

From the city's perspective, fragmentation had become a governance problem.

The tourist-resident front line

Barcelona's decision cannot be understood outside the context of its broader anti-overtourism agenda. Over the past decade, the city has become one of Europe's most vocal advocates of managing visitor flows, introducing restrictions on tourist apartments, limiting cruise ship activity, and seeking to reduce the pressure tourism places on public space and local services. Within that political environment, dockless bike-sharing increasingly came to be viewed less as mobility infrastructure and more as a visitor-oriented service.

The contrast with Bicing is both deliberate and politically legible. Bicing was designed as urban mobility infrastructure. Dockless bike-share evolved into a visitor mobility service. The distinction became increasingly important in a city where tourism itself had become a political issue. Removing private bike-share is therefore about more than parking compliance. It is also a statement about whose city Barcelona is, and who its transport infrastructure is designed to serve.

What fills the gap?

The city has already confirmed plans to expand the electric Bicing fleet to compensate for the removal of private operators. The next logical step is likely to be a further expansion of AMBici, the metropolitan bike-share network currently rolling out across the Barcelona metropolitan area. Unlike private dockless services, AMBici is integrated with public transport, priced primarily for commuters, and governed by public authorities rather than commercial operators.

Barcelona is not abandoning cycling. It is replacing a fragmented private model with a more integrated public one. Whether this leaves visitors without a convenient cycling option — and whether that matters to a city that has made reducing tourism pressure an explicit policy objective — is a question Collboni appears comfortable answering.

A special case, not necessarily a template

For the European micromobility industry, Barcelona remains a special case, and the temptation to treat its decision as a broader policy template should be resisted. Few European cities combine such intense political scrutiny of tourism with such a clear distinction between resident-focused and visitor-focused mobility services. The decision to remove private bike-share is therefore as much about managing tourism as it is about regulating shared mobility. Most cities that have restricted or removed shared mobility services have done so because of safety concerns, pavement clutter or operator non-compliance. Barcelona is doing it, at least in part, because it has concluded that a service used primarily by visitors no longer aligns with its broader political objectives.

The lesson for other cities is not that private bike-sharing cannot work. Nor is it that public systems are inherently superior. Rather, Barcelona illustrates how scale, accountability, integration, and political legitimacy matter as much as fleet size. The city's decision is best understood not as a rejection of bike-sharing, but as a rejection of a fragmented governance model that failed to align commercial incentives with public objectives.

 🏡 Why a Czech City Is Taking Bike-Share In-House

On 1 July 2026, České Budějovice will become leading city in the Czech Republic, operating a bike-share service through its own public transport company. The launch of CBKolo is polticial choice to bring bike-share under municipal control rather than leave it to the market.

On 1 July 2026, České Budějovice (100,000 inh.) will become one of the first cities in the Czech Republic to operate bike-share directly through its public transport company. The launch of CBKolo marks more than the arrival of a new service: it reflects a political decision to bring shared cycling under municipal control rather than leave it to the market.

As cities across Europe continue to debate how best to regulate shared mobility operators, České Budějovice has chosen a different path. Instead of tendering a concession to a private company, it has decided to run the system itself.

From Rekola to CBKolo

The decision brings an end to an eleven-year chapter in the city's bike-share history. Rekola first launched its distinctive pink bikes in České Budějovice in September 2015 at the initiative of local residents, operating as a private free-floating service with no formal integration into the public transport network. Over the following decade, it became a familiar part of the local mobility landscape and one of the longest-running bike-share services in the country.

Yet when the city began planning the next phase of shared cycling, it chose not to launch a tender for a replacement operator. According to Jan Střecha from Rekola, the company argued in favour of maintaining a competitive market-based model: "Despite recommendations from us and competitors, the city decided it preferred to have the whole service in its own hands." Rekola's bikes will be progressively withdrawn throughout July as CBKolo takes over.

The decision reflects a broader shift in how local authorities increasingly view bike-share. Rather than treating it as a standalone mobility product, České Budějovice sees it as an extension of its public transport system.

Here comes CBKolo

CBKolo will launch with 200 bikes distributed across 170 designated parking locations, with plans to double the fleet to 400 bikes by autumn. The startup investment amounts to approximately €620,000, covering bicycles supplied by Olpran and EEZEE Mobility as well as the digital platform needed to operate the service.

Unlike many privately operated schemes that rely on revenue generation as a primary objective, CBKolo is being designed as transport infrastructure. That philosophy is most visible in the pricing structure. Public transport season-ticket holders will receive four free 30-minute rides per day — enough to cover a typical home-to-station and station-to-work commute. Users without a transit subscription will pay €0.80 for the first 30 minutes and €0.04 for every additional minute.

The pricing model effectively transforms bike-share into a feeder service for public transport rather than a standalone commercial product. The goal is not necessarily to maximise bike-share revenue, but to encourage multimodal travel and reduce car dependency.

More Than a Bike-Share Launch

CBKolo's launch is ultimately a political statement about the role of bike-share in urban mobility. The service is being presented as an extension of the city's bus and trolleybus network rather than as an independent offering. It will also be integrated into the new regional transport system launching on the same date, with ambitions to expand into surrounding commuter municipalities.

That level of integration stands in contrast to the model that has dominated European bike-sharing over the past decade, where cities typically regulate private operators rather than operate services themselves. For České Budějovice, however, the logic is straightforward. If shared cycling is considered part of the public transport network, then it should be planned, managed and integrated in the same way as buses or trams.

Whether other cities follow suit remains to be seen. Much will depend on whether they view bike-share primarily as a market service or as public transport infrastructure. České Budějovice has made its choice clear. The debate is no longer how to regulate bike-share operators, but whether bike-share should be operated by the public sector at all.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Bolt
Launch in Düsseldorf (DE) 🚲

CB Bike
Launch in České Budějovice (CZ) 🚲 (200)

Hoppy
Expansion in …

You’re missing out on 9 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

Bit Mobility
Exit from Lecce (IT) 🛴&🚲

You’re missing out on 1 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

🟢 Open

Gap (FR) | 🛴&🚲
◾️Single operator for bikes and scooters
◾️150 scooters and 50 bikes expected
◾️One-year licence, can be extended 4 times for one year

Mislata (ES) | 🚲
◾️Public bike-share tender pubished to renew the existing nextbike service
◾️Expansion with more stations and ebikes

🟠 Expected & Rumoured

Tarragona (ES) | 🛴&🚲
◾️Dott licence expires in September 2026
◾️City explores option to extend or retender
◾️Service should evolve to a Metropolitan one

🔴 Closed

Lecce (IT) | 🛴&🚲
◾️3-year licence awarded to RideMovi
◾️Service will include bikes, ebikes and scooters

You’re missing out on 4 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Barcelona (ES) | The City Council decides not to renew its private bike-share licences when it expires on Dec 31st 2026.

Bologna (IT) | Council opposition wants to suspend the ongoing bike-share tender to open it to multiple operators.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 6 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Beryl and Voltraware have showcased a wireless charging station at Micromobility Europe.

CoMoUK publishes its Annual Shared Micromobility Report 2025 for the UK.

Donkey Republic partners with public transport operator tpg to improve user experience in Geneva (CH).

In Ukraine, ride-hailing company Uklon acquires scooter operator E-wings.

MaaS platform umob is now available in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich (DE).

European Cycling Industries next webinar will discuss the Future of Bike-Sharing in Europe.

TOP STORIES 🔥

🔵 Dott Connects the Dots in Padua

In July 2025, the City of Padua published the results of its competitive tender for shared micromobility services — and Dott came out on top with a perfect score of 100, ahead of RideMovi, Bit Mobility, and Lime. The service, which has been in operation since May 2026, covers not only the city of Padua but also eleven municipalities within the Co.Me.Pa. metropolitan area. It represents one of the most extensive shared mobility service areas awarded in northern Italy.

The previous service was operated by RideMovi, which had been running a fleet of 700 standard bikes and 50 e-bikes in a purely free-floating model. The new scheme differs significantly in both scale and scope.

Italy's first fully multimodal shared fleet

"Padua represents a particularly important project for Dott, because here we are introducing for the first time in Italy a fully multimodal fleet, composed of electric scooters, e-bikes and standard bikes," said Vittorio Gattari, Dott's Director of Public Relations. The fleet also includes cargo bikes and hand cycles — making Padua's new service one of the most diverse shared mobility offers currently operating in Italy, with a strong emphasis on accessibility and inclusion.

The rationale behind the single-operator approach

Padua's approach is based on a clear assumption: multimodal shared mobility works best when a single operator is accountable for the entire offer. Fragmented permit systems — where Operator A runs scooters, Operator B runs bikes, and Operator C runs e-bikes — can generate coordination challenges that undermine both user experience and operational consistency. Different apps, different pricing logic, different enforcement cultures. Padua prioritised network integration over a multi-operator structure, awarding the full package to one operator on the basis of quality, not price alone.

Gattari explains: "The contract allows us to finally make our bikes available to Paduans, contributing to a much more extensive and integrated service, where shared mobility can become a real alternative to the private car for daily journeys."

The metropolitan extension to eleven Co.Me.Pa. municipalities is equally significant. Most shared micromobility contracts stop at the city boundary. Padua has built a scheme that reflects how people actually live and travel rather than where the administrative perimeter ends.

Some indicators to watch for

The key indicators to monitor will be vehicle utilisation across all modes, the uptake of cargo bikes, and whether the metropolitan extension delivers meaningful ridership outside the Padua city centre. If it does, this becomes a replicable model for mid-sized Italian cities with university populations, strong cycling cultures, and fragmented suburban commuter flows.

Several are already watching closely. Bologna, which has been discussing a multimodal shared mobility framework for two years without concluding a tender, may be the next city to adopt a similar approach. The question is whether the political will exists to commit to a single operator across all modes — and whether competing operators can assemble a similarly comprehensive proposal.

🦒 Longtail, Short Commute

Launched in July 2024 with 105 electric bikes, Cap Cotentin’s service has expanded to 430 bikes across 36 stations in Cherbourg (FR) and surrounding cities to meet growing demand. Monthly trips on the network rose from 2,000 to 10,000 between 2024 and 2025, with projections pointing to 300,000 trips in 2026. For an urban area of 180,000 residents, the figures suggest a significant change in travel behaviour.

City officials repeatedly observed users carrying passengers on the rear of shared e-bikes. The practice became common enough for the local authority to design a service around it.

Cherbourg has now deployed France’s first fleet of docked shared electric longtail bikes, comprising 15 vehicles. Built by Douze Cycles — France’s leading cargo bike manufacturer — the model allows to carry a passenger, a child, or cargo loads, while remaining fully integrated into the existing station network. The target audience consists of users whose mobility needs are not fully met by a standard shared e-bike: families with young children, residents making utility trips, people for whom a two-wheeler only works if it carries more than just them.

The key innovation lies in integrating the vehicle into a docked shared mobility system. Ecovélo adapted its existing charging and locking infrastructure to accommodate the Douze Cycles LT model. The vehicle itself was modified for shared use, with a reinforced frame, a rigid fork, and a motor configuration designed to withstand intensive daily operation.

Rather than restrict an informal practice, Cap Cotentin chose to accommodate it. A small but telling shift in how public authorities approach shared mobility — and one that may offer lessons for other cities.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Donkey Republic
Launch in Oulu (FI) 🚲 (100)

Ecovélo
Expansion in Cherbourg (FR) 🚲 (+15 longtail cargobikes)

Forest
Expansion in …

You’re missing out on 8 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

🟠 Expected & Rumoured

Teruel (ES) | 🚲
◾️Plans for a pilot service with 50 bikes
◾️Investment budget of €365,000

Opole (PL) | 🚲
◾️Tender expected, for a launch in November 2028
◾️Station-less system with 100 bikes and 100 ebikes

🔴 Closed

Asker & Baerum (NO) | 🛴&🚲
◾️Voi and Ryde win 2-year licences
◾️4,400 scooters & 320 bikes

Frankfurt (DE) | 🛴
◾️Voi confirmed among the 3 selected operators
◾️Total fleet of 10,500 scooters
◾️New licences start on July 1st

Stockholm (SE) | 🛴
◾️Voi and Bolt selected, Lime to exit
◾️Each company to operate 6,000 scooters under a 2-year contract

You’re missing out on 5 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Chemnitz (DE) | Dedicated parking zones will be implemented for shared scooters.

Lisbon (PT) | The city joins Bolt’s Sustainable Urban Transition Lab.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 3 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Dott reports €28.4m revenue for Q1 2026.

Ecovélo inaugurates its first charging station in Troyes (FR).

nextbike suffers from vandalism in Iulia Alba (RO).

OKAI unveils three new micromobility vehicles, and a compatible charging station.

Goldman Sachs Alternatives becomes the lead investor in a new Equip Capital-managed fund, which acquires a majority stake in Ryde Technology.

hop renews its scooter fleets across Turkey (TR), starting with Istanbul and Izmir.

TOP STORIES 🔥

🚲 Dublin Is Taking Back Its Bikes

DublinBikes launched in September 2009 with 450 bicycles and 40 stations, under a deal granting JCDecaux exclusive rights to 72 advertising panels across the city: outdoor advertising in exchange for urban cycling infrastructure, with no upfront public funding required. At launch, critics questioned whether the agreement represented value for money and whether the terms were sufficiently transparent. The scepticism was understandable. In France, Lyon had been the only city to secure especially favourable terms before JCDecaux renegotiated similar contracts elsewhere.

Despite those concerns, the scheme was an immediate success. It expanded to 1,600 bikes across 118 stations, attracted a succession of major commercial sponsors — Coca-Cola, Just Eat, Now TV, RedClick — and became one of the most recognisable features of Dublin’s transport network. In 2021, half the fleet was converted to hybrid e-bikes. At its peak, the scheme counted 42,000 annual subscribers.

But the numbers told a more complicated story. DublinBikes has never turned a profit, operating at a deficit throughout its 17-year existence. Subscriptions fell sharply during the pandemic and never fully recovered. The scheme stopped expanding in 2017, leaving large parts of the city — particularly working-class suburbs — without access. As independent councillor Mannix Flynn put it bluntly, cycling investment had failed to reach many communities: “It beggars belief that we still haven't expanded this scheme. You cannot go into a block of flats anywhere in Dublin and see cycling infrastructure.”

The arrival of dockless bikes

Into this increasingly static landscape came the dockless operators. Bleeper — Ireland’s first dockless bike-share scheme, launched in 2017 — built a fleet of around 800 bikes under a city licence capped at 1,000 vehicles. Moby followed with a mixed fleet of pedal bikes and e-bikes, later expanding to 1,500 vehicles after partnering with Free Now in 2024. Between them, Bleeper and Moby now cover areas of Dublin that DublinBikes never reached: suburban neighbourhoods, university districts and riverside routes.

The contrast with DublinBikes became increasingly stark. A tourist arriving in Dublin could unlock a Moby e-bike in a dozen neighbourhoods but still fail to find a DublinBikes station within walking distance of their hotel. The station-based system had hardened into exactly the kind of centrally concentrated, subscription-based service with limited geographic reach that dockless models were designed to disrupt.

Dublin takes back control

The JCDecaux contract expires in September 2027. Rather than extending the arrangement, renewing it, or leaving the market entirely to private operators, Dublin City Council has announced that under the new scheme it will own the stations and potentially the bike fleet itself, while operations and maintenance will be tendered separately.

The scale of the ambition is significant. The council intends to deploy around 4,000 bikes — a combination of conventional bicycles and e-bikes — across the entire city. That would more than double the current DublinBikes fleet while finally extending coverage to the working-class communities that councillors have argued were excluded from the scheme from the beginning.

The open questions

How will a 4,000-bike system be funded without the advertising revenues that made the JCDecaux model viable in the first place? Will the new system remain fully station-based, or incorporate virtual hubs to reduce civil engineering costs? What happens to Bleeper and Moby — will they continue operating alongside the new public scheme, or will the council seek some form of integration or consolidation?

The council has not yet answered those questions. What it has answered, however, is the political question: Dublin is not going to follow the path taken by cities such as Nantes or Stockholm, quietly allowing public bike-share contracts to expire and leaving the market to private operators. Instead, it is moving in the opposite direction — taking ownership, expanding coverage, and building infrastructure under long-term public control.

👋 And Now Neuron Waves Goodbye to the UK…

On 31 May 2026, Neuron's orange e-scooters will disappear from Newcastle's streets. Not because the scheme failed locally — it covered 1.6 million trips — but because Neuron has decided to wind down its entire UK operation. Newcastle was the last city where the operator still ran a service. It is now gone from the country entirely.

The Newcastle trial had been one of the longest-running in the UK. Launched in February 2021, it had been extended no fewer than four times, most recently to May 2026 after the council demanded Neuron demonstrate tighter operational controls following councillor concerns about pavement riding, inconsiderate parking, and underage use. The company's UK head Mehmet Can Isiklarli acknowledged it was a "difficult decision," but framed it plainly: it is part of a broader strategic choice to exit the UK market.

The timing is pointed: Neuron's exit comes just weeks after Voi's public warning that it too could abandon the UK unless permanent legislation appears at the next King's Speech. Both companies are saying the same thing in different ways: the UK's framework is not worth investing in. Neuron made that call quietly. Voi is still making noise. The underlying logic is identical.

As the King's Speech delivered in May 2026 contained no e-scooter legislation, what's left of the UK shared e-scooter market is increasingly concentrated in the hands of operators with the balance sheet to absorb continued uncertainty: Lime, Bolt, Voi in its remaining cities. Smaller or more focused operators such as Neuron have made rational calculations that the UK isn't worth the wait. If Voi follows, the sector doesn't thin out. It effectively ends outside London.

The data Neuron collected in Newcastle will, as the council noted, "provide the government with some useful information" for any future legalisation process. It is cold comfort for a city that now has no shared e-scooter service, and for an industry that has been asked to prove its value on a one-year temporary basis for half a decade.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

EasyBike
Launch in Elassona (GR) 🚲

Guppy
Launch in Asturias Region (ES) 🚗

Hoppy
Launch in …

You’re missing out on 9 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

Neuron
Exit from Newcastle (GB) 🛴

You’re missing out on 1 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

🔴 Closed

Frankfurt (DE) | 🛴
◾️Bolt confirmed among the 3 selected operators
◾️Total fleet of 10,500 scooters
◾️New licences start on July 1st

You’re missing out on 1 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Athens (GR) | A new regulatory framework has been adopted for scooters, including rules dedicated to shared usage.

Dublin (IE) | The City Council wants to replace DublinBikes with a 4,000-bicycle system that it owns.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 7 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Belfast Bikes records its monthly ridership record since 2024.

Beryl hits a major milestone in Brighton and Hove (GB) with 1 million rides.

CoMoUK released its 2025 Car Club Report.

nextbike upgrades its MeinSiggi fleet in Bielefeld (DE) after contract renewal.

Voi offers free rides to riders using Klarna as mode of payment in Sweden (SE) and Germany (DE).

Zeus has swapped some of its Felkensee (DE) scooter fleet for Superpedestrian models.

nextbike partners with grocery brand EDEKA, and rebrands its fleet in Berlin (DE).

TOP STORIES 🔥

🚲 A Bet on Bikes in the World's Cycling Capital

Copenhagen’s modern history with shared micromobility starts with Bycyklen. Launched in 2012 with e-bikes, docking stations, and touchscreen interfaces, it was genuinely innovative. It was also costly to develop, struggled with lower-than-expected demand, and eventually went bankrupt, leaving the city without a public bike-share system. The gap was filled by private operators. Donkey Republic, founded in Copenhagen in 2014, became the city's main bike-sharing provider after winning 2,075 of the 3,200 available city permits — a local company filling a void left by a failed public investment.

On the scooter side, Copenhagen was briefly a major market. Voi launched there in 2019 and described the city as one of its largest globally between 2019 and 2021, with millions of rides completed each year. Then the city tightened its grip: parking restrictions swept across large parts of the centre, limiting where scooters could be left and effectively making free-floating operations unviable. Voi exited at the end of 2023. Other operators followed or scaled back. Copenhagen had made its position clear: shared mobility was welcome, but on the city's terms, not the operator's.

A strategic return

The come back to Copenhagen in May 2026 is a different proposition. Rather than e-scooters, Voi arrives with up to 4,500 shared e-bikes — the largest private dockless e-bike deployment in the Danish capital to date. The move is deliberate. Unlike scooters, e-bikes fit naturally within Copenhagen’s deeply rooted cycling culture. They require far less political capital to justify and operate within a regulatory framework that, while still demanding, is considerably less contentious than the scooter rules that ultimately pushed Voi out of the city.

Øystein Rikheim Sundelin, Voi's Senior Policy Manager, framed the return in terms of fit rather than conquest: "Copenhagen is one of the world's great cycling cities which is exactly why we believe shared e-bikes fit in so naturally here. They give both residents and visitors an easy and flexible option for getting around the city and work well alongside both private bikes and public transport." On the lessons from the scooter exit, he was equally measured, stressing the need for "practical dialogue" between operators and cities — language that reads, between the lines, as an acknowledgement that Voi's first stint in Copenhagen ended on terms it hadn't fully anticipated.

The company has not abandoned scooters entirely. Sundelin confirmed that Voi aims to eventually bring e-scooters back to Copenhagen, but only "depending on the city's regulatory framework" — a cautious framing that suggests no imminent moves.

The real question: what's the market?

Here's the paradox any operator entering Copenhagen must grapple with. This is a city where 62% of residents commute by bike daily, 9 out of 10 Copenhageners own a bicycle, and private cycling generates around 408 million journeys a year. It has invested over €170 million in cycling infrastructure over the past decade. In most European cities, shared bikes fill the gap for people who don't own one, in Copenhagen, almost everyone already does.

The track record is sobering. Bycyklen — the city's publicly subsidised e-bike scheme launched in 2014 as a "fourth component of public transportation" — grew from 169,000 rides in 2015 to 933,000 by 2016, sustained by €1.10 million in annual public funding. It wasn't enough. Its bike importer went bankrupt in 2017, the system was restructured, and Bycyklen itself filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2022. Even a well-funded, purpose-built e-bike system couldn't generate sustainable ridership in a city where cycling is already the default.

The gap was filled by Donkey Republic, now operating alongside Dott. Neither dominates. The market exists — tourists, residents between bikes, longer cross-town trips where e-assist matters — but it is structurally narrower than anywhere else in Europe.

That's the niche Voi's 4,500 e-bikes are targeting. It is not the daily commuter, it is the occasional user, the visitor or the tourist. Whether that market is large enough to justify the investment is the question Voi's Copenhagen comeback will eventually answer.

🧐 Key Insights from the 2025 European Shared Mobility Index

Public bike ridership reaches 239 million trips :

🥇 Paris: Vélib' recorded 48.5 million trips, keep its crown as Europe's largest bike-sharing system by some distance.

📈 BiciMAD surged to 13.75 million trips in its first full year after expansion

🇬🇧 London: Santander Cycles recorded just 9 million trips, but TfL awarded Lyft Urban Solutions and Serco a new £220 million contract to expand the service - watch this space.

Learn more about public bike-share and other modes reading our 2025 European Shared Mobility Index 👇

🔒 Cooltra Goes Docked

Ontinyent's electric bike-share scheme Ontibici is relaunching today — and the story is less about the city than about the operator running it. Cooltra, best known for free-floating moped-sharing across Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, and Paris, is taking over the Ontibici service with a station-based model. Sixty e-bikes, docking infrastructure, subscription-based access. It is a rare thing in 2026: a genuine new dock-based system, launched by an operator whose entire DNA was free-floating.

The context matters. Ontibici's previous concession was awarded to Movus, who declined to cover the gap with the second contract, leaving the city without a functioning bike-share for 6 months. Cooltra stepped in with the new concession, a modernised fleet, and a model that looks nothing like its core business: 57 bikes accross 8 physical and 19 virtual stations, allocated to subscribed residents, annual passes at €15 with the first 30 minutes free, monthly passes at €5.

A consortium built on specialisation

The technology stack behind Ontibici is a deliberate choice. Cooltra assembled a three-partner consortium — OEMbikes for hardware, Noval for station infrastructure, Urban Sharing for the software platform — rather than turning to a single integrated provider. Camille Loth, Cooltra's B2G Manager, explains the logic: "What seemed particularly interesting to us was working with actors specialised in each of the three main components of a bike-share system — the bike, the station, and the software — each with very solid references at their level, rather than a single company offering all three."

The decision to use Urban Sharing's white-label platform rather than Cooltra's own free-floating software was equally deliberate. "The expectations of public bike-share are different," Loth notes, "and since we're talking about white-label solutions, it seemed quite natural to work with a specialist like Urban Sharing." The three partners have already worked together previously, which matters: the integration complexity of combining three separate systems is real, but the consortium arrives at Ontinyent with a solution that has already been road-tested.

Beyond opportunism: a medium-term B2G strategy

Cooltra has been building toward this for longer than Ontinyent might suggest. Loth joined the company at the end of 2022 with a specific mandate to develop the public bike-share segment. "This goes well beyond a simple opportunity," he says. "This launch is part of a medium-term strategy that is simply beginning to bear fruit."

The group's existing footprint — 15,000 free-floating vehicles across 20 European cities in 7 countries, covering scooters and bikes from per-minute rental to monthly subscriptions, for private users, businesses, and local authorities — is the platform on which the B2G offer is being built. "The public bike-share market is a natural continuation for the group, very complementary and connected to existing B2C and B2B activities," Loth explains. The local operational synergies are the core argument: a Cooltra city team already managing a free-floating fleet can absorb a public bike-share contract without duplicating infrastructure.

Earlier in 2026, Cooltra launched what Loth describes as "the first fully public long-term rental service in the Spanish market" in Manresa — powered in part by Kleta, the subscription cycling company Cooltra recently acquired. Ontinyent follows with a different model but the same strategic logic: expanding the group's public sector footprint city by city, in Spain first, then across the other European markets where Cooltra already operates.

The demand baseline in Ontinyent justifies the bet. In the first quarter of 2024, the service recorded an average of 3,679 monthly uses — around 120 trips per day — for a city of 35,000 inhabitants. Modest in absolute terms, but a meaningful utilisation rate for a small Spanish municipality, and enough to make the case for a properly operated service.

Station-based systems have been retreating across Europe for years, gradually giving way to virtual hubs and free-floating models. The trend has been unmistakable: fewer docks, more app-based flexibility, and less reliance on heavy civil infrastructure. Ontinyent is a small but deliberate counterpoint. And Cooltra is making the argument that docks still have a place where density is low and predictability matters more than flexibility. For a company that built its reputation on the freedom to park anywhere, that's a meaningful shift.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Cooltra
Launch in Ontinyent (ES) 🚲 (60)

Dott
Expansion in West of England (GB) 🚲&🛴
Launch in …

You’re missing out on 9 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

nextbike
Exit from Olomouc (CZ) 🚲

EasyBike
Exit from Nea Smyrni (GR) 🚲

You’re missing out on 2 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Antwerpen (BE) | A local hospital wants to ban shared electric scooters at night.

Askøy (NO) | New fleet cap at 250 vehicles has been adopted for shared scooters.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 6 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Bolt explores helmet rental solutions to answer mandatory helmet law for scooter riders in Latvia (LV).

Dégage! celebrates 400th car available in its Ghent network, and plans to reach 1,000 by 2030.

Dott expands in the West of England, and introduces new pricing plans.

Rekola is suffering from high vandalism rates in Most (CZ).

Voi opens a new Voi House in Paris (FR).

Bike subscription service leader Swapfiets acquires its competitor Dance.

TOP STORIES 🔥

🍋 Lime Goes Public

Wayne Ting, Lime's CEO, has been talking about an IPO since at least 2020. On 8 May 2026, it finally happened: Lime's parent company Neutron Holdings filed its S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, planning to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker LIME. The valuation target is around $2 billion.

Lime's nine-year journey

Founded in 2017 by Brad Bao and Toby Sun, Lime rapidly expanded into more than 100 cities within just a few years. In 2020, Lime suspended operations across nearly two dozen countries during the pandemic, cut staff, but raised a $170 million lifeline led by Uber — a deal that gave the ride-hailing giant a stake of more than 10% and an integration that now channels 14% of Lime's total revenue through the Uber app.

Revenue grew from $686 million in 2024 to $886 million in 2025 — up 29% year-on-year. Free cash flow hit $104 million in 2025, nearly double the prior year, and Lime has been cash-flow positive for three consecutive years. The company now operates in approximately 230 cities across 29 countries, with an average fleet of over 325,000 vehicles and more than one billion cumulative rides since founding.

Why now… and why it's a gamble

The S-1 contains a sentence that every investor will have read twice: Lime "does not have sufficient liquidity" to meet its current obligations. The company carries approximately $1 billion in current liabilities, with $675 million due by end of 2026 and $846 million due within 12 months. As of 31 March 2026, it held $261 million in cash. The numbers are clear : Lime needs this IPO. Without it, or a restructuring of its debt, the company has explicitly warned of “substantial doubt” regarding its ability to continue operating as a going concern.

This is not primarily a growth move but a refinancing mechanism with a stock market wrapper. That doesn't make it uninvestable — the revenue trajectory and positive free cash flow are genuine — but it does mean Lime enters public markets from structural pressure, not confidence. As IPOX analyst Lukas Muehlbauer observed: "the main caveat is that the company remains loss-making and investors will look closely at whether they can turn strong revenue numbers into more consistent profitability." Net losses, having narrowed to $33 million in 2024, widened again to $59 million in 2025.

The London problem hiding in plain sight

Buried in the S-1 risk factors is a detail that will have jumped out at European micromobility observers : the UK accounted for 22.2% of Lime's total revenue in 2025 — by far its largest single national market. Given that London generates the vast majority of UK rides, this means that nearly 20% of Lime’s total revenue comes from a single city.

That concentration is a double-edged sword. London is Europe's largest private dockless bike market, and Lime dominates it alongside Forest. The Uber app integration amplifies this.

But London is currently navigating a major regulatory transition: the English Devolution Act, passed 29 April 2026, grants TfL a London-wide licensing power over dockless micromobility for the first time. What that framework will look like in practice — fleet caps, pricing requirements, parking standards, operator fees — is still being designed. Lime will therefore fight to keep its licence in a market where rules are likely to change and affect the company's revenue, while TfL now knows how dependent Lime is. That is not a comfortable negotiating position.

Add the ongoing UK e-scooter legislative uncertainty and the regulatory picture in Lime's most important market is the most complex it has ever been.

What this means for the sector

A publicly listed Lime changes competitive dynamics for everyone. Quarterly filings will expose fleet economics, city-level performance, and regulatory risk in ways that private funding never required. Bolt, Dott, Voi, and Forest will read every disclosure. So will the cities negotiating contracts with Lime.

Interestingly, one rumour circulated last week that Uber was in discussions to acquire Voi in a deal valued at around $1.2 billion. Voi CEO Fredrik Hjelm moved quickly to shut it down. "Not true," he posted on LinkedIn. "Voi has not agreed to sell to Uber." Whatever the origin and goal of this destabilisation attempt, it is a measure of how much consolidation speculation surrounds this sector right now.

Lime’s IPO marks the opening move in what could become a major phase of structural maturation for the shared mobility industry. The green scooters are finally heading to Wall Street — and how Wall Street responds may well define the sector’s next chapter.

🧐 Download the 2025 Fluctuo Index for Free

Following our launch webinar, we have released the latest European Shared Mobility Index, supported by Lyft Urban Solutions, Eco-Counter, EIT Urban Mobility & the POLIS Network.

Seven years in, fluctuo's 2025 European Shared Mobility Index delivers a clear verdict: the era of chaotic expansion is over. What's left is leaner, more disciplined, and in most markets, more financially sustainable.

Scooters tell the story best. Fleets down 22% from their 2023 peak… but trips up 21% to a record 312 million. Trips per vehicle per day broke 2 for the first time ever. Spain has made its exit — Málaga and Seville banned scooters, following Madrid — and Italy's mandatory helmet law hit ridership hard (-28%). Against that, Oslo doubled its fleet and saw ridership up 100%. Berlin holds at 22 million trips. The market is smaller, and finally more efficient.

Bikes are the growth story. Public systems held at 238 million trips. Private dockless ridership surged 68% to 138 million — closing the gap fast. Paris reset its market with four-year contracts for Dott, Lime, and Voi. Madrid's BiciMAD hit 13.75 million trips on the back of €20 million in public funding. London remains Europe's largest private dockless market.

Download the full European Shared Mobility Index 2025 to access exclusive data, market insights, and detailed analysis of the trends shaping the future of urban mobility in Europe 👇

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

BiciMad
Expansion in Madrid, to Pozuelo de Alarcon (ES) 🚲 (+370)

Bike&Co
Launch in Como (IT) 🚲 (85)

Ecovelo
Expansion in …

You’re missing out on 10 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

Dott
Exit from Miskolc (HU) 🛴
Exit from Grand Paris Seine & Oise (FR) 🛴

You’re missing out on 2 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 4 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Bergamo (IT) | 100 decommissioned bikes from the LaBigi service have been donated to local organisations.

Berlin (DE) | A major expansion to 3,000 Jelbi mobility hubs is expected.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 5 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Auriga launches an autonomous driving system to enhance car-sharing services.

Forest pilots an e-bike subscription model in London (GB).

Lime files for IPO.

Lime has doubled its bike fleet in Lille (FR) since 2024.

Voi upgrades its e-bike fleet in Stockholm (SE).

Voi had to deny growing rumours of acquisition by Uber for $1.2Bn

Zity ends its per-minute rental service in Madrid (ES) but remains with hourly and daily rentals.

TOP STORIES 🔥

 ⏰ 2 days until the Index 2025 launch !

Every year, the European Shared Mobility Index sets the benchmark for the industry — who's growing, which cities are leading, how the market is shifting. So, what to learn from 2025?

Join us on May 7th at 3pm CET for the live launch webinar.

We'll walk through the key findings, unpack the data behind the headlines, and bring together a panel of industry leaders from Ryde, Dott, and Lyft Urban Solutions for an open discussion on what the numbers actually mean — and what comes next.

Register now and secure your spot 👇

 🪡 The Patchwork Quilt Gets Stitched Up

For the past five years, dockless e-bikes in England have operated in what lawyers, councils, and operators have all called the same thing: a regulatory vacuum. No legal requirement to consult councils before launch, no enforceable parking standards, no unified framework. Just a patchwork of local agreements that operators could ignore at will.

In London, the consequences became impossible to miss. With around 40,000 e-bikes spread across 22 boroughs, each borough negotiated its own deal, set its own rules, and licensed its own operators. The result was a system that didn't make sense even on its own terms. The Hounslow-Richmond border became an unlikely symbol of the dysfunction: one side licensed Forest and Voi, the other licensed Lime. Geofencing cut motors at the invisible boundary and bikes were abandoned mid-journey at the crossing — not out of carelessness, but because riders had no other option.

Westminster, with 2,800 bikes per hour at peak times and 630,000 monthly trips, rolled out £100 on-the-spot fines for operators blocking pavements. TfL introduced £50 fixed penalty notices per bike near tube stations, issuing over 333 penalties and 190 warnings. Brent threatened outright bans. Islington, Hammersmith & Fulham, and the City of London introduced mandatory parking zones. Every borough improvised and none of it was enough, because none of it was legally binding at scale.

What the law actually does

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. Its micromobility provisions amend the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, creating for the first time a formal licensing regime for dockless rental micromobility services. Operating without a licence will be a criminal offence.

In London, the licensing power goes to TfL — not to individual boroughs. A single operator applying to TfL will receive operating rights across all 33 London boroughs simultaneously. The borough-by-borough patchwork is gone. TfL will be able to set consistent requirements on fleet size, parking standards, safety, accessibility, and data sharing across the entire city.

Outside London, powers go to local transport authorities and the new Strategic Authorities — mayoral combined authorities like Greater Manchester, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire. This is where the picture gets more complex. Standards will vary between authorities, and smaller cities without combined authority status will have more limited tools. Lime's Senior Public Affairs Manager Alice Pleasant has already flagged the risk: without "clear evidence-based guidance" from central government, a new patchwork could emerge at the regional level to replace the borough-level one.

What changes in practice

For London, the shift is structural. TfL has been calling for these powers for years. Will Norman, London's Walking and Cycling Commissioner, said the new law will "deliver higher standards, manage bike numbers and improve safety" — confirming that fleet caps, parking enforcement, and potentially a pan-London concession model are all on the table. Forest's Alex Berwin described it as an "important step" that will "bring much-needed consistency." The operational absurdities of the borough system should gradually disappear.

The caveat, noted drily by Westminster opposition councillor Paul Swaddle, is implementation speed. TfL was granted powers to regulate pedicabs years ago and still hasn't completed that consultation. "If e-bikes follow the same route it will be well into 2026 before we see any action." He said that in late 2024. The law has now passed, and the clock is running.

For the rest of England, the change is potentially significant but less immediately transformative. Much depends on how quickly transport authorities build their licensing frameworks, what minimum standards central government sets, and whether the guidance that Lime and others are calling for actually arrives. The infrastructure of the new system — the licensing procedures, the enforcement tools, the data-sharing requirements — still needs to be built.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Bike Alexandropouli
Relaunch in Alexandropouli (GR) 🚲

EasyBike
Launch in Pavlos Melas (GR) 🚲 (55)

Hoppy
Expansion to …

You’re missing out on 12 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

Dott
Exit from Höganäs (SE) 🚲 & 🛴

You’re missing out on 1 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 2 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Bari (IT) | The City adopts a 3-year expansion plan for its bike-share service.

England (GB) | English Devolution Bill grants local public transport authorities powers over bike-sharing regulation.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 6 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

CoMoUK creates a map of the existing scooter sharing trials in the UK.

Donkey Republic published its Q1 2026 financial results.

4,000 mopeds from GO Sharing are on auction sale in the Netherlands following the operator’s bankruptcy.

RideMovi adds AI-based photo analysis to improve parking compliance in Florence (IT).

Voi announces +170% ridership YoY in Glasgow (GB).

Forest raises £27m to continue scaling e-bikes in London (GB).

TOP 5

TOP STORIES 🔥

📅 10 days until the Index 2025 launch

The European Shared Mobility Index 2025 is coming, and you have two opportunities to see the numbers before anyone else!

Want the key insights? Join us at 3pm on May 7th for our launch webinar, featuring a deep dive into the main findings and a panel discussion with leaders from Ryde, Dott, and Lyft Urban Solutions.

But if you’re attending the Shared Mobility Rocks event in Vienna next week, you’ll get a first look before anyone else.

Julien Chamussy (CEO Fluctuo) will present the key figures from the report on 4th May, during the "warm-up party" of the Shared Mobility Rocks conference.

It is the perfect opportunity to meet fellow shared mobility leaders, connect over a drink, and get into the groove before the conference kicks off the next day.

⏰ 6pm CET, 4th May
📍The Long Hall, Florianigasse 2, 1080 Vienna

🍝 Rome's Micromobility Is Cooking

Rome is one of Europe's largest shared micromobility market by ride volume — 13.2 million rentals recorded in 2025, up 10% year-on-year, according to the national Sharing Mobility Observatory. That figure alone explains why every serious operator on the continent is watching the Italian capital closely right now. Current licences for e-scooters and e-bikes expire in November 2026, and the city has been preparing a new tender since early 2026, initially targeting publication for March or April. As of writing, it has yet to be released.

The Current Landscape

The current licence holders are Bird, Dott and Lime for scooters, and Dott and Lime for bikes. Winning both tenders in the same cycle gave Dott and Lime a structural advantage - in fleet management, user base and operational footprint - one that competitors will look to challenge in the next round. The regulatory framework is strict: a maximum of 30 vehicles per operator in the Tridente ZTL, 300 scooters and 600 bikes in the wider historic centre, and 600 vehicles across the first municipality.

The system's defining feature is its integration with Metrebus, Rome's public transport pass. Holders receive three free 30-minute rides per day on shared scooters and bikes. The uptake has been spectacular — in the historic centre, around 70% of all rides are driven by this incentive. For the city, it's a political success - a seamless extension of the public transport offer. For operators, it is the central commercial tension of the market: a subsidy-like mechanism they did not price, cannot control, and struggle to sustain.

What the new tender may change

The city is reportedly considering two free 15-minute rides per day for Metrebus holders instead of three 30-minute rides — a model better aligned with actual usage and less damaging to operator economics. A monthly subscription tier for Metrebus users has also been discussed as a potential middle ground, though it has received limited support so far.

The administration also aims to move away from fleet suspensions as an enforcement tool — a blunt instrument that recently left users stranded during the ongoing Lime dispute (currently under appeal at the TAR Lazio) — and toward financial penalties calibrated to the severity of breaches. The Lime case has become a cautionary example shaping the new framework: a suspended fleet is a broken service, and a broken service quickly becomes a political issue.

A unified registration platform is also planned, replacing the current fragmented system in which Metrebus bonus recognition failures have triggered formal Antitrust complaints.

National regulation adds complexity

The tender coincides with Italy's updated e-scooter regulation. From 17 May 2026, e-scooters must carry identification plates, while mandatory third-party insurance (RC) has been postponed to 16 July 2026. For operators, this means adapting fleets to new technical and administrative requirements — a non-trivial shift that could impact both bid economics and deployment timelines.

Why every operator wants Rome

Despite its regulatory complexity, Rome remains an essential market. Its scale, year-round tourist demand, dense urban form, and deep integration with public transport make it structurally different from any other European city. The Metrebus link alone — whether viewed as an opportunity or a constraint — creates a captive user base unmatched elsewhere. Cooltra, operating mopeds under a separate licence, has expanded its Rome fleet from 250 to 1,600 vehicles over nine years and has publicly committed to further growth.

Expect aggressive bidding from all current operators, along with potential new entrants drawn by the market’s scale. The real question is not who will bid — everyone will — but whether a sustainable commercial model can emerge in a city that combines strong public integration with tight pricing constraints. The design of the new tender, when it finally arrives, will provide the answer.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Bajs
Expansion in Zagreb (HR) 🚲 (+1,000)

Bolt
Upcoming launch in Wicklow (IE) 🚲

Donkey Republic
Season launch in …

You’re missing out on 8 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 1 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 3 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Caen (FR) | Ridership records set for shared and long term rental bike services.

Italy (IT) | Mandatory insurance for scooter riders is postponed again until June 16th.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 5 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Bolt introduces its Riding Score in Spain (ES).

Bolt upgrades its scooter fleet in Brussels (BE) with 1,200 new models.

Dott and Wolt join forces, offering their members special benefits in the partner’s service.

Inurba Mobility unveils new Bubi bike ahead of Budapest (HU) launch.

JCDecaux introduces one-week bans to prevent account sharing for Vélov in Lyon (FR).

Standab plans to deploy 3,500+ parking & charging docks in 2026.

Voi saw a +52% ridership increase during the last London tube strikes.

Voi just published its Q1 2026 results, with a 38% revenue increase YoY.

60 participants took part in the first Vélib’ race in Paris (FR).

TOP STORIES 🔥

 🇬🇧 Britain's E-Scooter Groundhog Day

The UK's rental e-scooter programme was never supposed to last this long. Launched in July 2020 as a pandemic-era solution, the trials were designed to run for twelve months. Six years and five extensions later, they run until May 2028, with a second national evaluation still underway.

The constraints operators face have no equivalent elsewhere in Europe:
◾️Riders must hold a driving licence.
◾️Speed is capped at 12.5 mph (~19.3 km/h) — below the Department for Transport's own 15.5 mph (~24.1 km/h) guidance.
◾️Age restrictions are set at 18-plus.
◾️No-go and go-slow zones fragment operating areas into a patchwork that makes usage and operations fragmented and less efficient.
The system was clearly built for caution, not scale - and it shows.

Why hasn't legislation followed? Despite high expectations, e-scooter regulation was absent from successive King's Speeches, meaning legislation would be delayed. The government has said it supports it "when parliamentary time allows." That phrase has been doing work for four years.

The UK needs to wake up!

It is in this frustrating context that Voi's VP for Northern Europe Christina Moe Gjerde, steps in with a warning hard to misread. Speaking to The i Paper, she was direct: if the government extends the trials again without introducing proper legislation, Voi will walk away. "The UK e-scooter trial has been running for too long. We're screaming out for a direction, we're screaming for a strategy."

This frustration is commercial, not ideological. Operators cannot justify investing in next-generation vehicles or infrastructure upgrades without knowing whether they'll still be operating in two years. "In Europe, you have new hardware, new software, new technology — all the newest innovations coming in. Whereas the UK is the opposite."

Voi is not the first to reach this conclusion. Dott withdrew from London's e-scooter trial in 2024, citing the regulatory mismatch between e-scooters and the 35,000-plus e-bikes operating on the same streets with lighter oversight. Christina Moe Gjerde also pointed to Zipcar's recent exit from London as a symptom of the same structural issue: a market where the rules make sustainable operation structurally difficult.

The viability problem is fundamental. Trial rules add cost and complexity while limiting the product. You cannot plan fleet investment on an 18-month horizon, justify new hardware that might be stranded at the next extension, or compete with shared e-bikes that face far fewer restrictions.

What to expect?

Voi is not a peripheral player. It operates in nearly 20 UK towns and cities and accounts for around two-thirds of all rental e-scooter journeys in the country. Its departure would not thin out a crowded market — it would effectively end UK shared e-scooter services as a functioning sector. Lime operates primarily through e-bikes since the West Midlands transition. Bolt covers select cities. There is no obvious replacement for Voi's footprint.

But the government has made some moves. The English Devolution Bill would give cities powers to license shared micromobility. A second national evaluation due in 2026 is expected to feed into a permanent framework. Christina Moe Gjerde is pushing for legislation in the next King's Speech — likely after May's local elections — which she calls the last realistic parliamentary window in this government's term.

The expected legislative content would create a new Low-Speed Zero Emission Vehicle category covering both rental and private e-scooters, with unified rules on speed, age, insurance, and technical standards. The government has signalled as much… What it hasn't provided is a date.

That ambiguity is the problem. Voi has invested over £100 million in the UK since 2020. Had permanent regulation existed, that figure would have been higher — in line, Voi's VP for Northern Europe says, with what Voi has been able to commit in Germany and Sweden. Instead, the UK remains the only market in Voi's European portfolio where long-term planning is impossible. At some point, patience stops being a strategy, and becomes a decision.

🔒 Docked Out

Trento is the latest city to pull the plug on a docked public bike-share system. The Italian province’s e.motion service — launched in 2014 with 420 bikes — will shut down in 2026. Usage has fallen sharply since 2023, dropping from a peak of 100,000 annual rentals to barely 30,000 in 2024. At that level, the infrastructure costs no longer make sense, and the local authority is now turning toward private, dockless alternatives.

It’s a familiar script. Stockholm went through a similar transition: from JCDecaux’s station-based system, to a troubled public dockless model that collapsed in 2023, and now to a permit-based approach with private operators. In Nantes, the Naolib system — 1,200 bikes across 125 stations since 2008 — will follow the same path when its contract expires in January 2027.

From a city finance perspective, the logic is hard to challenge. Station-based systems require heavy infrastructure — docks, civil works, electrical connections — resulting in high upfront and operational costs. Shifting that capital burden to private operators, through free-floating or virtual hub models, reduces investment needs and allows for more flexible scaling. For cities under budget pressure, it can become the only way to maintain a bike-sharing service.

The impact looks different from the user’s perspective. Public bike-share systems are built around access: subsidised tariffs, full network coverage, integration with public transport, and explicit equity goals. Private free-floating services, by contrast, are optimised for utilisation and revenue. The social contract of public mobility — a bike within a few minutes walk, at an affordable price — risks quietly disappearing behind a private app.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Bolt
Launch in Tartu (EE) 🚲 (200) 

Bysykkelen
Expansion in Stavanger (NO) 🚲 (1,000)

ÇORBİS
Season launch in…

You’re missing out on 17 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 2 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Bari (IT) | The public transport operator offers 300 bike helmets to its members.

Berlin (DE) | Berlin-Mitte (DE) district collected €400,000 in fines for improperly parked scooters.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 9 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Multiple operators have implemented reaction tests to comply with the new regulation in Latvia (LV).

Bolt’s Riding Score in now available in Slovakia (SK).

Cachet partners with Baloise LU to provide an adaptative insurance solution for Turo’s development in France (FR).

Dott invests €2m in Milan (IT) and €3m in Lyon (FR) to upgrade its scooter fleets.

JCDecaux has to retrofit its entire fleet in Besançon (FR) with new rear wheels.

pony expands its partnership with La Poste to Nice (FR).

Tazı has upgraded its system in Çorum (TR) with a new app and rental process.

Check launches Check Connect to target vulnerable customer groups.

TOP STORIES 🔥

🔄 Shifting Gears : The Complexity of Bike-Share Transitions

Two of Europe's major bike-share systems changed hands on 1 April 2026. The West Midlands moved from Beryl to Lime. Metropolradruhr in Germany's Ruhr region replaced nextbike with Donkey Republic. On the surface, these look like routine procurement renewals. They are not. Switching operators on a large-scale bike-share scheme is one of the most complex operations in shared mobility.

The Service Gap
The most visible risk is the dead zone between operators. In the West Midlands, Beryl went dark on 23 March — nine days before Lime launched on 1 April. In the Ruhr, nextbike bikes were progressively withdrawn through the end of March, with Donkey Republic deploying first at the busiest stations. The lesson: a phased launch, with strategic planning and city supervision, is better than a simultaneous full-network promise that can't be kept.

Changing User Habits
Every operator transition means a new user journey — a fresh barrier to casual users. In the Ruhr, Donkey Republic retained the metropolradruhr brand and pricing (€1/hour, monthly and annual passes) but changed the unlock mechanism to app-based. More fundamentally, user data — account history, subscriptions, payment details — is typically held by the outgoing operator, not the city. Cities that fail to negotiate data portability rights find themselves rebuilding their user base from scratch each cycle, creating a cold-start problem forthe incoming operator that could have been avoided.

When stations require civil engineering
Virtual hub systems like those in the West Midlands and the Ruhr keep on-street transition complexity manageable. Docked systems are a different matter entirely. The Vélib' transition in Paris in 2018 remains the industry's defining cautionary tale: when Smovengo replaced JCDecaux, each of the 1,400 stations required six to eight weeks of roadworks to upgrade electrical capacity for the new e-bikes. On 1 January 2018, only 87 stations were operational out of 300 promised. Full service wasn't restored until March 2019 — 15 months late — and the city imposed €1 million per month in penalties. When stations require civil engineering, transition timelines must be built around construction realities, not political deadlines.

Renewals as strategic opportunity
The West Midlands transition eliminated a £1.4 million annual public subsidy — Lime operates at no cost to the taxpayer, with a commitment to maintain existing price levels for two years. In the Ruhr, the five-year Donkey Republic contract doubles the fleet to over 5,000 bikes and will introduce cargo bikes and pedelecs from autumn 2026.

Tender renewals are not just moments of risk. They are the main opportunity cities have to raise their ambitions.

The European Shared Mobility Index 2025 is on the way!

To get hold of the key insights before anyone else, join us at 3pm on 7th May for a webinar with leaders from Ryde, Dott & Lyft Urban Solutions.

In this session, we’ll discuss:

• Why scooter ridership is holding up even as fleets shrink across the continent

• The cities doubling down on shared mobility — and the ones walking away

• London, Paris, Oslo: the stories behind Europe's most dynamic shared mobility markets in 2025

📊 More Rides Means… Fewer Injuries

Micro-Mobility for Europe has just published its 2025 injury report — data aggregated from Bolt, Dott, Lime and Voi across the EU27, Norway, Switzerland and the UK, from 353 million e-scooter trips and 136 million e-bike rides — and the trend is consistent: shared micromobility is getting safer as it grows!

E-scooter usage rose 13.9% in kilometres travelled, yet injuries per million kilometres fell by 1.1%. Serious injury risk also dropped by 0.6%. Zoom out to the five-year view and the picture is even clearer: since 2021, injury risk per million kilometres has fallen by 19.9%.

The e-bike story is arguably more striking. Trips surged 72.3% year-on-year, kilometres travelled rose 49% — and injuries per million trips still fell, by 18.4%.

MMfE Co-Chair Marc Naether put it plainly: "growth and safety can go hand in hand." Nonetheless, MMfE acknowledges that reductions in serious injuries and fatalities are not yet happening fast enough to meet European Commission’s Vision Zero targets — and calls for better dedicated infrastructure and lower urban speed limits for motorised vehicles.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

KAIBIS
Season launch in Kayseri (TR) 🚲 (1,000)

Lime
Launch in the West Midlands (GB) 🚲&🛴 (2,000)

nextbike
Launch in …

You’re missing out on 7 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 2 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Austria (AT) | A new regulation law on LEVs comes into place from May 1st.

Berlin (DE) | Pedestrian associations ask the city not to renew scooter sharing licences in 2027.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 10 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Bolt has launched its Riding Score in Portugal (PT).

VOI threatens to leave the UK due to its restrictive regulatory environment.

Bolt upgrades its scooter fleet in Germany (DE) with 20,000 Bolt 7 models.

TOP STORIES 🔥

🇩🇪 No Country for Lazy Operators: Ryde's German Bet

Norwegian e-scooter operator Ryde has quietly become one of Europe's most interesting micromobility stories — profitable from day one, fully in-house, and now expanding rapidly beyond Norway. We spoke with CEO Tobias Balchen.

Fluctuo : You launched in Germany in early 2026 with Frankfurt and Aachen, then Hamburg, Köln and Lübeck. How did the first wave go?

Tobias Balchen : "The German launch has been exceptional, and we actually crossed one million trips in our first month of operations in March. Frankfurt and Aachen came first, followed closely by Hamburg, Köln, and Lübeck. These five cities are all part of our first wave and the differences in launch dates were primarily logistical. We carefully screened the market and these were deemed the most attractive to launch in the first wave."

Germany is one of Europe's most competitive e-scooter markets. What's Ryde's competitive edge?

"Our philosophy is simple: never give the customer a reason not to ride with Ryde. That means hardware quality and good maintenance over time, vehicle availability in the right places and at the right times, pricing that makes micromobility accessible, and an intuitive app. Customers respond to this, and we clearly see room for our service in the market. We see micromobility as part of the green transition, and for that to be meaningful it needs to be affordable and reliable for everyday use. We won't discuss pricing strategy in detail, but we are profitable at our current price points."

You've said your Nordic regulatory experience is an asset in Germany. What does that mean in practice?

"Operating under strict Nordic frameworks has made us disciplined in ways that matter in Germany. Compliance with mandatory parking zones, response time, and city reporting requirements are embedded in how we operate, not bolted on. Cities that have had difficult experiences with operators who treat rules as negotiable tend to respond well to that. We come in having already built the systems to meet the standard."

In Sweden, you launched in Malmö, Lund and Örebro in early 2025. How are those markets performing, and what's the selection logic?

"Sweden is largely permit-based, though there are tenders in some cities — Borås being one example. We are in dialogue with many cities and target markets where we believe there is sufficient demand to support a strong micromobility service. Malmö and Lund are currently capped at 800 and 300 vehicles respectively, but utilization is very strong and we see significant growth potential in both."

Östersund is a very different proposition from Hamburg. How do you adapt?

"The model is the same; the scale is different. Hamburg can employ close to 100 people. A smaller Nordic city might run with fewer than ten. In cities with pronounced seasonality, we move into hibernation mode during winter, reducing the fleet and staffing accordingly. It is something we have managed for years across the Nordics."

Ryde operates everything in-house — no gig workers, no subcontractors. Is that scalable?

"Building fully in-house may take slightly longer to scale in a new market because we hire and train our own people. But the quality advantage is real and sustained, and the cost structure is actually favourable. When you control the full operation you eliminate the inefficiencies and quality degradation that come with fragmented workforces. That consistency becomes more valuable as we move into larger and more complex markets."

You operate in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Germany. What's next in terms of geographic expansion?

"Our focus for the next 12 to 18 months is on executing well across those four markets. We are actively evaluating options beyond them but have no announcements to make at this stage."

Do you prefer concessions, tenders, or open permit markets?

"We can operate successfully in open markets, permit-based models, and tender-based models. What matters is that the regulatory framework supports a healthy market. Some cities set fleet caps so low — below 200 scooters — that sustainable operations simply are not possible. We want to be a genuine partner to the cities we work with, and that requires a framework where quality operators can actually deliver."

How are you funding this expansion?

"We are self-financing our expansion, supported by traditional bank debt. Being profitable from inception gives us a different set of options than most operators in this sector, and we are not dependent on equity rounds to fund growth."

👋 Florence Said Ciao. Operators Say No.

From 1 April 2026, Florence became the latest European city to ban shared e-scooter services, joining Paris and Madrid. The decision, taken by the city council in November 2025, was driven by safety concerns and the practical impossibility of enforcing Italy's new helmet requirement under a free-floating model. Municipal police removed around 80 vehicles on the first day of enforcement alone.

Both Bird and Bit Mobility have now withdrawn their shared fleets — but neither is walking away from Florence entirely.

Bird has filed a legal challenge with the Regional Administrative Court of Tuscany (TAR). An initial request to suspend the ban was rejected in February, but the final ruling on the merits is still pending. In the meantime, the company has pivoted to a private rental model, operating outside the public concession framework. "The legal game is still open," said Giorgio Cappiello, Bird's head of institutional relations for Italy.

Bit Mobility is taking a different route, pivoting to B2B. Its OrBit service — dedicated to hotels and hospitality operators — already covers over 100 properties across Italy and logged more than 100,000 rentals in 2024. Long-term private rentals complete the offer.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Cyclocity
Season launch in Vilnius (LT) 🚲 (300)

Graoulib
Expansion in Metz (FR) 🚲(new stations)

i’Vélo
Relaunch in …

You’re missing out on 6 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 2 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 2 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Amiens (FR) | Pricing increase adopted for the Vélam bike-share service.

Belfast (GB) | Belfast Bikes see drop in rentals after price hike.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 5 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

ATOM Mobility integrates SparkPark’s bluetooth parking control technology.

Bolt has revealed ambitious expansion plans in Portugal (PT).

StadtRad implements new pricing, booking and group rides features in Hamburg (DE).

JCDecaux secures a deal with Inbank as its main sponsor for Vilnius’ (LT) service.

TOP STORIES 🔥

⛑️ No Helmet, No Ride ?

Mandatory helmet legislation is spreading across Europe — and the shared mobility sector is learning that how a law is drafted matters as much as whether it exists at all.

The most operator-friendly outcome comes from carve-outs. Belgium initially alarmed the sector before the government clarified that shared e-scooters, already capped at 20 km/h, are exempt from the new rule targeting faster devices. A close call — and a reminder that blanket legislation written with private vehicles in mind can hit shared operators as collateral damage.

Where helmets are required without exemption, the operational headache is real and immediate. Lithuania's experience this season is the starkest evidence yet: within just three weeks of the mandatory helmet rule coming into force, around 1,500 Bolt helmets had been stolen. Providing helmets at scale means absorbing significant theft, logistics, and replacement costs — with no guarantee riders will actually use them, and no easy way to enforce compliance at the point of rental.

The sector faces a binary choice: lobby hard for carve-outs before laws are finalised, or build helmet provision into the operating model and price it in.

🔃 Groningen Hits Reset on Shared Mobility

From 1 March 2026, Groningen has relaunched its entire shared two-wheeler network with a new permit round, a fleet expansion, and a first: shared electric cargo bikes.

The headline addition is 50 cargobikes operated by Moby, bookable via app and returned to the same fixed location. The city is backing the launch with a two-year guarantee fund to support Moby's ramp-up — a clear signal that Groningen sees cargo bikes as a strategic bet, not a niche experiment.

On e-bikes, Bolt loses its permit. Voi and Dott each take 400 vehicles, bringing the total shared e-bike fleet to 800. Check retains the moped concession.

The city's framing is deliberate: shared mobility as a substitute for private vehicle ownership, not just a last-mile add-on. Alderman Philip Broeksma puts it plainly: "Shared mobility replaces other forms of transport. It helps keep Groningen accessible and liveable as the city grows."

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Beryl
Launch in Canterbury (GB) 🚲 (100)

BiciMad
Upcoming expansion in Madrid (ES) 🚲 (+20 stations)

Dott
Launch in …

You’re missing out on 11 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 3 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 3 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Belgium (BE) | Helmets should become mandatory for scooter riders, but not on shared ones.

Biella (IT) | VAIMOO’s bike-share service should be more deeply integrated with public transports.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 8 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Bolt adds an in-app Riding Score feature to promote safe riding and parking in Latvia (LV)

Bolt reports 70% of helmets theft on scooters in 3 weeks in Lithuania (LT).

Dott upgrades its fleet in the West of England (GB), St. Gallen (CH) and Hamburg (DE).

Forest invests €14k to sponsor Islington’s Adult Cycle Training programme, and strengthens its partnership with Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

JCDecaux and RATP requests for compensation on the 2017 Vélib' tender have been rejected.

nextbike expands its partnership with sport subscription company Multisport in Poland (PL).

RideMovi secures a pool financing backed by a consortium of Italian banks.

Svišť, the Slovakian leading operator, acquires Dutch counterpart Bondi.

Estonian operator Tuul has filed for bankruptcy.

TOP 5

TOP STORIES 🔥

📱One App to Rule Them All: Eindhoven’s Unified Approach to Shared Mobility

Eindhoven has just done something no other city has done before: appointing a MaaS provider — umob — full responsibility for every shared vehicle in the city. Bikes, e-bikes, e-mopeds, cargo bikes are now unified under one contract, one app, one point of contact through an 11-year concession.

It sounds simple. It isn't.

From permits to concession — a structural shift

Until now, Eindhoven has been managing shared mobility the way most European cities do: through individual permits, one per operator, with no coordination between services and no unified user experience. The city decided to move to a formal concession, run as a competitive tender with structured dialogue. The goal, says Daan Olislagers from the City of Eindhoven, was clear from the start: "affordability and availability — and the will to have a single service."

umob won the concession against competition that included all the major international players. According to its founder Raymon Pouwels, the model itself was a first: "Going through a tender for this kind of integrated service was new. One single party is responsible for everything — a single service alongside public transport." He's confident it won't remain unique for long: several similar tenders are reportedly underway across the Netherlands and beyond.

How it actually works

Under the concession, umob is contractually responsible for the performance of the entire network. Dott operates bikes and e-bikes, felyx the e-mopeds, Cargoroo the cargo bikes - a total of 2,500 véhicles in Eindhoven for a start. However, if fleet sizes or balancing targets are not met, the city holds umob accountable as the single point of contact. As Pouwels puts it: "If bikes are missing, umob is responsible for filling the gaps. There are minimum fleet requirements but no maximum — it will adapt to demand."

Operators retain day-to-day operational control. Revenue flows through a kickback model: a significant portion of the city's €800,000 annual subsidy is passed through to operators to enable lower fares. umob earns commission on transactions.

The city will ultimately monitor performance through dashboards built by umob — giving Eindhoven a consolidated view it never had before: trip data and patterns per modality, average prices, subscriptions and related usage patterns, service efficiency, demand by location, and more. "That data allows us to make data-driven decisions about shared mobility," says Olislagers.

The pricing architecture

Affordability is the heart of the model. The concession sets a price cap : a flat unlock fee covering the first 20–30 minutes, with no per-minute charge during that period; a way to avoid rushing, and therefore improve riders' and other road users’ safety. The €800k annual subsidy cuts fares by roughly 50% during the initial phase. Olislagers explains the logic: "A maximum cap is set, subsidy lowers the price, and the long contract convinces operators to work on pricing."

Pay-per-ride starts at €1.50 for a standard bike and €2.50 for an e-bike. Monthly subscriptions launch in November, from €19.95 - for 40 trips per month which covers all commuting bike rides - to €119.95 for full access across all vehicle types.

Why 11 years?

The long duration raised eyebrows. The city's answer is structural: "A concession means a long-term partnership — you need to bet on investments to build a reliable service," says Olislagers. The structure is 3+4+4 years. The city funds the 500 mobility hubs being rolled out across Eindhoven; the contract provides the framework to use that infrastructure effectively. The longer-term ambition is to scale from Eindhoven to the wider Brainport region - encompassing 21 surrounding municipalities - with umob as the single digital gateway.

The bigger question

The Eindhoven model challenges a deeply ingrained assumption in European micromobility: that cities should manage operators individually and leave the user experience to the market. Eindhoven has decided it won't, and structured its concession accordingly. Pouwels is direct about the replicability: "We are ready to deploy in any city." The pipeline is building.

🚉 When the Train Doesn't Arrive, nextbike Steps In

Deutsche Bahn is trying something new. From 10 April, a three-month closure of the S11 line between Köln-Mülheim and Bergisch Gladbach — affecting over 15,000 daily commuters — will be partly covered by a dedicated nextbike fleet, branded "S11-Bikes" and bookable via the nextbike app.

The journey normally takes 13 minutes by S-Bahn. Replacement buses need 37. The bikes cover the 10km route with stops at all five stations along the line. Pricing is €1 per 15 minutes, free for 30 minutes for regional rail subscribers.

It's a small pilot — 50 bikes at launch — but the signal is significant: bike-share is entering the rail disruption toolkit, not just the last-mile one.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Bizkaiabizi
Expansion to Leoia (ES) 🚲(3 stations)

BAQME
Launch in Schiedam and Veenendaal (NL) 🚲 (50)

Donkey Republic
Launch in the Ruhr Region (DE) 🚲 (5,766)

Freebike
Season launch in Trnava (CZ) 🚲
Upcoming launch in …

You’re missing out on 11 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 2 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 4 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Brussels (BE) | The Observatoire du Vélo releases accidents and safety data.

Kefalonia (GR) | The bike-share service suffers from vandalism.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 12 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Assosharing lobbies against mandatory licence plates for scooters in Italy (IT).

Bolt study shows that shared e-bikes ease pressures on London Tube.

The European Commission backpedals on the single-cell repairability requirement for LEVs batteries.

An important fire hit Felyx’s warehouse in Amsterdam (NL).

Leo&Go published key figures from 2025 including a 8% EBIT.

Lime launched its latest LimeBike in the UK to attract women and older riders.

Lime offered free ride to voters during the municipal elections in France (FR).

Ridemovi offered free ride to voters during a referendum in Florence (IT).

Whoosh and others operators in Moscow (RU) implemented SMS rentals to adapt to mobile internet restrictions.

pony opens its first corner shop, and launches a cargobike subscription service in Angers (FR).

TOP STORIES 🔥

🛴 The Trial Is Over. Long Live the Trial.

One Year. Five Extensions. Seven Million Trips. Transport for London published its Phase 3 e-scooter tender on 26 February 2026. The contract is worth up to £42.3 million, runs potentially to September 2032, and covers up to two operators across 11 London boroughs.

That's the headline. Here's what actually matters.

The trial that refuses to die — for good reason

London launched its rental e-scooter scheme in June 2021 as a one-year post-Covid experiment. The DfT has since extended the national trial framework five times, most recently to May 2028. The UK remains one of the last countries in Europe without permanent e-scooter legislation, and frustration in the sector is vocal — Dott's policy team recently warned that year five of a one-year trial was undermining investment on both sides.

But London's numbers tell a different story: 7 million trips since launch, 2 million in the last year alone — up 54% year-on-year. Daily utilisation hit 1.5 trips per vehicle on average, peaking at 2 in summer. This is not a trial anymore. It's infrastructure with a temporary legal status.

What makes this tender worth studying

First, it's a concession. No pricing submitted, no commercial envelope. Operators bear the full revenue risk and set their own fares. TfL evaluates capability, safety, and sustainability — not cost.

Second, safety carries 45% of the total evaluation score, with a hard minimum threshold on every individual question. One weak safety response disqualifies the entire bid. TfL's Phase 2 record — serious injuries in 0.0007% of trips, zero fatalities — sets the bar.

Third, the SLA framework has genuine teeth. Fleet availability (minimum 80% on-street daily), parking compliance (minimum 85% of trips ending in a designated bay), hazardous vehicle removal within 1 hour — all tracked in real time via mandatory API with under-3-minute latency. Penalties run up to £200 per percentage point per day. Persistent breaches can end the contract.

Fourth, operators pay to participate: an annual administration charge plus a per-bay fee (£100/bay/year), scaled by capacity. If utilisation exceeds 3 trips per vehicle per day for six consecutive periods, TfL reviews — and may increase — the charges. Success has a price.

Finally, innovation is a mobilisation deliverable. Operators must submit a joint proposal for at least three technology pilots before go-live. Pavement detection, speed management, helmet compliance. Not a nice-to-have — a contractual requirement.

The bigger picture

Phase 3 is explicitly designed to generate the evidence base for permanent legislation. A bill introduced in July 2025 would empower TfL and other cities to license shared micromobility — e-scooters included, if legalised. The contract term to 2032 bridges that gap.

🫏 Donkey Republic: Profitable, and Betting Big on Germany

Donkey Republic published its 2025 annual report this week, and the trajectory is hard to argue with: revenue up 13% to € 22.2m, 9.4 million trips, and a second consecutive year of positive EBITDA.

The real story is 2026. The Danish operator just closed a € 10m private placement and secured two major contracts in Düsseldorf and the Ruhr region — planning to add over 8,000 bikes to its fleet. Germany is clearly the growth engine.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Bizkaiabizi
Expansion to Leoia (ES) 🚲(3 stations)

Bolt
Season launch in Vilnius (LV) 🛴

Dott / TIER
Launch in Rauma (FI) 🛴

Forest
Ucoming launch in …

You’re missing out on 13 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 2 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 3 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Frankfurt (DE) | The city will enforce stricter scooter riding and parking regulation.

Bari (IT) | MUVT in bici, a program supporting active mobility, is back.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 11 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Bicimad reaches 33 million trips in 2025 and plans for further expansion in Madrid (ES).

Donkey Republic strengthens its partnership with MaaS provider 9292 across the Netherlands.

Dott upgrades its scooter fleet in Berlin (DE).

La Poste now supports Voi in its operation in Charly, Irigny, Saint-Genis-Laval and Vernaison (FR).

Lime launched a petition ahead of the municipal elections in Paris (FR) to influence politicians and voters.

Lime introduces a new pricing plan in Lucca (IT), 2 months after launch.

nextbike reveals a 32% revenue jump, and plans for expansion with focus on Germany, Spain and Poland.

PON has acquired the remaining shares and secured full ownership of CHECK and Greenwheels .

VOI upgrades its scooter fleet in Berlin (DE).

Forest targets Lime riders with a new marketing campaign in London (GB).

A big thank you to Harry 👏

This edition marks a milestone for Fluctuo — a new face behind the newsletter.

Harry Maxwell built this weekly recap from the ground up and kept it running with consistency and sharp insight. He's now off to new professional adventures, and we wish him all the best. 🚀

I'm Alex Gauquelin, and I'm excited to take it from here. Thanks for reading!

TOP STORIES 🔥

⚡️ Aiming for Olympus: ZEUS’ Expansion Bet

Following last week's news that ZEUS Mobility has acquired Superpedestrian Europe, we reached out to ZEUS CEO Damian Young to better understand the reasons behind the deal and its content.

Fluctuo: Damian, can you first tell us what your primary ambition is with this acquisition?

Damian Young: The ambition is to support the growth of our business, but most of all to achieve economies of scale that were more difficult to reach with ZEUS alone. Our ambition is also to leverage Superpedestrian’s competitive advantages, improve safety standards, generate operational advantages, and become a profitable, leading company in Europe.

F: Does this acquisition only include the assets of Superpedestrian Europe, or does it also include SURF Beyond’s assets in the Nordics? What about the brands that were under the SURF umbrella?

DY: The acquisition includes only the European subsidiaries, business, markets, assets, and platform of Superpedestrian, while SURF Beyond retains its business outside of this. We have acquired the brands LINK and Wind, but at this stage, our focus is on rebuilding markets and securing deployments. We will continue to use the existing brands of Superpedestrian, LINK, and ZEUS for the medium term, with plans to review the overall brand strategy by 2027.

F: The acquisition includes licenses awarded to Superpedestrian, LINK, and Wind. Will you continue operations in all the cities, or strategically focus on certain cities and regions?

DY: We will selectively use the licenses that are still available. Much of the focus will remain on ZEUS and Superpedestrian’s existing German markets, and we will assess the viability of other markets such as Spain, Greece, Portugal, the UK, etc., in due course.

F: Are you acquiring Superpedestrian’s scooter fleets? How will you integrate and build on Superpedestrian's technological advantages in both hardware and IT?

DY: Yes, the acquisition includes all fleets and spare parts. The Superpedestrian scooter is unique and designed with high-spec sensory functionality that supports data insights, safety, and operations support. We intend to leverage this, as we believe it was underutilized in the past. Our own scooters will also remain in certain markets.

We plan to utilize the Superpedestrian tech platform in due course and have significant plans to develop customer-centric AI, safety functionality, communication platforms, and data/machine learning to support operations and customers. At this point, the work to develop this is just beginning, and we expect to announce new developments over the next few months.

F: How will the Superpedestrian staff be integrated within the ZEUS team?

DY: I cannot answer yet as we are just beginning our structural reform. However, we anticipate that staff integration or new partnerships will occur over the coming weeks and months.

London : Episode III - The Revenge of the Scooters

Following the release of new reports based on data from September 2022 to September 2023, highlighting a 54% increase in scooter ridership, Transport for London has launched its tender for the third phase of its scooter-sharing trial.

One or two operators will be selected to operate across the participating boroughs of the British capital for a 24-month period expected to begin in September 2026, with a potential extension of an additional 4 years.

Despite the complexity of a heterogeneous operational zone depending on participating boroughs, London remains a strategic market for global operators who will compete vigorously to facilitate Londoners’ trips.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Beryl
Launch in Leeds (GB) 🛴 (100)

BIT Mobility
Launch in Bergamo (IT) 🛴 (450)

Easybike
Launch in Preveza (GR) 🚲 (30)

Lime
Launch in …

You’re missing out on 13 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 1 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 3 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Eindhoven (NL) | The city awards its 11-years MaaS contract to umob.

Italy (IT) | Mandatory license plate and insurance for scooters postponed due to technical delays.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 9 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Ilus launches three new shared bike models able to cover pedal or electric, stationless or station-based services.

Lime supported a total of 433,000 trips on its bikes and scooters during the the Winter Olympics in Milan (IT).

Lime now offers the LimePrime subscription across the UK for £6.99/month.

Voi invests €23.4m in Stockholm (SE), to renew its fleet and grow operation.

Bolt launches its seventh scooter season in Lithuania, and now offers helmets to comply with new regulation.

TOP STORIES 🔥

🇧🇪 Lessons from Belgium: Fewer vehicles, more rides

Shared mobility in Belgium has hit a new high, with more than 33 million trips made using shared bikes and scooters in 2025, according to the annual Way To Go report. The number of active users climbed to 2.5 million — yet the most striking finding is not the growth in scale, but the leap in efficiency.

🛴 Shared scooter fleets shrank by 35% nationally as cities tightened regulations and operators rationalised their offer. Yet trips rose by 21% and scooter TVD nearly doubled, from 1.7 to 3.3. Brussels tells the story most sharply: after reducing its scooter operators from 9 to 2 and cutting its fleet by 44%, the capital still recorded 9.5 million scooter trips — 59% of the entire Belgian total.

🚲 Shared bicycles posted their own strong numbers, with 28,158 vehicles across the country generating almost 16 million trips. For the first time, more than half of the shared bicycle fleet is electric.

🚗 On the car sharing front, Belgium has 6.5 shared cars per 10,000 inhabitants, ahead of Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy. Round-trip car sharing trips have more than doubled since 2021, and nearly a third of those vehicles are now fully electric.

The data points to a market maturing fast: fewer vehicles, more users, and more rides per vehicle — the hallmarks of an ecosystem finding its stride.

⚡️ZEUS acquires Superpedestrian Europe in consolidation push

ZEUS Mobility has acquired Superpedestrian Europe, in a move that accelerates the ongoing consolidation of the shared mobility market. The deal brings together ZEUS's profitable operating model — the company has surpassed €5 million in annual revenue and reached positive EBITDA — with Superpedestrian's AI-driven fleet management and safety technology, developed over 5 years of operations.

ZEUS, founded in Ireland in 2020, currently operates across more than 40 European locations. Following the acquisition, the company plans to deploy up to 20,000 vehicles across 30 locations within the next 12 months.

It's financially-disciplined approach has seen them stick in the game, in stark contrast to volume-driven expansion that has killed off many operators over the last 4 years.

What exactly has ZEUS acquired. Will the Superpedestrian brand continue in any capacity? Which city licenses transfer with the deal, and in which markets?Was the acquisition mainly to acquire software, or does the deal include vehicle fleets and parts?

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Check
Expansion in Groningen (NL) 🛵 (+300)

Dott
Launch in Groningen (NL) 🚲 (400)

enjoy
Expansion in Florence (IT) 🚗⚡️ (50)

Lime
Launch in…

You’re missing out on 13 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 1 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 3 crucial tenders. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Amiens (FR) | Vélam pricing increases.

Frankfurt (DE) | Scooter fleet cap to be reduced from 12,000 to 10,500 by mid-2026.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 2 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Dott reports €173m in revenue in 2025, ending the year with with €31m in cash.

Voi unveils new vehicles.

MILES Mobility integrates 2,500 new Opel (Stellantis) vehicles into its fleet in Germany.

TOP 5

TOP STORIES 🔥

☔️ Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head

Enzo Lanoue (HDRain)

France’s operators are estimated to have lost out on €1.2-2.7m ride revenue due to rainfall. As Enzo Lanoue highlights, five key cities have faced an abnormally wet winter since January, with around 10 extra rainy days compared with the 2021–2025 average. On just 46 particularly wet days, usage collapsed enough to wipe out an estimated 360,000 to 600,000 rides.

This is a reminder of how the economic model for dockless scooters and bikes, already wrestling with regulation and profitability, is exposed to weather volatility. Every extra day of rain means idle fleets while fixed costs keep ticking over.

But there are lessons to borrow from elsewhere. In the Nordics, operators have learned to keep running under extreme conditions such as snow and ice, and still endure weeks of harsh weather before fully “wintering” their fleets. Weekly or monthly passes can help smooth out demand and stabilise revenue during periods of reduced ridership.​

 🟠 Voi reaches €178m in Revenue

Micromobility Industries

Voi closed 2025 with €178.2m in net revenue (+34% YoY). Q4 revenue hit €47.5m, up 45% YoY, driven by rapid fleet expansion, higher utilization, and a major bike push, a launch in Paris and continued growth in London.

Interestingly, 40% of revenue now comes from subscriptions and passes, up from 31% a year ago. Subscribed users will ride more frequently, generating predictable (but lower) revenue, and are more likely to recommend the service to a friend.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Dott
Launch in Monza (IT) 🚲 (60)

E-VAI
Launch in..

You’re missing out on 5 launches & expansions. Subscribe to premium to read on.

PAUSES & EXITS ⛔️

You’re missing out on 1 pauses & exits. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 1 crucial tender. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Bydgoszcz (PL) | Nextbike waiting as the contract for the new bike sharing service is still pending.

Florence (IT) | Court rejects the request to suspend the plan to discontinue electric scooter sharing services in the city from 1st April.

Genk (BE) | Bike sharing increases 900%

Subscribe to premium to reveal 7 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

Lime is introducing flat-rate rides for an unlimited number of 20-minute journeys with the monthly LimePrime subscription. Discounted flat rates will also apply for trips under 5 minutes. Available in the US, the UK, Italy, Germany, Australia & New Zealand.

Greenmobility equips 1,200 vehicles in Denmark with smoke and damage detection technology supplied by INVERS.

TOP STORIES 🔥

🚗 Car sharing helps people ditch private cars

Brussels has confirmed shared mobility as a core driver of car-free living, with new data showing car sharing is reshaping how residents move around the city.

A large-scale survey of 2,200 Cambio (station-based) and Poppy (free‑floating) users, finds that shared cars are a powerful lever for both demotorisation and multimodality in Brussels households, helping residents give up private cars while combining public transport, cycling and walking. The study highlights:

• How car sharing has helped 6 out of every 10 people ditch their private car

• If car sharing disappeared from Brussels, 58% of Cambio users and 67% of Poppy users would probably or certainly (re)buy a car.

• For frequent users, 1 Cambio car replaces 6.5 private cars, while 1 Poppy car replaces 11.5 private cars.

Bruxelles Mobilité, Poppy and Cambio validated the findings together and plans to use them to steer both public policy and operators’ strategies, signalling a maturing public‑private ecosystem for shared mobility in the Belgian capital.

 🇫🇷 Paris continues to the way for bike-sharing

Bike-sharing in Paris has surged to record levels, cementing the city’s status as Europe’s cycling capital with around 76 million rides in 2025 (vs 70m in 2024). The market has grown more dynamic since Voi entered in October 2025, capturing 25% of the dockless bike-share sector within just three months through aggressive pricing and rapid deployment.

Today, Paris boasts over 1,000 km of cycling lanes, strong local demand, and a steady stream of tourists — a combination that makes it a lucrative battleground for private operators like Lime, Dott, and Voi, alongside the public Vélib’ network.

Vélib’, still the market leader with more than 20,000 bikes and millions of monthly rides, faces mounting pressure after recent price hikes, service disruptions, and fraud cases that temporarily cut its fleet to around 17,000 bikes.

Read the full piece with words from Fluctuo CEO Julien here.

LAUNCHES & EXPANSIONS 🚀

Nextbike
Upcoming launch in Otrokovice (CZ) 🚲 (60)

Setram
Upcoming launch in Le Mans (FR) 🚲

You’re missing out on 1 launch & expansion. Subscribe to premium to read on.

TENDER WATCH 👀

You’re missing out on 1 crucial tender. Subscribe to premium to unlock all.

CITY UPDATES 🌐

Berlin (DE) | Mandatory parking zones introduced for scooters in inner districts.

Písek (PL) | Shared bike rentals growing every year with 74,000 rentals last year.

Subscribe to premium to reveal 2 more city updates.

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️

INVERS launch a car sharing knowledge platform.

TRL & Voi find shared scooter injuries ‘extremely rare’ in th UK.

UK Government to introduce new legislation for private scooters, which are not legal and are being used more and more on roads.

RIDE Mobility share a chart that shows its growth in Latvia and beyond.