Mobility expert interviews

Mobility Expert InterviewsIn-depth interviews with operators, regulators and city officials on how transport markets are evolving.

Blablacar Bus VP: -A Waymo will never give you the long-distance ride you need

2025-11-25 · mobility-policy, interviews, maas, carpooling, pta

How Blablacar went from Carpooling to also include Coaches Lars: BlaBlaCar started as a carpooling platform connecting drivers and passengers. How did it evolve into a platform that also operates long-distance coaches? …

Interview with CEO on nextbike’s Journey: Expansion, TIER-nextbike Merger, and Return to Independence

2025-11-10 · mobility-policy, interviews, micromobility, bikes

The Origins of nextbike Lars: Could you start by telling us the story of how Nextbike began? Sebastian: nextbike was founded more than 20 years ago in Leipzig. We started with just 60 bikes in Leipzig and nearby Dresden…

Ex. Bike-Share CEO Wants To Bring Big Tech’s Data Ambition To Public Procurement

2025-10-22 · mobility-policy, interviews, mobility

What is a Mobility Impact Market? Lars: Erdem, in a nutshell, what is a mobility impact market? Erdem: The mobility impact market is what I call impact procurement as a service . It’s essentially a service layer for cit…

Ecov CEO: “Fraud Happened” - How France Cleaned Up Carpooling

2025-10-15 · mobility-policy, interviews, carpooling

What is carpooling? Lars: What is Ecov’s concept in one sentence? Thomas: Ecov creates public transport lines using cars. We design stops and routes just like a bus operator would, but instead of buses, we rely on the f…

KINTO Executive - Politicians often speak positively about car-sharing, but they don’t do much

2025-09-24 · mobility-policy, interviews, car-sharing

What is Toyota's KINTO brand Lars: To start, can you share what KINTO is and why Toyota is betting on it? Olof: KINTO is Toyota’s global mobility brand with several services: Share, Flex, Join, One, and Ride. The idea i…

Insurance President: - Self-driving cars exhibited 92% less pedestrian injuries than private cars

2025-09-09 · mobility-policy, interviews

The Rising Cost of Mobility Insurance Insurance may not be the sexiest topic in mobility, but it is one of the most important ones. For every mobility operator insurance is becoming an increasing part of their profit an…

Dmitri Pivovarov, VP of Bolt: "Tenders hand the keys to those who lobby hardest."

2025-08-27 · insight

Rethinking regulation of Micromobility: rules, not tenders Lars Christian Grødem-Olsen (LCGO): Cities seem to increasingly favour tenders. Why do you push back? DP: " Tenders hand the keys to the operators who can lobby…

The Taxi Tragedy: Why Taxi Regulations Often Fail

2025-04-03 · taxi, ride-hail

Why taxi regulations fail Lars (L): Roger, you describe the taxi industry as a “tragedy of the commons.” What do you mean? ‍Roger Dørum (RD): The tragedy of the commons is a situation in which a resource, available for …

Sampo Hietanen on the status of MaaS: ‘It’s not a question of if Amazon and Apple will enter the mobility market, but when’

2025-03-06 · interviews, mobility, maas

What is Mobility-as-a-service (MaaS)? Mobility-as-a-Service was defined by Sampo Hietanen, a shift from owning a car to buying a mobility service that meets all your travel needs via a single interface. MaaS aims to red…

Mastering Public Affairs & PR for New and Shared Mobility

2025-02-20 · mobility-policy, pr-pa

Why PA and PR Matters in Mobility Whether you’re an emerging startup or a well-known operator, your product can face challenges in being misunderstood by regulators and undermined by incumbents. By engaging in PA and PR…

Nils Petter Nordbø on How To Make Car-Sharing Work

2025-02-06 · car-sharing, ev-policy

Why Hyre is profitable and growing Lars Christian Grødem-Olsen: Why do you think Hyre can succeed in Stockholm while Volvo On Demand is scaling down? Nils Petter Nordbø: "Lean operations and offering great cars at reaso…

Cracking the RFI Codes: Strategies for Mobility Request-for-Information (RFI) Processes

2025-01-23 · pta, insight

What is an RFI? A Request for Information (RFI) is a document issued by a procurer to gather market insights. The RFI guides the subsequent procurement steps, by showing procurers what’s on the market and at which terms…

Commercial Lifespan Escooters: How Long Do Escooters and Ebikes Last?

2024-10-15 · micromobility, e-scooter

Introduction When off-the-shelf e-scooters like the Xiaomi M365 and Ninebot Segway ES4 were first introduced, they helped operators scale quickly. However, some lasted 3-4 weeks and others just up to six months due to p…

RideMovi: How to make micromobility profitable from day one

2024-09-17 · micromobility, bikes

The lean history of RideMovi Founded in 2018 after acquiring Mobike’s operations in Italy and Spain, RideMovi quickly distinguished itself from competitors who struggled with bloated operations and poorly made vehicles.…

BlaBlaCar Daily cracks the carpooling code for short distance travel (published externally)

2024-04-10 · carpooling

BlaBlaCar General Manager Adrien Tahon tells Zag how a €100 subsidy made 94% of new carpooling drivers stay on & how this is shifting the shared behaviour of short distance travel for good

Ryde CEO on e-scooter rider fines, expensive regulations & being profitable since day 1 (published externally)

2024-03-13 · micromobility, e-scooter

Tobias Balchen gives Zag the inside story on how high fees and strict regulations are pushing micromobility operators out of the Nordic market as Ryde steadily executes its ‘smart growth’ strategy brick by brick

All mobility apps should be able to sell transit tickets says FREENOW exec (published externally)

2024-02-26 · maas, mobility

FREENOW Director of Partnerships David Koral tells Zag Daily why public transport authorities should work with MaaS platforms and Mobility Super Apps to achieve the same goal: public transit use

Mobility VC: How the ‘bullshit’ speculative boom led to current underinvestment (published externally)

2024-02-07 · mobility

Olaf Sakkers, co-founder of global mobility VC firm RedBlue Capital, explains how a “spectrum of investor errors”, irrational public intolerances, and more, has led to market under-investment

CEO of Norwegian PTA says we are doing electric mobility subsidies wrong (published externally)

2024-01-29 · drt, mobility

Bernt Reitan Jenssen, CEO of Oslo’s public transport authority Ruter, tells Zag why Norway must change subsidies away from ownership towards shared mobility and how Ruter’s creating a ...

Let’s Dance! (published externally)

2024-01-08 · drt, mobility

Dance Co-Founder Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss lifts the lid on how his e-bike subscription service is becoming one of the biggest fleet operators in Paris, the financial pressure to improve unit ...

Kolumbus is setting a new green standard in public transit (published externally)

2023-12-13 · mobility, drt

In 2017 Norwegian company Kolumbus made the bold switch from public transport operator to mobility provider. CEO Edith Nøkling, Head of Mobility Espen Henriksen & Head of Bicycles Randi Markvardsen tell Zag how, wit…

Carpooling: the missing ingredient in the mobility ecosystem (published externally)

2023-11-23 · drt, mobility

Nabogo Co-founder Kasper Mikkelsen & Country Manager Kirubel Hailu, along with Bouvet Advisor Kristian Amlie tell Zag about the potential for carpooling and why car use needs to be repurposed

EXCLUSIVE: Trafi hits profitability cracking mobility-as-a-service (published externally)

2023-11-08 · drt, mobility

Trafi CEO Damian Bown – who built the world’s first transport planner on a phone back in 2000 – dissects what MaaS truly means, why positioning, not preference, drives mobility choices & the trend towards seamless r…

Regulated Like Cars, Ridden Like Bikes: Navigating Micromobility Regulation with Voi’s Christina Moe Gjerde (published externally)

2023-08-30 · drt, mobility

Christina Moe Gjerde, Voi's driving force in the Nordics & Benelux, discusses Oslo's e-scooter revolution, the 'Oslo Model' and the challenges of micromobility regulation.