Electric Scooters & Blockchain Apps — Decentralizing Urban Mobility

Loud, crowded and taking forever to go from point A to point B. Especially during rush-hours, urban mobility is known to be one of the biggest time wasters. Due to the accelerated development, new buildings being built as we speak, more and more people coming to cities, even more just transitioning from one end to another… old infrastructures are approaching breaking point. And so are our patience and our wallets. But we can improve that. Through blockchain.

Electric scooters, blockchain technology & urban transportation

Electric Scooters & a New Era in Urban Mobility

For the largest amount of time in our society’s history, transportation has gone from horse-powered traction to steam engine and the combustion engine at a very slow pace. The accelerated development of the digital age and the technology around it, have generated a transformation of urban mobility.

“Megacities worldwide are facing an epidemic of congestion and pollution caused by rapid urbanization that is increasing gridlock and putting severe pressure on public transportation systems. 46% of car traffic in the US is caused by cars on trips less than three miles and micro-mobility solutions could help alleviate a significant portion of this last-mile gridlock. Data from INRIX suggests the average commuter in the US spent 42 hours in traffic congestion in 2014.”

Electric vehicles have emerged as a reaction to the increasing damage done by carbon emissions, for both climate change and pollution in cities. In today’s article, we focus on electric scooters (e-scooters) and their aim to revolutionize the way we move within cities.

Even since their inception, they have been positioned as an alternative and green urban transportation, leading to less traffic congestion, fresher air, and lower transport costs. The next years will be all about them and how they bring about a new era in urban mobility.

“Micro-mobility and e-scooter demand is also not exclusive to the US. As noted above, Tier Mobility, Wind Mobility, Voi Technology, Dott, and Flash are all European based e-scooter startups who have recently raised more than $150 million over the last several months alone. Part of the reason they have been able to raise such large amounts of capital is due to Lime and Bird’s success in European cities like Paris, Madrid, London, and Vienna.”

Together with their rise to fame comes the search for optimizing their consumption in an ever-more digitized world. The smartphone has become the remote control on which we control our entire lives. It has also become our digital wallet, as more and more people make payments using their portable devices. Here is where software technology meets e-scooters.

“companies like Grin and Yellow in unbanked and underbanked countries are offering convenient digital wallets and digital payment functionality. These companies will allow customers to purchase ride credits with cash, usually at a discount, and then allow them to use these ride credits for other purchases and payments like utility bills, shops, and restaurants, as well as for money transfers between friends.”

Since its adoption within the ride-sharing trend, companies are on the lookout for the best payment solutions, in order to streamline scooter rental and usage. Many of them have developed apps that support order management, GPS tracking and payments. But as with all businesses, they are always searching to optimize functionality, achieve greater transparency and provide incentives for their increasing user population.

This is where blockchain technology comes into the picture.

How Can Blockchain Revolutionize Urban Mobility

A blockchain layer is basically a distributed ledger allowing peer-to-peer collaboration and validation of transactions. Powered by what is known as a smart contract (the digitized version of real-life negotiated terms and conditions), blockchain is one of the emerging technologies that has the greatest potential in decentralizing and optimizing business processes.

Blockchain can enable transparent, secure and commission-free e-currency transactions for all payments that are made within the mobility rental process, as well as incentivizing the users through tokenizing the actual scooter usage. Basically, the payments would be made entirely digital on the peer-to-peer network, with riders being able to receive tokens for using electric scooters as their transport choice within the city.

Such a business model is developing as we speak, as the British startup Joops aims to decentralize e-scooter usage by building its ride-sharing app on the blockchain. It also allows users to start their own ride-sharing venture once they buy a scooter using the tokens awarded for using the service.

“Why is JOOPS different from its competitors? JOOPS is providing a global electric scooter hire service, combined with a P2P sharing network on the blockchain and unlike many other private centralised companies JOOPS allows the consumer to easily become an operator, by simply purchasing a JOOPScooter and renting it out on our decentralised network.”

The model creates the opportunity to join the scooter sharing companies, advancing the consumption of electrically-powered vehicles, increasing revenue and contributing to a more sustainable environment in the future.

“This allows the opportunity for anybody in the world to become an operator and create a passive income on the JOOPS network. Each scooter will have its own cryptocurrency wallet built in, allowing payments to go directly to the operator’s scooter. This will allow the operator to access their funds from anywhere in the world using their private key. “

Developing your next ride-sharing application on the blockchain can provide a competitive advantage for your business, as well as tokenized incentives for the users. Blockchain allows faster payment processing, has no payment intermediaries and eliminates single-points-of-failure while contributing to the reliability of the electric ride-sharing revolution.

At SWAZM, we developed the fastest turnkey infrastructure solution that allows the development of decentralized apps. We have created the space, compute power and blockchain development know-how, ready to support your next big idea. We are looking forward to build your next project!

From us to you… the hero brands and individuals of this world we live in! We’re empowering decentralization. Come join us on Telegram, connect on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, visit our website and find out how can we best help your business operations.

About Swazm

SWAZM is the next-generation decentralized storage and compute platform, designed to enable horizontal scaling of distributed applications. SWAZM facilitates effective decentralization by creating a new complete infrastructure solution with a reliable transfer network, storage capabilities, and compute containers. Tailored solutions aiming to improve your decentralized project.