Clients trust movmi to give unbiased recommendations that best serves their needs. This includes providing recommendations on which technology provider will support the client’s business model.
To stay up to date and ensure movmi is providing clients with sound recommendations, we conducted in-depth interviews with top carsharing technology vendors for carshare operators. We conducted one-on-one interviews with Vulog, Ridecell, Invers, Omoove, MonGeo, Good Travel System (GTS), Convadis, Mobiag and ModoEngage over a three-month period. These interviews included a back-end demo of their software and technology companies also completed an extensive questionnaire. Plus, we are talking about a new carsharing technology vendor, Ecomobix, below.
Movmi had two key objectives when conducting this study:
- To identify and analyze the key differences between the established technology vendors and the new comers in the industry
- To gain an in-depth understanding of each technology vendors’ product offering(s) so that movmi can provide tailored recommendations to current and future clients
Well-Established Technology Players: What to Expect
Players: Invers, Convadis, Mobility Systems & Services
Pros: There are many benefits for choosing a well-established technology vendor that newcomers cannot provide. For example, when clients partner with Invers they have peace-of-mind that it is an easy, proven, turnkey solution to implement.
Since these vendors have decades of experience under their belt, systems will be stable and processes are well-documented – easing the learning curve for new carshare operators. When problems arise, these well-established vendors will know how to troubleshoot efficiently and effectively. One consideration for partnering with a well-established players is that they have the capabilities to integrate into various vehicle makes and models.
Tradeoffs: Since the station-based model was the norm when these technology providers were established, this means that they recently had to adapt to other business models such as A-B or free-floating. This can result in a user interface that may not be as intuitive or visually appealing. There may be some workaround procedures to accomplish a certain task.
Newcomers: What to Expect
Players: Vulog, RideCell, MonGeo, Mobiag, Good Travel Software (GTS), Omoove
Pros: A commonality movmi found with newcomers is that these vendors are focused and find creative ways to try and make things better: whether that’s trying to improve the user experience or help back-end users perform their jobs better. For example, Vulog allows carshare operators to harness data for decision-making. With Vulog’s technology, operators can understand who is using their services, which lets them build customer profiles.
Operators can also analyze supply and demand trends to know where to place vehicles and review operational costs to know where improvements can be made. From a customer perspective, Ridecell takes users through a seamless registration process that can be completed in less than two minutes. Ridecell also helps carshare operators improve their vehicle utilization rates by combining carshare and rideshare into one platform.
Tradeoffs: Depending on the vendor, documentation may not be as robust and established which may create a bumpy road when rolling out the technology for the first time. Some new entrants may not have certain modules yet such as promotion or discounts because they are still new to the market.
Another Carshare Tech Vendor: Ecomobix
Another carsharing technology vendor, who is also a partner of ours, is called Ecomobix. As a branch of their original fleet management and carsharing services company, EcoService, Ecomobix has in-depth knowledge of the needs of a carsharing fleet manager. Through their artificial intelligence and machine learning, Ecomobix can offer specialties to your carshare operation, such as parking predictions and a smart ticket algorithm system.
Based on patterns learned over time, the Ecomobix carsharing technology platform will provide your fleet manager with recommendations on tickets and suggestions for moving the vehicles to hot zones in order to increase revenue. The software makes the fleet manager’s position more effective by being able to efficiently and accurately calculate the costs involved with moving the vehicle and offset this with the potential additional revenue of the hot zone move.
You can read more about the incredible Ecomobix platform here.
Contact us if you’d like the full report.
By Ashley Cho, Business Analyst at movmi
