Citymapper adds ‘floating’ transport into its app, with partner support for Ofo, Mobike and Santander

Citymapper has added dockless cycles and scooters across London and other cities into its app, in a move to update your daily commute with what it calls ‘floating transport’.

From today, users will be able to see transport options from dockless bikes, scooters and mopeds inside the Citymapper app, with journey times including how far the bike is from where you’re standing and what it’ll cost you to rent one.

The new transport options will also be multimodal, showing you if it’s quicker for you to hop onto the nearest Ofo bike on your way to the Tube rather than walking or taking the bus.

For London, this means partnerships with the floating brands currently available to commuters, including Ofo, Mobike and Santander. Across the world, Citymapper is partnering with 17 brands in total as part of the initiative.

The modes of transports that fit under the app’s so-called floating umbrella are any that have changing physical locations, like cycles, moped scooters and kick scooters. Some of these, like the mopeds, require a driving licence to operate, can’t be used in cycle lanes, and can only be parked in designated spots.

As transport evolves, the app will also evolve to support user behaviours. Citymapper believes that while regulation has driven the operator in the past, “now the relationship gets flipped”.

“The users will drive the operators, [and] the new brands will respond rapidly to demand in order to survive. The regulator will accelerate to cope with all the new operators and services”, it said in a company blog post.