11 companies disrupting the transportation industry

Uber, Lyft, Waze, and DiDi are not the only one.

From London, Paris, and New York, to China, Israel, and Estonia, these companies are revolutionizing the way we move around. Whether it’s about commuting to work, traveling across countries and long distances, biking around, or just moving from point A to point B in your city, trust and data seem to be key the key factors in moving the industry forward.

VIA

Via (ridewithvia.com) is trying to build the most powerful on-demand transit systems in the world. The company also partners extensively with public transit agencies, making its proprietary software available to them — like Capital Metro in Austin, Texas, Keolis in France, and Arriva in the UK. According to the company: “Using Via, a ride booked on your phone costs little more than the bus.”

Via is on-demand transit on a mass scale; it’s transportation that’s friendly to our planet.

The app is currently available in New York City, Chicago, and Washington DC, and the company is aggressively expanding nationally — eyeing large markets like Austin, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco — and abroad, where is focusing on cities like Berlin, London, Rome, Sau Paolo, and Toronto.

Via is headquartered in New York City.

Daniel Ramot, co-founder and CEO of Via.

CITYMAPPER

Citymapper (citymapper.com) has been evolving from being an app that empowers data to make commuting and moving around cities easier to developing transportation services. The company has recently launched “a social hyper-local multi-passenger pooled vehicle” and private bus services in London to cover what its data flagged as under-serviced public transport routes.

Cities are complicated. We use the power of mobile and open transport data to help humans survive and master them.

The Citymapper platform, which also allows you to book services like Uber and Mobike, is available in almost 40 cities around the world.

Citymapper is headquartered in London, UK.

Azmat Yusuf, founder and CEO of Citymapper, at at Techcrunch Disrupt London 2016.

BLABLACAR

BlaBlaCar (blablacar.com) is a community marketplace that connects drivers with empty seats to passengers looking for a long-distance ride. According to the company: “Over 12 million people use BlaBlaCar every quarter creating an entirely new, people powered, transport network.”

With a dedicated customer service, a state of the art web and mobile platform, and a fast-growing community of users, BlaBlaCar is making travel social, money-saving and more efficient for millions of members.

The platform counts over 45 million members in 22 countries around the world.

BlaBlaCar is headquartered in Paris, France.

TAXIFY

Taxify (taxify.eu) is a fast-growing transport technology company in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, with more than 3 million users in 20 countries. According to the company, whose app allows users “to book convenient and reliable rides at the tap of a button,” both “taxi and private driver companies join Taxify to get more customers and benefit from our market leading transport technology platform.”

Taxify is literally changing how millions of people move by making on-demand transport affordable in tens of cities around the world.

“We wanted to become taxi aggregator at first — we later turned it into the ride-hailing app we know today,” said co-founder Martin Villig in an interview last June.

Taxify has more than 25,000 drivers in over 20 countries. Not only the company services large cities like London, Paris, and Mexico City, but its platform is also available in smaller cities like Budapest, Malta, Belgrade, and even in Riyadh and Baghdad.

Taxify is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia.

Markus Villig, Taxify’s co-founder and chief executive officer, discusses the company’s business model with Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde on “Bloomberg Technology.”

DRIVY

Drivy (drivy.com) is a marketplace for car rental. The company’s platform “lets you hire a car from among the thousands parked nearby, providing a cheaper, quicker car rental service.” Martin Villig

We want to create an on-demand car service that is much more efficient than owning a car.

According to Car Magazine, the platform counts more than “40,000 cars across France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Austria and a million members.”

Drivy is headquartered in Paris, France.

Paulin Dementhon, co-founder and CEO of Drivy, at NOAH16 in London.

OFO AND MOBIKE

As China’s bike-sharing startups Ofo and Mobike are agressively expanding into overseas markets, rumors of the two companies merging are mounting, to create “a single dominant player in the fast-growing business” worth more than $4 billion, as Bloomberg reports.

Both Ofo and Mobike allow users to unlock their bikes off the street — instead of using dock systems like more traditional bike-sharing services — using just a smartphone and electronic wallet, ride them to their destination, and then dump them.

“Mobike is the clear leader in the global bikesharing industry, supporting 30 million rides in 180 cities around the world every single day,” the company told Bloomberg. Ofo has said it plans to have 20 million bikes in 20 countries by the end of the year. Both companies have recently launched in the US and Europe.

Ofo and Mobike are both headquartered in Beijing, China.

SCOOT

Scoot Networks (scoot.co) operates a fleet of “shared, smartphone-enabled, electric, Vespa-style scooters” currently available in San Francisco. According to the company, the iconic red electric scooters are “expanding beyond San Francisco and choosing partners to bring the future of transportation to new cities.” One of the cities is Barcelona, Spain, where the company is currently hiring a fleet manager.

Scoots are the perfect combination of speed, affordability, convenience, safety, and sustainability for the billions of trips that take place everyday in cities around the world.

According to Scoot founder and CEO Michael Keating, the electric scooter rental service has been used by almost 50,000 users since it launched in 2012, and has logged more than “1,000,000 miles scooted,” as of last year. Keating has recently announced a partnership with Chinese automotive startup CHJ to bring the automaker’s yet-to-be-released small electric car with swappable batteries to San Francisco.

Scoot is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

CHARIOT

Chariot (chariot.com) is an on-demand shuttle service. According to the company, its mission “is to become the world’s first profitable mass transit service by crowdsourcing a network of commuter shuttle routes that provides a fast, reliable and affordable service using new Ford Transit 15-passenger vans.”

We’re focused on creating the world’s first self-sustainable mass-transit system that relieves congestion while offering a comfortable, personalized commuting experience.

Bought by Ford in 2016, Chariot operates its own fleet of on-demand vans in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as Seattle, New York, and Austin. Los Angeles is among the future markets its targeting, as are international cities like London.

Chariot is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

Ali Vahabzadeh, founder and CEO of Chariot, at SXSW.

GRAB

Grab (grab.com) started as a ride-hailing platform in Southeast Asia but has extended its services to include private car services, motorcycle taxis, carpooling, delivery, and mobile payments. The company says: “Working with governments, drivers, passengers, and the community, we aim to unlock the true potential of the region by solving problems that hinder progress.”

We use data and technology to improve everything from transportation to payments across a region of more than 620 million people.

The platform claims more than 700,000 drivers across around 40 cities in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar.

Grab is headquartered in Singapore.

GETT

Gett (gett.com) is a cab-hailing startup with a mission “to build a transportation service loved for its quality.”

We’re a global ride sharing app built on a simple idea — if you treat drivers better, they will treat riders better.

Gett is in more than 100 cities in four countries; the UK, the US, Israel, and Russia. According to the company, “in London alone, nearly half of all black cabs run on Gett,” while in New York City it operates through its subsidiary Juno, and “on-track to become the second-largest player in that market.”

Gett’s recent partnership with Carey International, a chauffeur and logistics business, will grow its market to 1,000 cities globally, including 100 more in the US and Europe.

The company is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.