German shared e-scooter operator TIER has passed three significant micromobility milestones in the last few days.
It is now operating over 10,000 e-scooters in a single European city, Berlin, over 50,000 such vehicles in a single European country, Germany, and over 100,000 across Europe in total – the first operator to exceed all three milestones.
The company is on a growth spurt. It is just over two years old, and its Berlin fleet has doubled in the last couple of months. Across Europe, TIER’s fleets have grown by 35 per cent in just two months. The company’s size and large number of operations is allowing it to carry out many innovations simultaneously, testing them in different markets as it seeks to become the pan-European “go-to” e-scooter company.
In Stockholm it is collaborating with rival Voi to provide physical docking spaces. In London it has paused hire charges when waiting at red lights, at Dublin City University it is trialling computer vision kerb detection, and in several cities it has introduced a network of user-operated, shop-provided battery swapping points. It has also introduced electric cargo bikes in some markets, to reduce carbon emissions and congestion caused by fleet rebalancing operations.
Benjamin Bell, TIER’s Director of Public Policy, Northern Europe, told Zag: “Wherever we operate, TIER scales up its service responsibly and in line with growing demand. A large fleet allows us to serve not only the inner cities, but also the outer suburbs, so extending our mission to change mobility for good.
“By offering a range of electric modes, as well as partnering with public transport authorities and mobility platforms such as FREE NOW, Google Maps and Moovit, we have become the leading operator in every one of the 60 German cities where TIER is available.”
A Zag deep dive into the German e-scooter market reveals some interesting statistics which distinguish the country from the rest of the continent:
- Germany has the highest number of scooters for hire in Europe, with well over 150,000 – over three times as many as second-placed Sweden.
- 86 German towns/cities have e-scooter sharing fleets.
- The majority (58 per cent) of these towns and cities have at least two active operators, ensuring a healthy degree of competition between providers, across the country. This contrasts sharply with the UK where the great majority of cities suffer an operator monopoly.
- Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne each have six competing operators.
- Berlin has the biggest number of e-scooters available to hire of any European city – over 30,000. Frankfurt is in second place with around 20,000, along with Stockholm in Sweden. This is a snapshot in time – city regulations and permitting often causes these city totals to fluctuate rapidly. But right now, Berlin is the European e-scooter capital.
Also in Germany, some way behind TIER are Voi, Lime, Bird and Bolt, all with around 10,000-30,000 in the country currently. Spin has a number of small fleets in many neighbouring German cities, mainly in the Rhur and Rhineland regions. Zeus is an Irish company which has an unusual three-wheeled scooter design.
Its only operations however are in Germany, where it has over 1,000 e-scooters across several towns and cities, although as Ireland looks to introduce e-scooter trials soon, it may finally be able to operate in its home country. Completing the operator roundup, Yoio is a small German-only operator, while Jawls, Dott and Wind operate in multiple countries but only have a small presence in Germany.
