What is the future of city mobility?

Ride-sharing apps such as Free Now started by helping people get around using cars. CEO Thomas Zimmermann thinks the future of city transport is in forcing cars into the passenger seat. How is this super app switching the focus of urban mobility?

“Nearly 70 percent of Free Now users want to see fewer cars on the road,” said Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of Free Now. This may seem a surprising take from a customer base that uses a mobile app to find car rides. But it’s consistent with a trend in urban mobility towards demands for more car-free city planning.

“There’s a common understanding that cities need to change. People want fewer cars in cities, meaning less congestion and pollution,” added Thomas.

Now, Free Now is responding with operational changes to its model, expanding platform functionality to offer users information on how to make their journey on public transport.

However, even with this long-term aim to get more cars off the road, Thomas asserted that “there will still be a need for mobility platforms like ours” and that “on a European level, if 10 percent of all cars became share rides, it would address our mobility needs”. This is consistent with European Federation for Transport and Environment data, which shows that every new vehicle added to a sharing scheme replaces 5-15 private cars.

Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of Free Now, was in conversation with Catarina Carvalho, founder and editor of Portuguese media outlet Mensagem de Lisboa, onstage at Web Summit 2022.

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Main image of a person booking a car using a ride-sharing app: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock