Considering a courier-micromobility policy collision

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Source: VOLT Bikes

As transportation network companies increasingly diversify their services and acquire others, complex regulatory intersections arise. During the group activity portion of the courier network service presentation, my group broached the idea of incentivizing delivery trips by bike by giving couriers free or discounted bikeshare rides. But the fact that Uber owns Jump, whose electric bikes seem well-suited for making multiple courier trips in an urban environment, raised questions of market domination clashing with policy goals.

When Uber first acquired Jump in 2018, it set off some speculation on how the system would be integrated into its growing app-based ecosystem. Food tech blog The Spoon quickly noted the bikes could be used to bolster urban deliveries made through Uber Eats, providing couriers without a bike, or without an e-bike, with a vertically integrated option. (This may only work in some delivery types, but e-bikes are already a popular delivery mode for denser cities like New York City.)

Indeed, it appears such a partnership for couriers appeared to exist at least in San Francisco for a at least a brief period. One writer detailed a 2018 partnership through which couriers could use Jump bikes as delivery vehicles, in coordination with incentives to return low-charge Jump bikes to off-street charging stations. The exact mechanism of the integration of is unclear, though, on how the incentive worked or how Jump and Uber recruited couriers.

This raises an important consideration: should cities look to regulate the VMT and other transportation-related externalities of courier network services, proposed mitigation may create unprecedented and complex interactions with existing app-based transportation systems and their associated regulations.

If San Francisco mandated a certain number of delivery trips for CNSs, for example, be made through non-car modes, Uber might have a key advantage through their own established micro-mobility systems. (Scooters appear less-suited for deliveries, as they are better-used in shorter trips and may have balance issues with heavy cargo.) Would this create an unfair advantage for Uber Eats couriers in complying with the regulation, and would this in turn affect how the city weighs Jump in future micromobility programs?

To me, this highlights not only the potential intersections with CNSs and micro-mobility, but also the data insights cities will need before considering how to address them. For example, couriers using Jump bikes might consistently keep a significant portion of the small-for-a-major-city 500-bike fleet in use and unavailable for other users. If so, San Francisco would need to understand the fleet availability impacts and tie courier bike-ridership to specific Jump trips. Going even further, MDS may need an additional “event type” parameter to capture and document how often couriers might use a bike.

Traditionally, regulations for courier network services and dockless micro-mobility services might be considered under separate siloes, such as delivery and consumer transportation. But the corporate ownership structures and rapidly-moving partnerships means that, for some cities, they may have to be regulated together in some respects.

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