Cabify will withdraw its motorcycle sharing service in Barcelona at the end of the month, a decision that will mean that the company’s 632 purple motorcycles will disappear from the city’s streets. However, users will be able to continue using the shared motorcycle service through an agreement with Cooltra, a platform to which they will be redirected through the application. Likewise, the VTC service will continue to operate normally.
Sources from the company, based in Madrid, argue that its presence in Barcelona no longer fits with its business since regulations that will be unfavorable to them will come into force in July.
With this decision, Cabify joins the list of operators that have abandoned Barcelona in recent years due to profitability problems and lack of compliance with municipal regulations. In fact, only three of the nine operators that obtained permits from Barcelona City Council are still standing.
As can be seen in the application store of a smartphone, Seat Mó, Cityscoot, Reby, Oiz, Tucycle and Avant are no longer available, and now the user can only access Cooltra, Yego and Acciona.
In compliance with the regulations, these three companies operate in Barcelona with the same number of vehicles –632– and have never been able to take over the fleet of applications that have left the city. Nor will they do so with the Cabify fleet, so starting in May around 1,900 shared motorcycles will be available in the city, a figure that is far from the 7,000 licenses allowed by Barcelona City Council.
The situation could change starting in July, when new regulations promoted by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area will come into force, which has assumed the powers of the motosharing service with the aim of expanding the service to other cities in the Barcelona region. such as Badalona or l’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
According to industry sources, the new regulations will grant up to 15,000 shared motorcycle licenses. The companies that will choose to manage the service are not yet known. In any case, Cabify will not do it, since yesterday it indicated that the new conditions do not fit its business. On the other hand, Cooltra will participate in the public tender, said yesterday the CEO, Timo Buetefish, who founded this company in Barcelona.
