Populus was awarded a contract by the city of Chicago to provide its mobility management platform.
The Populus platform provides cities and regional agencies with secure data from mobility operators, such as shared bikes, scooters, mopeds and cars, and to digitally manage their curbs and shared mobility policies.
In October 2021, the city of Chicago approved an ordinance creating a new scooter sharing business license, with up to three scooter companies eligible to receive permits through a competitive application process. The city of Chicago will receive access to Populus’ secure Mobility Manager Platform to oversee the shared scooter program, as well as manage the city’s Divvy bikeshare program.
Populus says its Mobility Manager enables the city to implement and evaluate its shared mobility program effectively. Using tools in Populus’ digital platform, cities can create and assess the utilization of shared mobility parking corrals, create and measure vehicle caps to incentivize preferred operator and rider behavior, measure transportation equity, identify new infrastructure, and ultimately, help ensure that these services are safe and sustainable.
"Shared bike and scooter programs offer another easy way for residents and visitors to choose active transportation to get around Chicago. We are looking forward to leveraging Populus’ digital solutions to provide key oversight over our transportation system as it continues to expand," said Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Gia Biagi.
In addition to managing micromobility services, the city of Chicago is piloting Populus’ digital curb management solutions. Populus is a provider in supporting the translation of parking regulations into the newly released Curb Data Specification — a standard for cities to share parking regulations with commercial fleet operators, such as commercial loading zones for Uber, Amazon and other delivery services.
“We are excited to partner with the city of Chicago, which has been a leader in managing shared mobility services with one of the nation’s largest and long standing bikeshare systems,” said Regina Clewlow, CEO and co-founder, Populus. “This partnership has a lot of potential to expand to new, innovative use cases that will be examples for cities around the world looking to optimize their streets and valuable curbspace.”
