Urban mobility is the set of apps and services that let people in a city get around without owning a vehicle, or without driving their own. You can book a cab or a bike taxi, hire a driver for your own car, rent a scooter by the minute near the metro, and park without taking a ticket.
The biggest part is the ride-hailing app. It is a marketplace with two sides, riders and drivers. It finds a nearby driver, sets the fare and takes the payment. The drivers are usually not employees. They are independent gig workers who own or rent their vehicles. Because more drivers mean shorter waits and more riders, which then attract more drivers, a few large apps tend to win in each city. This is the network effect.
The other services cover other needs. Some people own a car but do not want to drive it, so a driver on demand comes to drive it, by the hour or the day. For the short stretch between a metro station and the office, micromobility gives electric scooters and bicycles by the minute. When people park, smart parking reads the number plate with automatic number plate recognition and charges the driver's account, so there is no ticket and no barrier.
In a few cities, mainly in the USA and China, the cab that arrives can be a robotaxi, a car with nobody at the wheel. It works at a high level of autonomy, but only inside a mapped area. Robotaxis are not yet allowed to carry passengers on Indian roads.
Say you leave home in Bengaluru on a busy Saturday. You unlock a shared scooter for the last kilometre to the metro station. After the metro, you book a cab to your cousin's house. In the evening the family goes to a wedding in your own car, and you have hired a driver for it. The driver parks at the venue, where a camera reads the plate. Every payment is settled by UPI, and the cab driver is paid out later by the app.
Most of these services set their prices with dynamic pricing. A fare rises when many people want rides and few drivers are free. In India, states are now passing laws on the pay and rights of gig workers. Rajasthan was the first, in 2023. Much of the software behind the largest apps is built by engineers in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.