\u201cOver the last few years, cities have experienced rising urban sprawl, where residents of metropolitan areas have been pushed out toward suburban areas, often beyond the limits of public transit lines,\u201d noted Azure Maps head Chris Pendleton. \u201cWith most jobs still residing in densely populated cities, the typical commute is becoming multi-modal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moovit, for the uninitiated, constitutes two core elements: a consumer-facing app that gives travelers the easiest way to get around a city and a mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) platform that provides municipalities with data<\/a> and analytics to improve city transport infrastructure.<\/p>\n A few months back,\u00a0Moovit and Microsoft announced a partnership<\/a> that would allow developers who use Azure Maps to hook into Moovit\u2019s transit data. Last week, GPS navigation stalwart TomTom announced an expanded tie-up<\/a> with Microsoft, one that will bring TomTom\u2019s extensive maps and traffic data into the Azure fold \u2014 in effect, TomTom will serve as the primary location data provider for Microsoft\u2019s cloud platform, Bing Maps, and Cortana.<\/p>\n Fast-forward to today, and the three companies are now pooling their respective capabilities for an urban transport offering that any third-party developer can leverage.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will lead to commuters having the best option to plan a trip [by] combining legs on public transit, ride-sharing, bike, or scooter and other legs by car, including finding available parking lot spaces in real time,\u201d added\u00a0Moovit cofounder and CEO Nir Erez.<\/p>\n Through Azure Maps<\/a>, Microsoft\u2019s developer-focused mapping platform, users will be able to access not only Moovit\u2019s public transit data, but also TomTom\u2019s real-time driving and parking data. So developers will be able to\u00a0include the full gamut of transport options inside their own apps \u2014 including buses, trains, metros, ferries, carpooling, bike-sharing, and now driving and parking.<\/p>\n \u201cBlending TomTom\u2019s specific auto and parking lot data with Moovit\u2019s multi-modal trip planning gives Azure Maps an unprecedented view of every facet of urban mobility,\u201d Pendleton continued. \u201cNo one else has provided this comprehensive level of service in one solution.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen a growing number of integrations between transport service providers, and the term \u201cmulti-modal\u201d is springing up more frequently in urban mobility conversations.<\/p>\n Back in 2016,\u00a0Moovit combined its public transport data with Uber<\/a> to find the best route in dozens of cities. A year later,\u00a0Uber revealed that it would make it easier for its ride-hailing customers to keep tabs on other transit options by displaying real-time public transport data<\/a> alongside private vehicles. Earlier this month, Uber revealed it was doubling down<\/a> on efforts to show full transit options directly inside the Uber app.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, navigation giant Here recently\u00a0launched a new social transport app<\/a> for planning and sharing rides,\u00a0merging all modes of transport, including public, private, and personal, into a single platform.<\/p>\n Tying these myriad transport options together is maps and data, which is the currency for urban mobility companies. TomTom was pretty much blindsided by the arrival of iOS and Android a decade ago, with smartphones enabling portable navigation in everyone\u2019s pockets. In recently times, TomTom has been striving to refocus its core business to better compete with Google in maps and navigation, and it recently offloaded its telematics unit<\/a> for $1 billion to help with this push.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s announcement, alongside TomTom\u2019s broader Azure partnership announced last week, should go some way toward helping the company gain more traction.<\/p>\n \u201cLocation data has become more relevant and important than ever before, and no one knows this better than TomTom,\u201d added managing director Anders Truelsen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A triumvirate of tech companies today announced what they\u2019re touting as the \u201cworld\u2019s first truly comprehensive multi-modal trip planner.\u201d Taking the stage at the Move mobility conference in London, executives from Microsoft, TomTom, and Moovit outlined how they\u2019re pooling their various transport, data, and cloud processing smarts so developers can integrate more extensive transport options […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[54,50],"class_list":["post-82267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-azure","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/venture-beat-microsoft-moovit-and-tomtom-team-up-for-multi-modal-transport-platform.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\nMulti-modal<\/h2>\n