Since the launch of ridesharing and delivery apps, on-demand mobility has exploded into one of the fastest-growing sectors of our modern economy.
What started as a simple way for drivers to earn supplemental income has become a lifeline for millions during these uncertain times. However, as the industry matures, challenges have emerged that impact all participants, from individuals pursuing flexible work to investors, financial services, gig platforms, and even autonomous vehicle companies.
Fortunately, companies like Gridwise are dedicated to supporting the entire on-demand ecosystem through transparency and data-driven insights through Gridwise Analytics.
Here's what we cover:
The origins of Gridwise
Founded in 2017 by veteran drivers Ryan Green and Brian Finamore, Gridwise has had a mission to empower gig workers with the knowledge to boost earnings and quality of life.
The founders grew their mobility alert service from humble beginnings. In the early days, they manually created text alerts that consolidated information from over ten apps, notifying drivers about airport traffic, weather, major events, and other factors impacting their work.
They also researched multiple online sources to produce a weekly email curating events, weather, and traffic – valuable intelligence that helped drivers optimize their schedules.
Gridwise’s first offering to drivers was SMS alerts and a weekly email.
Gridwise then scaled from providing text messages and emails to a nationwide platform. Today, the platform helps gig drivers know when and where to drive based on rideshare and delivery demand hot spots. Gridwise also shows drivers how to maximize tax deductions via mileage and earnings tracking. The app also provides insights into when, where, and when to drive.
Over time, Gridwise grew exponentially, with 205K+ active drivers each quarter and 400 million rideshare and delivery trips tracked.
Gridwise is now a powerful and reliable platform that helps drivers optimize their schedules, finances, and earnings potential through a comprehensive app designed specifically for drivers and their unique needs.
From the beginning, the founders’ core focus has been to improve the lives of gig drivers by offering solutions the founders wish they had access to while gig-driving themselves.
Screenshots from the Gridwise App 2023
Gridwise Analytics: The logical next step
As the company grew, the founders recognized the challenges facing the larger gig mobility industry. The decisions made by major gig platforms affect the companies, drivers, and customers they serve.
However, industry stakeholders often face challenges – a lack of ground truth data that would enable them to make decisions that could further positively impact the gig mobility industry.
To fill this data gap, Gridwise launched Gridwise Analytics – providing anonymized, first-party insights gleaned directly from their nationwide driver network. Their solution aims to benefit both gig workers and the wider industry.
With access to Gridwise Analytics, companies gain a comprehensive view of mobility patterns across their competitive landscape. Regulators and researchers can explore pressing issues with robust, unbiased information. Municipal planners obtain insights guiding policies that support thriving gig economies and transportation systems optimized for the future.
By aggregating data to protect individual privacy, Gridwise Analytics enables previously impossible studies valuable to stakeholders of all kinds. Its many use cases have the potential to impact the industry positively.
Gig mobility: A rapidly growing industry
Service companies such as Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart have transformed the ways people and goods move within and around our cities, all while providing gig workers a profitable and flexible way to earn a living in a tough economy.
Ride-hail and demand-responsive transit systems have been adopted by the masses worldwide and depend on these systems as a primary mode of transportation. The long-term future of the ride-hail industry is looking bright, with the ride-hail market projected to reach $85.48 billion by 2023, representing a CAGR of 17.97%.
But this soaring growth isn’t limited to transporting people. App-based delivery has become a primary means for receiving groceries, food from restaurants, and every conceivable kind of household goods. The food delivery industry is included in these projections. This industry segment is also projected to grow, with the food delivery market alone expected to reach $154.34 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 11.51%.
Gig workers continue to flock to rideshare and delivery. The number of US transportation-based gig workers is expected to top 9 million by 2023, up from 5 million in 2018, according to a joint report by Mastercard and Kaiser Associates.
Gig mobility’s growth challenges
Inevitably, however, rapid growth often brings challenges.
Challenges stem from the current mobility transformation, which affects business across many verticals. Companies must understand trends and patterns across gig mobility to make key operational, investment, and strategic decisions. For many organizations, making the wrong operational decisions could result in multi-billion-dollar mistakes, affecting drivers and the public.
What can Gridwise Analytics do for the industry?
When companies use Gridwise Analytics, key industry stakeholders and their data teams can access anonymized, first-party insights into how people and goods move in and around urban areas. This enables decisions based on ground truth data. When decisions are based on ground truth data, real needs can be met and actual problems solved for.
Aside from Gridwise, no other database-organized entities have access to aggregated insights into multi-provider mobility patterns. By working with us, companies can leverage mobility data intelligence to gain a competitive edge.
Data provided by Gridwise Analytics serves as a critical tool for numerous industries and entities, including:
- Gig platforms can leverage gig mobility data intelligence to optimize and expand their business in a highly competitive market. By understanding the market and not relying on biased data, teams within these companies can make decisions based on industry-gleaned data.
- Mobility Service Firms: Gridwise Analytics helps mobility service firms understand current supply and demand within the gig-driving economy so they can inform their go-to-market strategy, optimize pricing, and maximize utilization.
- Investors and Hedge Funds: Gridwise Analytics can help investment firms make smarter decisions. Using our data, stakeholders can better estimate or predict performance and stock prices for companies in ride-hailing, food delivery, retail, real estate, and other industries.
- Regulators and Researchers: Access to Gridwise Analytics data will help to inform policy decisions and research related to workers’ rights, the impact on congestion, multi-modal patterns, and how to create more equitable transportation.
- Developers and Retailers: Access to Gridwise Analytics data will enable retail restaurants and stores to better select their next location based on understanding the origin and destination trends of people and food, grocery, or parcel deliveries.
- Municipalities: Access to first-party Gridwise Analytics data helps cities and states better understand factors such as gig driver earnings, curb utilization, and the impact gig mobility has on traffic congestion, among others. This can be invaluable for policy, regulation, and infrastructure decisions.
Work with Gridwise Analytics
Access to accurate, ground truth data paves the way for smarter, more equitable decisions by all stakeholders. Most important, Gridwise Analytics fulfills the original mission of the company’s founders: to empower drivers and the companies they work for with knowledge that can boost earnings and advocate for needed changes. We further believe that access to ground truth data encourages industry growth.
As on-demand mobility continues transforming transportation, Gridwise will remain dedicated to empowering that transition through insights supplied through Gridwise Analytics that benefit all industry stakeholders.
Are you interested in working with Gridwise Analytics? Do you have questions about how we can help and support your business? You can get in contact with our team by filling out the form below.
