26 November 2021. More than 50 million kilometres have been travelled by partner drivers, which is more than 60 times the distance from Bucharest to the Moon, in the 2 years of its presence on the market, according to data from FREE NOW, European leader in multimodal mobility services, operating in 9 cities in Romania. Bucharest is in the top 10 European cities in terms of the number of rides, among those where the group is active, while the Old Town, Romana Square and North Railway Station are the most popular destinations in Romania.
The average ride value was 17 lei and 45% of rides were made by passengers for work commute or to get to the airport, according to FREE NOW data in the 9 cities (Bucharest, Cluj, Brasov, Iasi, Constanta, Sibiu, Oradea, Timisoara and Targu Mures) over a two-year period.
On the occasion of its second anniversary in Romania, on 27 November, as a sign of appreciation from FREE NOW, drivers will benefit from 0% commission and passengers who choose to travel with FREE NOW will benefit from significant discounts when paying via the app.
"In our two years of activity, we have always paid attention to the needs of our customers, but also to those of our partners and companies present in Romania. We have become an extremely important partner for large companies in Romania, with over 400 of them currently benefiting from our B2B services. In a delicate time for society as a whole, we supported the vaccination campaign and offered free rides to those who chose to travel with FREE NOW to get immunized. As a sign of our commitment to sustainability, we offered free rides to passengers to persuade them to leave their personal cars at home in favour of ridesharing alternatives and planted trees for cleaner air. We're a company that puts its impact on society first and we use every opportunity to demonstrate this", says Lennart Zipfel, Country Manager FREE NOW România.
FREE NOW partners are often highly appreciated by passengers. The record amount of tips received by one of the partner drivers in the two years the group has been active in Romania was 9,000 lei. Another sign of the passengers' appreciation is the long distances they have travelled throughout this period. The record is held by a customer who travelled a total of 1,700 kilometres in 2 years, equal to the distance from Bucharest to Hamburg, where the headquarters of FREE NOW is located. International holidays are usually the days when people travel around the city the most, and 8 March 2020 was the busiest day recorded in two years.
Over the past year, FREE NOW has continued to get involved in the communities it serves. Earlier this year, FREE NOW launched a unique initiative to support the vaccination campaign, offering free rides to all passengers in Romania and 7 other countries where it operates, worth a total of €1 million. At the same time, the FREE NOW group launched this year the "Move to Net-Zero" initiative, which aims to make a significant contribution to improving sustainable mobility methods. In addition, during European Mobility Week, FREE NOW encouraged passengers to travel around the city with ridesharing alternatives to help reduce traffic, pollution and time spent searching for parking, and planted 1,000 trees on their behalf.
About FREE NOW
FREE NOW is Europe’s leading multi-mobility platform backed by BMW Group and Daimler AG. Next to ride-hailing, FREE NOW also offers micro-mobility services such as e-scooters, e-bikes, e-Mopeds as well as car sharing. It consists of the services FREE NOW (10 European markets) and Βeat (5 Latin American and 1 European market). Summed up, those services currently attract 50 million users in 16 markets and more than 150 cities. FREE NOW is, therefore, the biggest multi-service mobility provider in Europe and the fastest-growing ride-hailer in Latin America. FREE NOW works with various third-party providers to offer their customers an even wider range of options to get from A to B. In total, around 1,900 employees in around 38 offices work for the services of FREE NOW, which is led by CEO Marc Berg.
