15 January 2021 – TIER, Europe’s leading e-scooter operator, has partnered with next-generation mapping company Fantasmo to create the world’s most accurate e-scooter parking system, which will help to bring order to city streets and protect vulnerable road users.

Starting in Paris and York, TIER will implement Fantasmo’s “Camera Positioning System” (CPS), a new positioning technology that is ten times more accurate than GPS and can validate e-scooter parking within 20 cm or less with a phone camera alone. Without any physical infrastructure, this new feature will all but eliminate irresponsible parking, resolving a major concern for city authorities and people with visual impairment.

Los Angeles-based Fantasmo builds 3D maps of cities by foot, walking, for example, over 1,800 km of Paris streets with its camera and sensor-equipped “Explorer” backpack. Because Fantasmo maps cities at the ground level, its positioning technology is considerably more accurate than satellite-based GPS, which does not work reliably in dense urban areas. TIER has integrated Fantasmo’s CPS into its operating system; when users wish to end a ride, they simply scan the e-scooter’s QR code and point their phone camera at a building nearby, which Fantasmo uses to confirm they are parked within a city-approved area.

As with TIER’s previous parking system, any user attempting to park in a no-go area, or outside of a designated parking bay, will not be able to end a ride. The new feature requires no additional infrastructure from cities - only a completed 3D mapping of the city in question. The partnership is initially being rolled out in York and Paris, and will later be introduced in other locations across TIER’s network of 85+ cities throughout Europe and the Middle East in 2021.

Matthias Laug, CTO and co-founder of TIER, said: “With this new technology, we can directly address the concerns of vulnerable road users when it comes to how scooters are parked. The CPS mapping used by Fantasmo has a distinct advantage over GPS signals, which are often obscured by buildings, poor connectivity, trees, and atmospheric conditions.

“Besides educating our users, we want to provide them with the technology that they need to use e-scooters safely and responsibly and this partnership does just that.”

Jameson Detweiler, co-founder of Fantasmo, said: “We’re excited to be working with TIER because their commitment to great parking compliance is the perfect real-world validation of our CPS technology. By mapping cities at the ground level, as pedestrians, we can help micro-mobility safely thrive in cities around the world.”

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About TIER Mobility

TIER Mobility is Europe’s leading provider of micro-mobility with a mission to change mobility for good.

The company is a driving force behind the change in the transport sector, which aims to significantly reduce car traffic in cities by providing people with a wide range of electric vehicles.

As part of its commitment to sustainability, the company has adopted the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding framework and has set a clear agenda for reducing and offsetting emissions. As a result of these measures, TIER Mobility has been a climate-neutral company since January 2020.

TIER Mobility operates in 85+ cities in 10 countries. The company is headquartered in Berlin and employs about 900 people. Founders of the company are Lawrence Leuschner, Matthias Laug. and Julian Blessin.

The company’s investors are SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Mubadala Investment Company’s financial investment arm, Mubadala Capital, Northzone, Goodwater Capital, White Star Capital, Novator, RTP Global, Speedinvest and many more. In addition, there are selected business angels and individual investors like Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg.

For more information about TIER Mobility, please visit: about.tier.app. You can find more pictures here.

ABOUT FANTASMO

Fantasmo is replacing GPS with cameras to improve the ability of machines to understand the world around them. GPS heavily degrades in urban environments and is nearly non-existent indoors. Fantasmo’s solution is ten times more accurate than GPS with the ability to operate outdoors and indoors, without infrastructure or connectivity requirements. Fantasmo solves challenges for a range of applications including shared micro-mobility, last mile logistics, visually impaired navigation, and many more.

The US-based company (also with a presence in Germany) is backed by investors including Unlock Venture Partners, Freestyle Capital, TenOneTen Ventures, and LDV capital, among others.

For more information about Fantasmo, please visit www.fantasmo.io.

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