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ecco has chosen to use in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat the motorcycles it cannot deploy in Barcelona, where it is entitled to use 633 vehicles, according to the award made by the city council, which distributed 7,000 motosharing licenses among eleven operators. Recently, Gecco has expanded its fleet to 700 electric motorcycles to ensure that the 633 authorized motorcycles are on the street every day, a number they often could not reach due to maintenance issues. Even so, the Barcelona-based company will send to L'Hospitalet the motorcycles that cannot be in Barcelona or need repairs, expanding its service to the neighboring city, where there are still no limitations and Acciona and Cooltra already operate.
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The CEO and founder of Gecco, Damien Harris, explains that they have made this decision with the aim of "connecting" the two cities, after seeing how many users left their motorcycles on the border with L'Hospitalet. He acknowledges that, with only 70 units, the entire city cannot be covered, but they are studying which areas they are most interested in placing them, according to current demand. Harris indicates that they are in talks with the L'Hospitalet City Council and that they have not encountered any problems to start operating in the municipality. Therefore, they will move quickly and activate their first vehicles this same week.
Despite its expansion into L'Hospitalet, Harris aspires to be able to increase Gecco's fleet in Barcelona, waiting for the city council to expand the total number of available licenses. He also argues that they will eventually be able to put more motorcycles on the street because he believes that some of the other eleven operators with whom they compete in the city will not remain active for too long.
Gecco, which began operating this July, has surpassed 20,000 downloads of its application. In just four months, the company has registered more than 3,000 users in Barcelona and Harris assures that "every day they have more." This is also one of the challenges facing the shared motorcycle use company: gaining more and more customers. "This is in my hands," says the CEO, who seeks to achieve a critical mass that makes the business viable, which, for now, they have not yet reached.
Damien Harris is an Australian-born entrepreneur based in Barcelona who, before Gecco Smart Mobility, had founded the company GoCar (small cars for tourists) in Spain; he is also the founder of Picasso Suites Barcelona.