Montreal-based Transit App partners with CoGo bike sharing in Columbus, Ohio

Montreal-based Transit App, the top Android and iOS public transit application, has forged an agreement with CoGo, a Ohio-based company, to offer an integrated bike sharing payment option in Columbus, Ohio with plans to bring similar integration to several Canadian cities in the coming months.

“The success of our Uber integration was great validation of this idea; two months after launch, in February 2015, we became Uber’s leading referral partner. So we decided to take shared mobility integrations one step further,” said Jake Sion, Transit’s director of strategy and development.

Transit App says the company successfully piloted its bike sharing initiative in Aspen, Colorado this October. According to the blog post, the goal of the project is to make the process of renting a bike significantly easier, removing the need for physical payment locations and complicated credit card transactions.

As soon as the user launches Transit App, bike stations will appear on the map, complete with a meter indicating how many bicycles are present at each station. To unlock a bike, all the user needs to do is tap a nearby bike sharing pin, instantly logging them into their existing CoGo account.

“We believe that for bike sharing to attract a wider audience, renting a bike needs to be as easy as calling an Uber or booking a car2go. In other words, eliminate the kiosk and replace it with a smartphone. We’re happy to say that’s exactly what we’re doing,” writes Transit App in a recent blog post.

Transit App says that it has plans to bring bike sharing integration to Canadian cities at some point in the future but isn’t ready to reveal details yet.

Transit App is available on iOS and Android.

[via]Transit App[/via]