SAN FRANCISCO, July 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. leading ride-hailing company Lyft announced Monday the acquisition of Motivate, the largest bikeshare company operating Citi Bike in New York City and Ford's GoBike program in San Francisco.
The deal, whose terms of specific amount were not disclosed, will help Lyft expand into two-wheeled vehicle services.
"Lyft and Motivate will revolutionize urban transportation and put bikeshare systems across the country on a path toward growth and innovation," the top U.S. ride-share operator said in a statement.
John Zimmer, Lyft co-founder and president, said the acquisition will accelerate Lyft's collaboration with cities and "deliver even better experiences to our passengers and riders."
After the merger, Motivate will go under the moniker "Lyft Bikes" as Lyft buys Motivate's technology and corporate functions, including its city contracts.
However, Lyft said Motivate's maintenance and servicing operations "will remain a standalone business, retaining the Motivate name, and will continue to support bike-share systems across North America."
Apart from New York and San Francisco, Motivates operates many of the largest bikeshare systems in six other North American areas, including Chicago, Washington D.C., Ohio, Boston metro area, Portland and Minneapolis.
In 2017, 80 percent of the bikeshare trips in the United States were on Motivate-operated systems.
Lyft's rival Uber bought New York-based dockless bikeshare startup Jump for an alleged amount of 100 million U.S. dollars earlier this year.
