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Walking through questions about our new Playbook for Shared Micromobility

With the help of representatives from two cities, T4America staff a few weeks ago walked through our new Playbook for effectively managing shared micromobility services like dockless bikes, electric scooters, and other new technologies.

Flickr photo by Daniel Lobo. https://www.flickr.com/photos/daquellamanera/38503203635/

Almost overnight, shared scooters and bikes have rapidly proliferated in cities across the country. T4America’s new Playbook for Shared Micromobility is helping cities find their footing. We walked through the new guide a few weeks ago in an online presentation. (Watch the full presentation here)

Our sincere thanks especially to Francie Stefan (Santa Monica) and Josh Johnson (Minneapolis) for their time and especially for openly sharing about their experiences and lessons learned so far. Here’s a collection of some of the questions we weren’t able to answer during the presentation, compiled from T4America staff with input from our guests. Any mistakes or errors are T4America’s alone. 

GEOFENCING

Is constituent/resident input considered when forming geofencing?

Cities should engage constituents including residents, employees, businesses and visitors when considering the boundaries for operations as well as any specific areas where operations would need to be controlled in a different way, including restrictions on operations, specific parking areas, or speed differentials. Cities and operators together will need to work together to ensure an appropriate level of engagement, communication, and education around these areas.

In Minneapolis, public input was actually the primary consideration for 2018’s geofencing (of two areas), based on feedback received via our 311 system. Going forward in 2019, Minneapolis’ intention is to tie the monitoring interface with daily mapping of 311 complaints and try to more quickly react or anticipate where it is needed.

We have a policy in our city that does not allow any e-bikes or pedal assist bikes on any of our greenways or trails. How can geofencing help us avoid constant issues with e-bike use on the greenways?

At least thus far, geofencing technology for many devices has not always been precise enough for detailed enforcement. Improved equipment could address much of the issue but is not widespread. But geofencing can help alert riders to operating restrictions in specific areas. Larger areas with buffer zones around them like a trail system may be large enough to enable geofenced speed reduction, parking prohibition, or other tools. Robust communications by the city and in-app by operators can help deter riding or usage in restricted areas.

How well did the geofencing technology work? In Santa Monica, specifically in restricting devices from working in specific areas (Santa Monica city vs Santa Monica College).

The geofencing is working well in larger areas like the Marvin Braude Beach Bike Path. That zone is wide enough to enable effective location-based speed reduction down to 5 mph for all scooters. The city works regularly with the operators to ensure that all versions of the devices are set up to reduce speeds, and to ensure that parking limitations are in place.

FEE STRUCTURE

Good protected infrastructure is very important for shared micromobility users, but it’s also a vital element of more sustainable and equitable cities, whoever ultimately owns the vehicles. What is the fair share for micromobility providers to pay, given that more active transportation is already an element of most T4A cities’ transportation goals?

Unfortunately there is not a clear cut answer at this point, however Minneapolis is exploring a research project to determine the fair share across all shared modes. In the meantime, we are thinking about the infrastructure portion of fees related to costs of improving the existing system to more comfortably accommodate new modes through added bike lane protection (delineators), markings/signage, and additional striping for parking zones.

Santa Monica adopted an interim fee that was calculated based on the PROW square footage used by devices. The study looked at the average footprint of a device in the PROW when stationary (bike/scooter/vertical/horizontal), and then applied the per-square foot fee used for outdoor dining in the PROW. The staff report for fee adoption can be found here.

Do you see cities moving from a fee structure to a subsidy structure for these services? Shifting to a higher penalty for SOVs and rewards rather than fees on lower-emission modes.

Given the ongoing debate in cities across the country and how to appropriately tax and levy fees on everything from TNCs to micromobility operators to freight and urban delivery to private vehicle use, it’s still unclear how to best assess the impacts of various transportation users and service providers on our shared infrastructure. Ultimately, T4A would like to see fair user fees supported across all modes that truly represent the positive, and negative, impacts of each user and use case.

What is a reasonable cost that cities can expect to spend as a result of allowing dockless vehicles/shared micromobility to operate in their cities? (Including everything that goes into it: reviewing permitting applications, dealing w/ picking up rogue vehicles if the operator does not, etc.)

These new services are in their infancy and the exact costs that are being borne by cities to administer and manage them are not yet clear. In developing an overall fee structure, cities will need to think holistically to calculate the full and actual costs—including everything from staff time to software management platforms to daily operational needs to outreach and engagement. While cities can take some cues from each other, these costs also vary from city to city given the nature of their regulations, labor costs and other local factors. Conducting a cost analysis study can help determine the true costs.

FLEET SIZE

Should there only be a single operator per community or can there be competition in this arena? Also should a cap be set for the industry or individual operator?

It’s still unclear what an appropriate number of permits or overall fleet size should be as it relates to population, density or other community factors that will appropriately serve individual communities and the city as a whole—while still creating an attractive and profitable market for operators. Between permit caps and fleet size caps, cities should probably focus more on managing the overall fleet size effectively to create a program the whole community can benefit from. Cities should use dynamic, performance based caps that establish clear, utilization-based formulas for the expansion of operator fleets.

Minneapolis is also thinking about—in terms of the differences among companies—whether it’s a different product (such as a sit down scooter) or potential differences in operating structure (vendor hiring practices, fleet activities, etc.) and also how closely vendors align with city goals for transportation and mobility. With rapid growth and continued consolidation in the scooter industry, there is also the idea of maintaining continuity of service, should a vendor be acquired or leave the market.

How did the City of Santa Monica decide on their initial fleet size for providers?
In Minneapolis, any hints on the actual ratios of people/scooter you’re examining? Any preliminary findings you can share on those numbers? Formulas?

Santa Monica interviewed eleven operators before crafting the the scope of the pilot program and Administrative Rules. One of the questions asked was regarding the optimal number of devices with which to start operations of a fleet that would serve the whole city. Answers all hovered around 500 devices, and there was interest in flexibility. That informed the starting point for the pilot program. The city has owned a 500-bike bikeshare fleet since 2015, and it has worked well for the city’s size and layout.

In thinking about ratios of people per scooter, Minneapolis has been discussing and comparing with a variety of other cities, and comparing that to last year’s results based on the population that was generally served by the distribution of scooters. Minneapolis is also talking to some of the vendors who’ve expressed interest in Minneapolis to see how they determine ideal fleet size. Those calculations are still being firmed up but Minneapolis is hoping to use 2019 as the starting point to establish the idea and then evaluate performance from there.

INFRASTRUCTURE

I would love to hear more about the Minneapolis idea of dedicated fees to advance protected bike infrastructure! Did you set up designated parking areas for scooters anywhere? Does the $1/day PROW fee fund something related to streets (or even active transportation infrastructure?)?

Minneapolis has set aside the fees from the 2018 pilot and is thinking about establishing some testing of this idea in 2019 in places with low-hanging fruit such as adding delineators on bikeways (with no current protection) which connect equity focus areas to core parts of the city. Minneapolis is also looking at testing lane markings and dedicated parking, particularly in dense areas with narrow sidewalks. Equally important to this effort will be communication of how and why this is being done.

EQUITY

Were these set up with any particular group in mind? Are these focused on ensuring the best interest of the broad public and of special-needs group?

The was developed as a result of a collaboration between Transportation for America and the participant cities in T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative as well as industry stakeholders including Lime. T4A conducted additional research and held conversations with cities across the country developing regulations and managing pilot programs. The Playbook also builds on the effort by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and their member cities to develop their Guidelines for the Regulation and Management of Shared Active Transportation.

DATA

How do you think about requiring operators to provide public feeds in GBFS format so real-time info is visible to the public and trip-planning apps? These feeds were missing in some early pilot programs, but cities like DC require them from new mobility operators, which are already commonplace for existing systems like Citi Bike, Breeze bikeshare and Nice Ride MN.

This is perhaps a notable difference between a publicly owned and operated system (often through contract) and a service that’s privately owned and operated. Systems owned and managed by public entities (such as those listed in the question above) have mostly been making their data publicly accessible. But, while some cities are requiring data be provided by (private) dockless operators, not many have required it to also be publicly available. So far, private operators have typically been comfortable sharing data with regulators for enforcement and operations, but have been opposed to being required to share their data publicly to the benefit of other private sector companies.

PERFORMANCE METRICS

Are there recommendations for the most effective performance metrics?

Great question! We include a list of potential metrics that cities can use to measure performance in the playbook. But, given that we’re still very early in the development of these services, it’s not clear yet which metrics may be best. And, since each city will likely have different goals and outcomes that are most important to them, it will be important for each city to determine which metrics best track the outcomes or impacts they’re most interested in.

Relatedly, that type of ethos governed our overall approach to the playbook. T4America wanted to provide a framework that any city could use to advance their specific goals, while also recognizing that cities will bring vastly different big-picture goals to the table. Some cities might be more committed to shifting more trips to cleaner modes, for example. The important thing is for cities to understand how measuring performance is (and should be!) connected to accomplishing specific goals, and then to find the metrics that best get them where they want to go.

Question for Minneapolis: How would your population density-based distribution requirement work?

This idea is still being explored in Minneapolis, but essentially it would be establishing a goal ratio of people per scooter, based on population and including commuters as well as students (where applicable) to try to include the groups using scooters regularly. That would then be used to establish some distribution minimums or maximums, to ensure broader distribution and availability. Minneapolis essentially allowed the market to determine distribution in 2018, and we are thinking about how we can make it more equitable and position it as an option for all in 2019 and beyond.

GENERAL

For cities that have conducted RFA/review processes for selecting operator companies, what criteria is used (metrics, performance measures, etc.) have been used to rank, evaluate, and determine which company is most competitive and also the best fit for both the city and the overall community?

Last summer, the San Francisco San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) created its Powered Scooter Share Permit and Pilot Program. Their application process invited proposals that prioritized the city’s concerns around safety, equity and accountability and they rated everything from public safety and user education to equitable access to collaborating with the city. You can find the details, applications and their public review on their website.

The RFA process for Santa Monica is documented on the pilot project Application & Selection Process website.

The enabling ordinance for the pilot project specified some of the selection process, including “Each qualified applicant shall be evaluated based upon objective criteria including: experience; proposed operations plan; financial wherewithal and stability; adequacy of insurance; ability to begin operations in a timely manner; public education strategies; relevant record of the applicant’s or officers’, owners’ or principals’ violations of Federal, State or local law, or rules and regulations; and any other objective criteria established by Administrative Regulation.”

Minneapolis : How is your ridership in winter versus summer?

Minneapolis didn’t get much snow or ice in November prior to the end of the pilot last year, however temperatures did drop in the last 3-4 weeks of the pilot, which caused a steady decline from roughly six trips per scooter per day to about three trips per scooter per day by the last week. At the peak in early summer, we were seeing about seven trips per scooter per day.

Is Santa Monica’s eScooter industry review publicly available? If so, could you share it?

All available program documents are posted here.

What is a typical day-in-the-life of your Code Enforcement Officer?

Code enforcement tasks are both in the field investigating issues and documenting conditions, as well as in the office responding to phone calls, e-mails, and submitted complaints. Time is split roughly 50/50 between field and office, inclusive of work entering reports and evidence into a document management system in the event that a complaint ends up in a hearing. Code staff investigate complaints in the field, and if confirmed will follow up with additional investigations which may lead to citations from violated municipal codes. Once a complaint is confirmed, code staff investigate the problem daily or even weekly until the problem is resolved.

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Thanks again to our guests for their time. View the full Playbook at playbook.t4america.org

T4America’s new “playbook” provides an evolving guide for how cities can manage shared micromobility services

Produced in collaboration with 23 cities, Transportation for America today released a new “Playbook” to help cities think about how to best manage shared micromobility services like dockless bikes, electric scooters, and other new technologies that are rapidly being deployed in cities across the country.

View the complete Playbook at http://playbook.t4america.org

Over just the past few years, shared micromobility services (scooters, bikes and others) have exploded in cities across the country, transforming the mobility landscape and challenging the ability of cities to manage them. Since the initial introduction of dockless bikesharing systems in Seattle in the summer of 2017, dozens of companies have rapidly launched their services in hundreds of cities, served thousands of users and completed millions of rides—in just a little over a year.

“The rapid emergence of these new micromobility services has created new clean and convenient options for people to get around, and they certainly offer a wealth of potential benefits. But there’s still so much to learn,” said Russ Brooks, T4America’s Director of Smart Cities.

“They can help advance city goals related to equity, access to jobs and services, climate, and more. But in order to achieve these goals, cities have a major role to play in thoughtfully managing them to ensure that the benefits accrue equitably to everyone. This Playbook is intended to be an extension of T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative and serve as the start of an ongoing conversation where cities can share their experiences and identify best practices as the results of the first pilot programs across the country come in.”

No cities were even considering the prospect of shared electric scooters two years ago, and now in 2019, hundreds of them are. This incredibly rapid pace of change is unlikely to slow anytime soon, and it highlights the need to create flexible regulatory frameworks that will help cities integrate new technologies and contribute toward their preferred long-term outcomes.

The Shared Micromobility Playbook is intended to help cities better understand the variety of policy levers at their disposal and explores the core components of a comprehensive shared micromobility policy for local governments as they consider how best to manage these services.

“Santa Monica has been at ground zero for the micromobility revolution, having to learn—in real time—what works and what doesn’t as scooters appeared in our city virtually overnight,” said Francie Stefan, Acting Chief Mobility Officer and Assistant Director of Planning & Community Development for the City of Santa Monica.

“But we didn’t have to find our way alone. By being part of the T4America Smart Cities Collaborative, we were able to quickly tap into the experiences of over 20 other cities, including ones who had just gone through the first wave of dockless bikeshare regulation. With e-scooters now operating for a year in Santa Monica, we were happy to share our experiences as T4America produced the Playbook which crystallizes in a systematic way what the key policy questions are, what we can control, and the pros and cons of various approaches to regulating these new services.”

The Playbook was started during a September convening in Pittsburgh, PA with the 23 cities participating in T4America’s yearlong Smart Cities Collaborative. The Playbook was written as a result of that collaboration, additional conversations with cities across the country working on regulations, industry stakeholders including Lime, and research conducted by T4America.

The convening of the Smart Cities Collaborative in Pittsburgh, PA where the Playbook was started with feedback from staff representing 23 cities.

“Whether docked or dockless bikes, electric bikes or scooters, the pace of change with these new mobility offerings has been astonishing. In Minneapolis, we’re not just trying to keep up, we’re working to shape these services to provide safe, reliable, and sustainable mobility options for all people,” said Josh Johnson, Advanced Mobility Manager for the Minneapolis Department of Public Works. “Thankfully, we don’t have to try to figure this out on our own. Being part of producing the Playbook with T4America and other cities in the same boat has required us to think through these issues in a deliberate way, while remaining proactive and keeping our ideal vision of mobility in Minneapolis in the front of our minds.”

The Playbook is divided into eight policy sections:

General Provisions - Operations Equipment & Safety - Parking & Street Design - Equity - Communications & Community Engagement - Data Metrics

Each section identifies key policy areas to reflect on, highlights the various options in each policy area, reviews the pros and cons of each level of action, and provides case studies of cities that have enacted certain policies. Sections also include suggested national standards across cities, areas for cities to make local choices, and key considerations when deliberating policy options along with recommendations.

T4America will continue to refine and expand the Playbook as we learn more about the ongoing results of the efforts to manage these services and ultimately the impact that shared micromobility is having in our communities.

View the Playbook at playbook.t4america.org.

Reminder: Join us on Monday, January 28th at 3:00 p.m. EST for an online session explaining the Playbook, how to use it, and how members of the Collaborative helped shape the content.

REGISTER NOW

“Deciding what kind of city we want to be” with the Smart Cities Collaborative

While fighting to stay ahead of a transportation and mobility landscape that changes by the day, 70+ people representing 23 cities gathered in Pittsburgh last week for the third meeting of our Smart Cities Collaborative to band together to solve problems and learn from each other.

While we were in Pittsburgh, Seattle Department of Transportation’s Benjamin de la Peña gave an interview to Seattle Business Magazine about automated vehicles that nails what the Collaborative is all about: “We do not want the technology to decide what kind of city we want to have. We need to decide what kind of city we want and have the technology adapt to that city,” he said.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto

This is the core mission of the Smart Cities Collaborative, and why we gathered again for three days in Pittsburgh last week. We were incredibly fortunate to have Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto kick things off for us with a stirring reminder of the aim for all of this work, which was embedded in the motto for their application to USDOT’s Smart Cities Challenge from 2016: “If it’s not for all, it’s not for us.”

Thanks to support from AARP’s Public Policy Institute and Jana Lynott, we started trying to put that maxim into practice right out of the gate with a tour of two particular intersections in Pittsburgh that could stand to have some major improvements made to better serve everyone who needs to use them.

As biking rates continue to go up and eventually shared bikes or scooters from companies like JUMP or Lime roll out, the city will continue having to carefully navigate the tension between allowing a market to develop and thrive, while also ensuring that new options also help the city accomplish their very ambitious goals. Goals like eliminating all traffic fatalities (Vision Zero), giving everyone access to fresh food within 20 minutes without having to use a car, and making every trip under a mile most enjoyably achieved by walking or biking, to name just three.

As the rain poured down, Karina Ricks, the director of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, described some of the challenges with a particular intersection in Pittsburgh to the Collaborative members.

So we toured these two intersections above (during a crazy week of floods in metro Pittsburgh) and then spent some time in a charrette discussing practical design changes for them, the endless tradeoffs that have to be made, and how to prioritize the city’s stated goals and values. How can cities make value-based decisions about what to prioritize? And how do you engage the public when making those difficult decisions?

All too often these days, city transportation departments are just like the surfer desperately fighting just to stay ahead of the break of a mammoth wave. As we heard during one session about e-scooters, they’re here, the cities didn’t ask for them, and it often feels like the challenge is best stated as “they’re here and we have to find a way to deal with them.”

But instead of merely “dealing” with these new services, how can cities work to harness their potential—whether ridesourcing, automated vehicles, bikes and scooters—to accomplish something good and advance their city’s overall values, rather than just avoiding the bad outcomes? And how can cities create flexible regulatory frameworks that can be applied broadly across new mobility models as they develop?

The pace of change is perhaps the biggest part of the challenge. The best way to describe the process when cities roll out a new transit service, for better or for worse, is pretty slow and methodical. Years can pass between the day when someone first drew a new line on a map and the day that a new bus or train starts picking up passengers. But with new mobility options, it feels like the time between ideation and rollout is measured in days, not years.

To better prepare for these new services and this pace of change, we spent the better part of half a day working in groups trying to craft an ideal, holistic policy for shared active transportation—the docked or dockless bikes and scooters that are popping up rapidly in cities from coast to coast.

We were glad to be supported by Emily Warren and the team from Lime, one of the biggest companies in the U.S. providing shared bikes and scooters, to kick things off with a look at some of the hot button issues like fleet size, requirements for locking technology, and how to proactively ensure that their services are available to everyone in a community.

Broken up into small groups, Collaborative members chose two policy topics they wanted to develop, like equipment and safety, operations, data standards, and equity, to name just a few. Over the space of half a day, Collaborative members explored the core components of a comprehensive policy and identified key policy areas to consider, set a recommended policy floor (a fundamental basic level of policy that all cities can and should adopt), and highlighted a few options for differing levels of action in each policy area.

The exercise illustrated the power of cities coming together to solve problems, learn what’s working (or not working), and learn from each other. This is the true strength of the Collaborative and the reason we’ve continued this work for nearly two years now.

With the help of our colleagues at Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition, we closed out the three-day meeting with a look at each city’s equity guiding policy and examined how they translate those policies into action in their projects.

Each participant shared their department’s or agency’s equity policy—or their lack of one—what that policy meant to them and how they’ve tangibly incorporated it into their projects. Participants worked to identify gaps and areas for improvement as they move forward with their projects to ensure equity and access for everyone. It was a refreshing discussion that illuminated the ongoing difficulty in applying ambitious principles to policies and then to actual projects on the ground.

Participants getting a tour of some of the experiments going on in downtown Pittsburgh, including a painted bus lane through the incredibly busy corridor, parklets along the curb lane, artistic interventions, and a raised bus bump-out to make bus boarding easier.

The Collaborative reconvenes this December in Atlanta, just before Transportation for America’s Capital Ideas conference, which will also tackle this issue of new mobility. At Capital Ideas (open for registration now!), we will be focusing on the states’ role and how they can lead the way while also working in partnership with the providers and cities to create a transportation system that works for everyone.

Join us in Atlanta for Capital Ideas this December! Psst, find out what’s on the agenda here.

Focusing on the positives of dockless bikes and scooters

Cities are quickly passing policies to manage the influx of dockless bike share and scooters in their communities. How can they craft policies to achieve the outcomes they want, rather than simply avoiding the ones they don’t?

We’re more than halfway through 2018 and shared active transportation services such as dockless bike share and stand up electric scooters continue to expand, often without warning, to new cities across the country. As a result, cities are beginning to pass policies and regulations to manage the demands and challenges these new services create.

But, instead of shaping these services in a way that maximizes their positive impacts, so far, their policies seem to be more focused on simply preventing potential negative outcomes. In order to unlock the full benefits of these vehicles, they’ll need to craft policies that address both.

One of the starkest examples of this is how cities are allocating space for these vehicles, both when they’re in use and not. To prevent dockless scooters and bikes from blocking sidewalks and creating chaos in the right-of-way, Denver, for example, has passed requirements for operators to install and maintain painted parking zones throughout the city.

Creating parking spaces is a great way to ensure these vehicles aren’t making city streets less safe when they’re not in motion. But, this should be paired with efforts to create a safer environment for these vehicles and their users when they are in motion. In order to foster the adoption of these services and truly make their streets safer, cities should clearly articulate where these vehicles should operate and carve out protected spaces for people to ride.

The need for protected infrastructure has been apparent for years with bicyclists and pedestrians and is quickly becoming clear with scooters as well. Last month, Jenasia Summers, a 21-year-old woman in Cleveland, was struck and killed by a car while riding a scooter in a six-lane road with no dedicated space for active transportation users. Stories like this are far too common and are directly related to the low rates of active transportation users—half of Americans would like to ride bicycles more, but are afraid of interactions with motor vehicles.

To help create additional space and infrastructure for active transportation users, cities could use the fees they receive from private mobility providers to build out new bike and pedestrian infrastructure that will foster the adoption of these services.

But, even as scooter companies such as Bird are offering to give cities $1 per vehicle per day for cities to use for better bike infrastructure and safety measures, cities aren’t actually codifying this in policy.

A city’s budget reflects its priorities. If cities are truly committed to increasing active transportation, they should include provisions to directly allocate revenue from these services toward providing better infrastructure as these vehicles increase in popularity. Even if the total amount of money isn’t much, it’s an opportunity for cities to carve out space for their stated priorities.

A greater focus on the positive impacts of new mobility options can go beyond safety. In its updated Free Floating Bike Share Permit Requirements, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has incentivized providers to offer adaptive cycles as part of their fleets. Adaptive cycles include a range of two- or three-wheeled vehicles, such as tricycles, hand-pedaled cycles or recumbent cycles where the rider leans back in their seat, that can be used by individuals who are unable to operate a two-wheeled bicycle. To put more of these on the road, SDOT will allow operators to expand their fleets if they provide a certain share of adaptive cycles.

Additionally, SDOT has specified in their policy that they will allocate $50,000 from permitting fees toward developing and leveraging community partnerships to increase adaptive cycling ridership and access. While it still needs to clarify some of the specifics of how these partnerships will work, SDOT has clearly outlined its priorities to increase access by providing incentives to private mobility providers and has allocated additional resources to engage people with disabilities to increase ridership.

It’s very early in the process of determining how to regulate these new shared active transportation services and there’s still much to learn about how best to utilize these new mobility options in service of our long-term outcomes. But, as cities integrate them into their communities and are generating revenue from their operations, there’s an excellent opportunity to chart a new course and develop regulations in way that truly advances their long-term positive outcomes, rather than simply trying to prevent their negative impacts.

At our next Smart Cities Collaborative meeting in Pittsburgh, we’ll discuss these challenges and explore policy provisions for shared active transportation services that maximize their benefits. Stay tuned for an update on what we learn, what the biggest challenges are, and what a model policy could look like.

Ding, Ding! Round one of dockless scooters

The deployment of dockless, electric scooters in cities across the country has been hectic to say the least. What’s been happening, what lessons are cities learning, and how can these systems be deployed in ways that serve the public and the cities’ goals?

Dockless, electric scooter-sharing systems are exploding in popularity since first arriving in U.S. cities nine months ago, and for good reason. Along with dockless bikeshare, scooters have highlighted the desire by many residents to cover short distances quickly and easily.

In April, the scooter-sharing company Bird released ridership data showing that over 30 days and 100,000 rides, its users averaged 1.5 miles per trip in San Francisco. With 35 percent of U.S. vehicle trips two miles or less in length, there’s not only market potential, but also a clear opportunity to shift many of those trips to a cleaner, more sustainable mode. Frankly, they’re also fun.

Just like Uber or other new providers, the scooters have also come with their fair share of controversy. Often dropped overnight in cities in huge numbers without any regulations in place and without approval, they’ve been scattered across sidewalks, blocking the right-of-way and even found discarded in rivers and fountains.

These issues and others are forcing cities to develop regulations on the fly to manage their impacts and also to integrate them into their transportation networks — another strain on cities and transportation departments across the country. In the past two months, both San Francisco and Austin have passed emergency ordinances to begin the process of setting up regulations and set caps on how many scooters can operate in their communities.

The rapid pace with which new transportation technologies are being introduced into our cities not only highlights the need to create flexible regulatory frameworks that can be applied broadly, but also the need for private sector companies to come to the table as true partners and work with cities.

When companies don’t take this approach, it’s often more expensive, takes longer and is less productive for everyone. To say nothing of the distrust this behavior creates or the negative precedent they set for long-term cooperation or partnerships between the public and private sectors.

Whether scooters or something else, as new technologies multiply and private sector companies continue to operate with a “move fast and break things” ethos, cities will need to proactively develop flexible, but consistent, processes that will help them integrate new technologies into their communities on their own terms.

Nine of the 24 cities participating in our Smart Cities Collaborative this year already have scooters operating in their communities. We spoke with three of them to get a better sense of how they are dealing with scooters and summarize their experiences into a few clear lessons for other cities.

Santa Monica, CA

The first system of dockless scooters in the U.S. launched in Santa Monica in September 2017. Like many scooter launches to follow, Bird had spoken with city officials beforehand and the city responded by asking for Bird’s help in determining what changes to their city code would be necessary to allow them to operate. Unfortunately, soon after this conversation, but before any regulatory changes could be made, Bird deployed their scooters on city streets.

After a few months of scooters clogging sidewalks, causing safety hazards and failing to acquire a business license, Santa Monica passed an emergency ordinance. Through the ordinance, the city created a temporary framework to allow scooters to operate. “We modified our existing vending permit since this was the most applicable permit as it is usually issued to businesses selling anything mobile,” said Francie Stefan, Mobility Division Manager with the City of Santa Monica. This gave Bird, and other companies, the ability to operate on private property, but also allowed the city to impound and collect a fee on scooters parked in the public right-of-way.

But, that doesn’t mean the city is actively impounding all scooters parked on sidewalks. “Council directed staff to enforce when there were immediate ADA or safety risks—but, this has also created some difficulty around enforcement, especially when the scooters are moving around more quickly than officers can get to them,” according to Stefan. The ordinance is temporary—it will expire on January 1, 2019—and the city is currently developing a pilot for these scooters to inform a final permitting process.

San Francisco, CA

Similarly to Santa Monica, in March, San Francisco was suddenly confronted with scooters from Bird, LimeBike and Spin on their streets and sidewalks. While many residents were excited, complaints also poured in about scooters blocking the right-of-way and creating unsafe conditions on streets and sidewalks. After the San Francisco Attorney General sent out a cease and desist letter, the Board of Supervisors quickly established a requirement that any scooter would need a permit to park on a sidewalk.

In response, the city set up a new pilot program for permitting. The one-year pilot regulates the number of scooters each operator can have and the type of data operators need to share, requires operators to provide membership options to low-income individuals, and gives operators clear instructions on how these vehicles can operate safely.

San Francisco got all of this done in a couple of weeks, but according to Warren Logan, Senior Transportation Planner at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), it wasn’t a choice. But, given their history of other mobility providers deploying on their streets without permission, they were prepared.

“Our hand was forced to move very quickly on this issue,” says Logan. “Everyone is trying to be the next Uber, but it’s a different landscape now that we know the playbook.”

Austin, TX

While the city was in the middle of developing a pilot program to regulate both dockless bikes and scooters, Bird—and later LimeBike—launched in early April without receiving approval. The challenge facing Austin was a loophole in the city’s code giving scooters the ability to legally operate and left the city with no authority to impound them. “We had outdated ordinances that were originally designed for vending in the right-of-way,” says Karla Taylor, Chief of Staff at the Austin Department of Transportation. “These ordinances were written 20 years ago and were not written with dockless in mind.”

To fix this, the Austin City Council pushed back its proposed pilot timeline and passed an emergency resolution banning the presence of dockless scooters in the right-of-way until a permitting process could begin and gave the city the authority to impound vehicles. After the resolution passed, Bird and LimeBike promptly pulled their scooters from Austin’s streets until they could go through the permitting process, which will now begin on May 15th.

What can other cities learn from these cities’ experiences?

Be proactive

Whether cities are ready for them or not, scooters are coming. Fast. Over the last few weeks alone, other systems launched in Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte despite receiving a cease and desist letter in Nashville and a forced shutdown in Charlotte.

While cities like Austin and San Francisco were caught off guard when scooters launched, they were able to act quickly in part because they were already thinking about how to address these issues—and related ones. “We know the playbook,” as SFCTA’s Logan said. Austin was actively working on an implementation plan and San Francisco had a proposed resolution to create a permitting process just a few weeks before the launch.

According to Karla Taylor in Austin, the best move for cities is to open up their code. “Cities should look at their governing ordinances. A lot of cities will not have the legal capabilities to manage this.” Taylor notes that if the city doesn’t figure out where the holes are, the private sector will. “These companies know where there’s a weakness, and they’ll exploit this weakness,” as they deploy into new communities. Without an understanding of what their options are to regulate, cities won’t be able to effectively manage them.

Even with preparation and planning, both cities were forced to be reactive when scooter systems launched. This should be a signal to other cities to begin this process now. There’s no longer an excuse for being caught off guard.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

These cities were on their own when it came to the first wave of dockless scooters. But, given that they’ve had to figure out how to approach this problem, other communities should start with a much better understanding of what will be necessary and learn from them. While no city claims to have the perfect formula yet, they’ve tried and tested various approaches and each of the cities we spoke with expressed a willingness to help others.

And, as these cities start to gather data on how their operations are affecting the mobility landscape, they’ll learn more and more about the impacts of scooters on access, safety and modal shift giving them more information and tools to hone their regulations.

Develop flexible frameworks that can govern any new mode—not just scooters

When one scooter company deploys, others tend to follow. “We’re being circled actively by every other provider I can think of,” said Francie Stefan in Santa Monica about the constant push to deploy more scooters since Bird’s launch last year. San Francisco reflects a similar sentiment. “If one of these companies launches, they all have to launch,” says Warren Logan at SFCTA.

When cities show they’re open for business, other companies come knocking at the door as well. And while some the challenges that have come with the introduction of scooters are unique to scooters, they’re also reflective of what cities face with the introduction of new mobility options and technologies.

Being clear about long-term outcomes (such as safety, equity, or mode shift) and how new technologies can contribute to those goals is a great way to get started. It’s also important for cities to understand what they want and need out of any new technology or company (such as placement, data or fare structures) as the regulations are developed. Collaborating with and learning from other cities’ experiences can help crystalize the issues at hand and accelerate the process.

As cities manage the introduction of dockless scooters – and other new mobility options in the future – they’ll need clear, flexible processes to ensure it’s on their own terms and helps achieve their outcomes.

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Smart Cities Collaborative hits the ground running in year two

Returning in a bigger fashion than the first year with 23 cities instead of 16, our Smart Cities Collaborative picked up where we left off with the launch of year two last week in Denver, CO.

It’s only been a few short months since we wrapped up the first year of the Collaborative, but we’ve still seen significant developments in how new and emerging technologies are reshaping the right-of-way and curb space. One instructive example is what’s currently happening in cities with dockless bike- and scooter-sharing systems—and how fast it’s happening.

When our first cohort of 16 cities gathered in Minneapolis on the day after the presidential election in 2016, there wasn’t a single dockless bikesharing system operating in any of these 16 cities. As pilot projects launched in Seattle, Washington, DC, and others in 2017, it became clear that dockless would have huge impacts in the year to come.

Nine months later and dockless is certainly a growing fixture in scores of cities. This might have been an obvious prediction, but even we didn’t quite see the scooters coming so fast. Less than 18 months after that first Collaborative meeting, dozens of cities are now scrambling to develop new approaches to dockless scooters (as well as the bikes) that are rapidly expanding on their streets and fighting for scarce curb and sidewalk space, but also providing popular new mobility options for getting around our congested cities.

In 2016, Uber (and Google’s Waymo) were just dipping their toes in the water on testing automated vehicles (AVs). Lured to Arizona by a friendly (i.e., mostly just non-existent) regulatory environment, they both started testing AVs in mid to late 2016 with relatively small fleets of cars, which have quickly grown to hundreds on the road in Arizona (and elsewhere). But now, cities (and states and Congress) are determining how they should proceed in the wake of the first fatal AV crash in Tempe, AZ.

This is the pace of change that cities are dealing with when it comes to urban mobility and technology: Completely new mobility models from concept to widespread rollout in less than 18 months.

Standing still or just waiting to see how things develop simply isn’t a viable strategy for cities that want to harness this change for the benefit of their cities and their residents. They have to be proactive.

That’s why over 60 participants from 43 agencies representing 23 cities came to Denver last week for the kickoff meeting of the Collaborative’s second cohort.

Though this new cohort brought scores of new faces to the Collaborative (thirteen cities from last year returned), the spirit of collaboration and cooperation carried over in full. From the moment participants arrived from the airport in to Denver’s Union Station, they quickly and easily engaged with one another about the challenges they’re facing in their cities, the projects they’re working on, and started getting to know each other.

Similar to our first kickoff meeting in Minneapolis last year, the goal of this meeting was to get participants to know one another, identify the challenges they’re trying to solve, and develop tangible action plans for the year — not just to set goals, but also to identify areas for collaboration with other cities.

We were incredibly lucky to have Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock stop by to welcome everyone to the city, and also ground us with a reminder that the core purpose of this work is to make our cities better places to live for everyone — not just for a privileged few.

“This is much broader than just ‘what does the road look like,’” Mayor Hancock said. “It’s also an opportunity for us to lean in and lead with our values and be inclusive. And making sure that those people who are most challenged in our communities have an opportunity to raise themselves up by lifting those burdens of the cost of housing and transportation off of their shoulders,” he concluded.

Unlike last year, where some cities were still figuring out their projects during our kickoff meeting, many of the participants arrived in Denver with a much clearer idea of what they plan to work on over the course of this year.

But instead of diving straight into the details of these projects, we took a step back to get participants on the same page for talking and thinking about these projects, and to make sure their projects had a clearly identified problem and outcome in mind. That’s why we’re perpetually asking, “What problem are you trying to solve?” because we all too often rush straight to the solution or a specific piece of technology.

Throughout the first day, the experts and panel discussions and conversations focused on the bigger picture of where technology is going, what trends are real (or not real), and why collaboration is vital for having any chance to stay ahead of the curve. Participants also identified the long-term vision for their city and, reflecting Mayor Hancock’s comments above, discussed strategies for improving equity through their projects, and hard-coding that goal into all of their processes.

Having set the tone in day one, teams from each of the cities spent the bulk of the second day developing their action plans for the coming year. But in keeping with the modus operandi of the Collaborative, they started hashing out their action plans in a cooperative format with 10-12 people from other cities who are working on a similar specific issue, such as a dynamic curb management pilot project.

This helps connect them directly with their peers who are working on similar issues and see where opportunities for greater collaboration exist. And it’s hard to overstate how valuable these structured (and unstructured) opportunities are for connecting with peers facing similar challenges in other cities.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If one particular city has made progress in rolling out a new strategy to better manage curb space, or a new pilot program for flexible delivery zones, for example, other cities can and should replicate their successes and learn how to avoid the pitfalls others encountered along the way.

They only had a few hours to develop them, but the cities’ action plan presentations were sharp, focused, and calibrated to tackle their real problems with real outcomes in mind over the next year. Presentations covered a wide range of topics: permitting processes for dockless bikeshare and scooters, loading zone pilots for ridesourcing and delivery vehicles, first-mile/last-mile microtransit pilots, new performance metrics to assess “transportation happiness,” and much more.

Like last year, this year’s cohort has an enthusiasm and excitement to collaborate with one another and collectively shape the future of transportation. It was a busy two days, but participants stuck around at the end of the meeting to weigh in on their projects with one another, ask questions, and exchange information for future conversations.

Representing metro areas that are collectively home to almost a full third of the US population (and a huge chunk of Canada via the inclusion of Toronto), the decisions these leaders are making will affect how we think and talk about transportation for years down the road. After this first two-day stretch with this new group of 60+ leaders, we’re confident that they are headed in the right direction when it comes to navigating the rapid changes coming to urban transportation.

We’re looking forward to being part of this conversation and to our next in-person meeting of the Collaborative this July in Seattle.

This post was written by Transportation for America’s Rob Benner and Steve Davis.