The District Department of Transportation's (DDOT) stated mission is to “equitably deliver a safe, sustainable and reliable multimodal transportation network for all”. When it comes to designing shared mobility policy, DDOT has shown a deftness in translating such lofty goals into action.

It started back in 2022 when the District of Columbia decided to experiment with an incentive-based policy that would reward private mobility companies for following through on their equity commitments. The rationale was simple: Companies can promise to prioritize equity all they want, but what really matters is how often lower-income people actually use their services to get around. In this case, that figure is a measurable outcome that can be carefully tracked. 

In recognition of the expense to build out robust and inclusive low-income programs, the DDOT Director can waive permit fees for shared micromobility companies based on the total miles traveled on both e-scooters and e-bikes by those who are enrolled in low-income programs offered by Spin and other operators. The more low-income people ride, in other words, the greater the commensurate fee waiver available. 

Over the last two years, the results have been impressive. Spin alone has consistently provided well over 10% of e-scooter and e-bike trips (and total miles traveled) for FREE for low-income District residents. This equates to approximately 130,000 free e-scooter and e-bike trips completed by District residents in the last 18 months through our Spin Access low-income community program (LICP). That amounts to a cumulative investment by Spin of over $1,040,000 dollars (130,000 trips  X avg. $8 per trip) directly into making our service highly equitable and accessible to District residents. 

This level of inclusive ridership also shows that our mobility service is being reliably used as a local amenity and transportation option for folks who need it the most – not just well-off tourists. Critically, Spin was also awarded with three consecutive 100% permit fee waivers based on these industry-leading results. That factor helps make the financial math add up. 

With these outcomes in mind, DDOT has been quietly leading the way on equity and setting a clear performance-based example for other cities to follow. One key takeaway is that even relatively modest financial incentives can have an outsized impact on driving equitable outcomes. For these reasons, we are in active conversations with our city partners across the country to build and iterate on this win-win policy as a proven way to encourage low-income ridership. 

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Doubling Down on Equity Policy 

As we look ahead, there is certainly more work to be done to make our service more locally-driven, affordable, and practical for residents. For many folks, the price of using shared e-bikes and e-scooters is simply too high, making it a luxury thing rather than a true day-to-day option. 

One potential opportunity to drive such changes would be to re-examine the way that most city DOTs – including DDOT – award fleet increases to shared mobility operators. At this time, the standard method is to award a company with a larger number of e-scooters or e-bikes based on their most recent overall ridership data. If operators achieve greater than two trips per device per day over two weeks, for example, then they can “win” a fleet increase of up to 5% of their fleet. The reasoning being that high ridership per device suggests there is still significant unmet demand. 

While this standard approach has a reasonable basis, it does not do much to advance equity. Instead, the policy inadvertently enables some operators who provide the greatest number of trips  to grow their fleet and overall presence in cities while doing no more to encourage usage among low-income residents. That’s a fine business strategy, but it’s not best serving local residents. 

As an alternative, we recommend awarding future fleet increases based on low-income ridership numbers rather than total ridership figures. There are many ways this policy could be structured, but one approach would be to make use of the District’s existing metric for awarding fee waivers (per Subsection 3314.31of the DC municipal code) based on the percentage of total miles traveled by low-income residents. This metric could be applied to awarding quarterly fleet increases, where companies that achieve greater than 10% of total miles traveled by low-income community plan (LICP) users would qualify for a fleet increase up to 5% (250 e-scooters maximum) of their total approved fleet. For simplicity, we would recommend conducting such performance-based fleet increases on a semi-annual basis (e.g. March and September). 

Under this proposed framework, DDOT and other transportation agencies could further incentivize shared mobility operators to turn words into action when it comes to delivering an equitable service. At the end of the day, let’s be real: money talks. There are no more powerful policy levers than waiving program fees and awarding fleet increases to get mobility operators to recognize that doing the right thing can actually pay dividends in both the short- and long-term.