Spin is joining Passport’s micro-mobility pilot program to test a parking model for Spin’s electric scooter fleets in Charlotte, N.C., Detroit, Mich., and Omaha, Neb.
Passport facilitates parking transactions between micro-mobility companies and each city by charging scooter providers for the time scooters are parked and not in use. Instead of cities pre-determining scooter fees or caps, operators like Spin can limit or increase their fleet size based on the dynamic pricing determined by the cities. Using the framework of parking for single-occupancy vehicles, cities can achieve desired outcomes such as decreased congestion while giving scooter companies more control over their fleets.
“Through this pilot program, Passport has helped us to automate, measure and enforce a model for scooter parking,” said Tariq Bokhari, Charlotte City Council member. “We are thrilled that Spin is an enthusiastic partner in this endeavor as we work to improve how scooters are managed in our city to achieve positive outcomes.”
Spin, the Ford-owned dockless electric scooter company, is the latest to join the pilot following Lime who signed on in March of this year. Spin has been investing in complementary and adjacent transportation partnerships as it plans to enter 100 new cities and campuses by the end of 2019. Passport has established relationships with hundreds of municipalities and can help connect Spin to city leaders to enable private-public collaboration.
“We’re excited to work with Passport and the cities of Charlotte, Omaha and Detroit to test out new ways of pricing scooter parking,” said Beaudry Kock, head of policy initiatives at Spin. “As an operator, we have always supported commonsense fleet caps, and believe that the number of scooters on the streets should be proportional to actual usage. Price incentives will give us the tools to more efficiently deploy our vehicles, as well as help cities achieve their mobility policy goals. We look forward to being among the first major micro-mobility operators to pioneer dynamic parking pricing at scale, and hope such pricing models grow in use as a way to improve parking in general.”
Since kicking off the pilot program with three cities in March, Passport has worked to gather data, understand scooter parking patterns and test potential pricing models. Data from Charlotte in May showed more than 63,000 scooter parking sessions with an average length of 130 minutes. As Passport creates parking invoices on behalf of the cities, scooter companies can respond by optimizing their fleet size and placement in order to decrease parking prices, therefore aligning more closely with city objectives.
“The goal of our pilot program is to bring city leaders and mobility companies together to create a framework and evaluate pricing models for electric scooter parking than can be applied to a variety of vehicles,” said Bob Youakim, CEO of Passport. “With Spin onboard, we take another step forward in making this model a new reality for cities, helping them dramatically transform how vehicles, like electric scooters, can be equitably deployed and managed to meet their unique community needs and policies.”
