Attachment B - Lime and Spin Letter
City of Phoenix — Transportation, Infrastructure, and Planning Subcommittee (2023-09-20)
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Marielle Brown June 2, 2023 Active Transportation Principal Planner City of Phoenix Street Transportation Department 200 W. Washington Street Phoenix, AZ 85003 Delivered via Email Re: Requested Program Improvements to Increase Ridership Dear Ms. Brown, On behalf of Spin and Lime, we appreciate your time and attention in reviewing this letter. We are proud of our shared history of successfully operating in the City of Phoenix since the inception of the program, and for recently being re-selected as the two highest performing mobility operators. Over the last six months, we have unfortunately experienced persistently low ridership of both our e-bikes and e-scooters compared to previous historical levels. We have carefully evaluated the potential underlying reasons for such weak performance, as these trends ultimately threaten the ongoing viability of the program despite our best efforts. Looking ahead, we would like to share a number of practical program improvements with your team to drive higher ridership and public usage of our mobility options. These requested policy changes would, in turn, also generate additional revenue for the City per our revenue share agreement. We look forward to implementing a number of win-win solutions that benefit the entire City of Phoenix and meaningfully strengthen our public-private partnership going forward. I. Current Ridership Levels For the purposes of transparency, it’s important we share our unexpectedly low ridership levels over the course of 2023 to date. As indicated in the table below, we have experienced an average utilization rate of approximately 0.5 trips per device/day on e-scooters and 0.1 trips per device/day on e-bikes from March 1 to May 31, 2023. This represents an estimated 40%+ reduction in average daily ridership when compared to the same time period in 2022. Performance Metrics Spin Lime E-Bike Utilization 0.1 trips per device/day 0.25 trips per device/day E-scooter Utilization 0.51 trips per device/day 0.86 trips per device/day 1 Attachment B Lime and Spin Letter II. Program Improvement Proposal To immediately expand access to our mobility options and encourage greater public usage, we propose the following policy adjustments in the table below for your consideration. Policy Change Details Effective Date Revised E-bike Minimum Deployment Levels Based on Utilization Rates With persistently low ridership of our e-bikes, we would like to request a revised approach to minimum deployment levels. We recommend applying a 5% minimum e-bike fleet deployment level, which is more appropriate given current demand. As ridership gradually improves, we would scale up our deployments of e-bikes as a percentage of our fleet based on the following utilization rate criteria: ● UR > 0.5 = min. 10% of the fleet ● UR > 1 = min. 15% of the fleet ● UR > 1.25 = min. 20% of the fleet June 15, 2023 Adjust Equity Zone Deployments Based on Utilization Rates Over the last three months, the utilization rate of our e-bikes and e-scooters in equity zones has been unsustainably low (est. .12 for e-bikes, .26 for e-scooters). To this end, we propose to increase the automatic low-income fare discount to 30% off as a proven method of encouraging higher ridership and making our service more inclusive of the entire community. At the same time, we also recommend adjusting the minimum deployment level in equity areas to 15% of our deployed fleet to better reflect current demand levels. This will enable us to locate our devices in areas where they are in the greatest demand and to improve the viability of the program. July 1, 2023 24 Hour Operations We would like to request an immediate change to 24/7 hours of operations in order to improve access to our mobility options when other forms of July 1, 2023 2 transportation may be either unavailable or inaccessible. In many cities, we see significant ridership in the late evening and early morning hours, a clear indication of demand for our service. We are committed to strengthening our partnership with the City to provide all residents and visitors of Phoenix with a safe, affordable, and sustainable mobility alternative to cars. We appreciate the opportunity to share our feedback on the current state of the shared mobility program, and we are available to answer any questions or discuss these issues in more detail. Thank you for your time and consideration, Derek Stehlin Charlie Mastoloni Government Partnerships, West Senior Manager of Government Relations Spin Lime Brit Moller Head of Public Policy Spin CC: Kini L.E. Knudson, Director, Street Transportation 3