Guidance and Best Practice Advice for Hire Schemes
This page outlines guidance and Best Practice Advice for Hire Schemes.
3.1. Administration Elements
3.1.1. Fleet size
3.1.2. Operators
3.1.3. Contract length
3.1.4. Fee
3.1.5. Data collecting and sharing
3.1.6. Customer survey data
3.1.7. Selection process
3.1.8. Complaint management
3.1.9. Termination clause
3.2. Operational Elements
3.2.1. Operating areas
3.2.2. Hours of operation
3.2.3. Customer communication and safety requirements
3.2.4. Parking management
3.2.5. Go-slow or low-speed zones
3.2.6. No-go or no-riding zones
3.1 Administration Elements
3.1.1 Fleet size
Fleet size should be determined by councils in consultation with operators and be included as a condition of agreements between the two parties.
The fleet size should balance reliability of access to a device during times of high-demand, and the need to manage negative amenity impacts such as crowding and visual clutter. Subject to agreement, the fleet size may change over time, for example starting with a manageable initial fleet with the capacity to grow in line with the observable market demand, compliance with other conditions of the agreement (e.g. parking management) and other council priorities. If appropriate fleet size could also change with seasonality, with more devices in warmer months and fewer in cooler months.
Councils should work with operators to determine an initial fleet size and should also have clear benchmarks to guide and limit any increase in the fleet size, for example setting a threshold for average trips per device per day, dwell time (the time a device is left unridden), and other factors. By way of example, each e-scooter in the Melbourne trial is used between 3–6 times per day on average, while Ballarat is around a third of this.
Below is guideline for fleet size, with one industry estimate suggesting one vehicle per 500 people as an initial baseline, 1 though actual thresholds should be dependent on market conditions and LGA-specific characteristics. For example, special population considerations, such as a large commuter base, strong visitor numbers (including workers in a central business district), seasonal population swings, and large student populations may mean that it is appropriate to consider additional vehicles. See the case studies on Melbourne and Ballarat during the e-scooter trial below for more information.
Fleet growth or reduction should be tied to operator performance based on metrics measuring compliance with council conditions under the agreement (including tidiness, responsiveness, maintenance, etc.).
3.1.2 Operators
An appropriate number of operators relative to the service area and fleet size should be considered to balance operational efficiency, financial sustainability, competition, customer choice and administrative burden for councils.
Councils should consider the size of their municipality and use area (which may include adjoining municipalities) and determine whether the community would be best served by a single or multiple operators.
In inner metropolitan Melbourne areas, particularly if the use area covers multiple adjoining municipalities, it may be advantageous to appoint multiple operators. Competition between the operators may result in better customer outcomes and choice for users while still being relatively easy to administer. Having two operators also provides opportunities for benchmarking and comparisons and will aid in driving suppliers to provide the best product for consumers. More than two operators may become an administrative burden to councils and produce choice fatigue for customers, as customers must have the individual app of each operator to use each company’s device. 2
In regional areas and cities as well as peri-urban or outer suburban areas that are geographically contained and where the use area does not adjoin another municipality with a share scheme, LGAs may be best served by appointing just one operator with clearly defined performance targets and customer experience protocols to ensure the market is well served.
3.1.3 Contract length
The contract length should balance an operator’s need for certainty and continuity with the council’s control of the program to ensure that the best operator is appointed at any given time.
Longer term contracts provide riders with certainty about their ability to rely on micromobility as a made of transport over time, and provide operators with an incentive to invest in their operations, staff, fleet management, other infrastructure needs (for example warehousing capability and improvements) and active parking management.
Contracts running for two years or more may be best for permanent ongoing share scheme programs, as longer contract durations tend to improve certainty and investment in services and may provide the public with more confidence to depend on micromobility as a transport option longer term.
Shorter contract terms (for example up to one year) may be better suited for service trials.
3.1.4 Fees
Councils may charge a fee to operators who run a share scheme within their municipality. The structure of the fee is a matter for councils to decide and could account for the costs of program administration, including contract performance management, dealing with and resolving complaints, and other reasonable costs such as for the use of public space and any share scheme parking infrastructure.
Fees are best set prior to vendor selection and applied consistently to avoid negative outcomes such as operators overpromising on financial commitments, legal concerns over excessive fees and operators changing their service offer outlined in their bid.
A common way for councils to charge operators is to adopt a per-device per-day fee; for example, if 500 devices were available for hire each day over a 12-month period, a $1 fee per day per device fee would be 500 x $1 x 365 = $182,500.
Alternatively, councils may wish to charge a one-off fee through a permit or permit-like arrangement.
Another alternative is to have a per-ride fee. This will ensure revenue grows with the success of the program, though revenue under this arrangement may be difficult to predict and budget for.
3.1.5 Data collecting and sharing
Contracts should stipulate that councils are able to access data from operators upon request. Data is essential to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of a shared scheme. Data is also used to measure the wider impacts on the transport network, as well as provide contextual data to evaluate the safety impacts of the scheme.
All data must be provided in accordance with privacy protocols (i.e., in aggregate, non-identifiable).
Device data
Modern share scheme devices have technology that automatically collects device data, and this can be made available to councils through a variety of means. Device data largely relates to attributes based on GPS capability (rides, routes, time of use, speed etc.).
While the format of the data need not be prescriptive, it is worthwhile for contracts to specify requirements for operators to provide device data to councils in a format that is agreed upon, consistent, timely and can be verified upon request.
Elements that are commonly provided from device data include:
- of trips (by hour, day, month, total)
- of kms travelled
- Average trip length
- Average trip duration
- Trips per scooter
- Route heat maps
- Average travel speed
Operator-reported / user data
In addition to device data, operators can provide data that is reported to them, recorded by them or data that they calculate based on a combination of data sources. This data can be useful to evaluate the safety or amenity impacts of a scheme. For example, data that may be held by operators and provided to council includes:
- of user sign ups
- of reported incidents with location / causes noted, including:
- whether hospitalisation was required
- whether third parties (including pedestrians) were injured, and
- the rate of hospitalisations per 100,000 kms travelled and/or per 100,000 trips
- of insurance claims
- Official warnings issued to riders doing the wrong thing, with the breach category noted, for example:
- Riding without a helmet
- Footpath riding
- Bad parking
- Tandem riding
- Underaged riding
- Riding in prohibited zone
- Unsafe riding
- Account suspensions or bans, with the breach category noted
- Scooter vandalism
- Environmental vandalism (e.g. devices dumped in waterways).
3.1.6 Customer survey data
Commercial share scheme operators conduct customer (or user) surveys from time to time for their own market research purposes to learn about the customer experience and inform potential improvements.
Customer surveys can also provide valuable information to councils and help inform program evaluation by providing a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of the shared scheme from the user’s perspective. Survey responses often provide subjective responses to things that cannot be ascertained through observation alone, and can support or inform conclusions drawn from other data.
Councils may wish to make it a requirement for operators to undertake customer, or even broader community, surveys as an explicit part of the contract. If councils wish to do so, they could make it an explicit requirement in their contract that the operator must conduct and also share the results of a customer survey with council, and that council have input into the survey design. Councils could then work with operators to include specific survey questions to inform council evaluation objectives.
3.1.7 Selection process
Selection processes should be designed to identify the operators best suited to provide quality service over the long term, tailored to an LGA’s needs.
A competitive public procurement may be the most appropriate method to select a vendor to serve an LGA’s needs, and councils should follow their own procurement policies.
Reliability, safety, sustainability, fleet management and amenity management capability should be among the core criteria for selecting operators.
Where relevant, councils should require evidence of delivery in comparable cities to support claims made by operators in competitive public procurement or application documents.
3.1.8 Complaint management
Operators must establish a system for tracking complaints from customers and the public and report this periodically to the council.
All complainants must be provided a case number when registering a complaint.
3.1.9 Termination clause
Councils can include a termination clause whereby councils can withdraw agreement anytime during the operations to remove all share scheme devices from council-managed land within a specified number of days due to unsatisfactory practices or an overwhelming negative community response.
3.2 Operational Elements
3.2.1 Operating areas
As noted in Section 1, operators must have an explicit agreement with the local council to deploy share scheme devices in that LGA. However, councils may wish to determine specific ‘use areas’ within their own municipal boundary rather than permit share scheme devices from being used throughout the entire LGA. Councils should work with the operator(s) to determine the precise use area for shared devices, and this should be made explicit to users through a map within the operator’s digital application software (i.e. app), and through other available means of communication (e.g. council website). As an example, the City of Ballarat currently permits shared scheme e-scooters in the metropolitan Ballarat area only, rather than the entire City of Ballarat municipal area. The council (in conjunction with the operator) determined that for a range of reasons, this was the most pertinent area for share scheme devices to operate.
As noted in Section 1.5: Operating areas and entry into non-participating adjoining council areas, operators must prevent shared scheme devices from being made available for hire in areas that fall outside of the authorising council’s municipal boundary (unless they have an explicit agreement with the bordering council).
Where two bordering LGAs have different operators, measures should be taken to reduce amenity impacts and so-called ‘edge effects’, where council borders meet (e.g. having designated parking zones, so riders must end their trip in the dedicated zone within the relevant LGA – see Section 3.2.4: Parking management).
3.2.2 Hours of operation
Councils should work with operators to determine operating hours that are appropriate to the area and needs of the community. Councils should retain the power within their agreements with operators, within certain parameters, to determine and amend hours of operation, including the ability to explore or trial restricted hours of operation if evidence emerges of problems within certain timeframes.
Councils may have to give operators a certain amount of notice (e.g. 14 days) should they intend to amend the hours of operation. Councils should also provide a rationale for their intention to amend operating hours and outline an evaluation plan to assess the changes.
Advantages of making share scheme devices available 24/7 is that they can support residents and visitors working non-standard hours or overnight, when public transport services are limited. Additionally, some councils have noted in their Gender Impact Assessments that share schemes provide an alternative to walking, public transport and traditional taxi/rideshare services which women and gender diverse people may feel safer using, especially ‘after hours’.
Councils are best placed to decide on the operating hours for share scheme devices based on local conditions. Should councils decide to implement (or flexibly trial) restricted operating hours, some options to consider include:
- Having a blanket restriction across all areas during certain hours.
- Implementing exclusion zones in known trouble spots (e.g. nightclub precincts) during certain hours and/or days of the week, meaning trips cannot begin or end in that zone during certain hours.
- Automatically lowering the speed of devices across all areas, or just in certain zones, during certain hours.
3.2.3 Customer communication and safety requirements
Councils should make clear in their contracts that operators must take all reasonable steps to ensure that riders are aware of and comply with the safety regulations. Operators must provide education and training to customers through a variety of channels on how users need to park safely and follow all relevant laws, regulations and parking guidelines.
Operators must take reasonable steps to manage customer behaviour to ensure compliance with exclusion zones, no parking zones and preferred parking zones, and deploy mechanisms to deter irresponsible use of shared scheme devices - including barring access to the scheme for repeated breaches by a customer.
3.2.4 Parking management
As noted in Section 2.5: Parking, councils and operators must have a parking management strategy in place that meets DDA requirements.
Parking conveniently located close to where riders start and end their trips will increase program use, reliability, and tidiness. However, a balance must be considered to ensure parking does not inconvenience or disrupt other street users. Contracts should specify that operators must be proactive in the redistribution of devices according to demand to avoid excessive build-up in an area.
There are many different parking options or models for councils to choose from, the two most common being dockless/free-floating parking, and designated parking. Generally, having designated parking will result in a neater streetscape and have less visual, amenity and pedestrian impacts than dockless/free-floating parking models. Density, existing infrastructure and pedestrian patterns will inform what will be most effective in a given LGA or area within an LGA, though councils should always consider requiring designating parking as standard, and allowing free-floating parking by exception. Hybrid parking approaches can also be used, with designated parking in denser areas and free-floating parking in less dense areas.
Parking requirements for a given area must be made clear to riders before they take a trip and at the conclusion of their trip, and operators should apply penalties to riders who don’t park in accordance with the agreed requirements. Similarly, incentives may be used to encourage appropriate parking.
Designated parking (preferred)
Mandatory parking in designated parking zones is well suited to denser urban areas like central business areas, retail precincts and other high pedestrian areas; though they can also be implemented across larger areas such as a regional town and surrounding areas.
Designated parking can be a mix of physical parking corrals, painted lines and digitised zones that are only visible within the operator’s app. Physical parking demarcations are preferred and should be implemented in the highest pedestrian traffic areas to give good visibility to shared scheme parking requirements and signal preferred parking locations. Physically designated parking can be both on the footpath or on the road in typical vehicle parking bays.
Longer term schemes should especially consider investing in permanent physical parking demarcations and may consider fees on share scheme operators to assist with funding such infrastructure, or alternatively requiring operators to jointly and/or partly fund physical street parking zones.
Physical parking space gives visibility to share scheme programs and is preferable to digital designated parking as this can have limitations; for example, GPS technology is not precise enough in many locations (especially in cities with larger buildings around) to determine if a device is placed into a designated zone. Technology is rapidly improving and there are potential solutions (such as installing Bluetooth beacons in parking bays) which could be highly accurate at determining if a device is within the parking zone. However, such technology is still being tested and implementation would require further investment from the operator and/or council. A range of options should be explored and tested between the council and operators to determine the most suitable approach in any given area, and councils should work with operators to refine the approaches based on hierarchies of need and/or budget.
Councils should work with their traffic engineers and operators to determine the most appropriate places for designated parking areas or to install physical infrastructure (including painted lines).
Designated parking locations should be at intervals that strike a balance between utility and amenity impacts.
Dockless/free-floating parking
Dockless parking – or a free-floating parking model – may be well suited to lower density areas or where parking infrastructure (incl. racks and painted bays) is not sufficiently available. This can include suburban areas or areas away from retail or pedestrian traffic precincts.
This model can be the default in areas that are not designated parking areas. The general parking rules noted in Section 2.5: Parking, as pertaining to meeting DDA requirements for parking, must apply under this model.
Parking infringements (customers)
In addition to having incentives for riders to park in preferred locations, such as future ride discounts or loyalty points, operators should also have a penalty system in place to apply to rider accounts when parking infringements occur and can be verified. Penalties can include financial penalties, account suspensions and account banning.
Parking infringements (operators)
Operators should have clear guidelines about expectations with regards to parking management, including their responsibilities to collect or move inappropriately or dangerously parked devices within certain timeframes.
If any of the agreed timeframes for operators to collect or move devices are exceeded, the devices should be subject to being impounded by the relevant council and subject to that council’s vehicle impound recovery processes, including cost recovery mechanisms.
In addition, councils may wish to explore additional or alternative incentives for operators to manage their fleet appropriately and within the agreed parking management plan. This can include financial penalties being appliable to the operator, for example for breach of contract performance requirements. Such penalties must be made clear in the contracts and be permissible within ordinary contract law policies, for example the Doctrine of Penalties.
3.2.5 Go-slow or low-speed zones
Councils should work with operators to implement geofenced go-slow or low-speed zones in high-traffic areas (both pedestrian and vehicular traffic). For example go-slow or low-speed zones could be implemented along popular sections of shared paths where there is a high level of mixing between pedestrians and micromobility users (including e-scooters and bicycles). In such areas, it may be more appropriate for e-scooters or e-bikes to travel at 10 km/h or 15 km/h and be automatically programmed to not exceed that speed when the device enters the designated zone.
3.2.6 No-go or no-riding zones
Councils should also work with operators to implement geofenced no-go or no-riding zones in particular areas that the council wishes (e.g. school grounds, shopping centres, certain parklands or reserve areas, within 50m of a waterway, entrances to freeways etc.).
1 https://micromobilityreport.com.au/uncategorised/share-scooter-leaders-co-create-10-rules-for-best-industry-regulation/
2 Additional risks of having more than two operators include: navigation and regulation of different policies (e.g. parking regulation and user data management) between operators; greater coordination required for the management of geofencing consistency; risks in consistency of data collection and reporting between operators (measures such as unique riders may be skewed); increased challenges in implementing consistent safety measures and campaigns, with councils likely to be required to play a greater role in the developing of communications material and messaging; difficulty in monitoring and enforcement of rider behaviour policies with the risk of banned / suspended riders moving to another operator’s platform. (AECOM 2023)