A.B. 1112 and its Impact to City Permit Programs

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Last summer, dockless scooters and bikes flooded U.S. cities. Skeptics wrote off these devices as temporary fads that would lose favor with the general public. While the profitability of providers remain unclear, their growing popularity and their ability to expand and scale their business under different regulatory environments can’t be ignored. According to NACTO’s report on micromobility, more than twice as many trips were taken on shared micromobility in the U.S. compared to the previous year. These numbers far exceed that of docked bike trips in 2018, even though docked bike share programs have been around for years. The success of dockless micrmobility is partly attributed to local permit programs that have facilitated the deployment of these services. Assembly Bill 1112, however, may undermine the work that has been done by local governments to guide the evolution of micromobility.

What is A.B. 1112?
A.B. 1112 is an update to California’s vehicle code related to the regulation of dockless scooters and bikes. The main part of the bill outlines the type of data cities can require of operators, what data are off limits, and the level of data aggregation that is allowed.

Impacts to Data Sharing Requirements
Cities with more established permit programs are just starting to digest and analyze provider data. This data is crucial for enforcement, permit compliance, and general administration of permit program. Without this data, cities lose their power to regulate emerging mobility services that operate within their jurisdiction. When the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) preempted cities in the case of TNCs for example, they made it impossible for cities to gather data that would enable them to quantify and address the congestion impacts, decline in transit use, and double-parking incidences associated with TNCs.

Impacts to Equity
A.B. 1112 also has the potential to undermine the equity requirements that many cities have established in their permit programs. This intent is made clear within the bill:

In regulating shared mobility devices and providers, a local authority shall not impose any unduly restrictive requirement on a provider, including requiring operation below cost…

Overturning these requirements would mean underserved communities who have benefited from requirements like low-income plans may face barriers in accessing these services. LADOT’s program, for example, provides an incentive to providers for deployment in designated disadvantaged communities (DAC). In the absence of this incentive, it is likely that many providers would concentrate their deployment in parts of the city that are most profitable, which tend to be affluent areas with high-income residents and workers, rather than communities facing mobility inequities.

While some cities are more restrictive than others, permit programs are facilitating innovation in a way that reduces the negative externalities of these services. Local permit requirements have led to the development of dockless parking corrals, locking mechanisms, and low-income payment plans. By limiting a city’s ability to regulate, A.B. 1112 will shift the balance too far toward providers and would reduce the ability of cities to tailor regulations to meet their community’s needs.




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