The city of Austin will begin charging a $0.15 per trip regulatory fee on shared mobility vehicles, which include electric bikes and scooters, Austin Transportation Director Robert Spillar wrote in a Dec. 10 memo to City Council.

The fee will help fund the additional staff needed to regulate and monitor the city’s shared mobility program.

Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 11, there have been 5,228,382 trips. If this regulatory fee had been in place, it would have garnered $784,257.30.

Council authorized ATD to implement a per trip fee of up to $0.40 during its most recent budget process. City staff then met with shared mobility operators to determine an “appropriate” amount, Spillar wrote.

The regulatory fee is part of a series of revisions that the ATD plans to make to the director’s rules, which govern shared mobility operators.


Other revisions include limiting the number of devices deployed upon a single city block and implementing new geographic zones and boundaries to allow for more “equitable and discreet provision of service,” per the memo.

“We believe this framework has worked well and that any major changes might distress a still immature industry,” Spillar wrote. “However, ATD believes a revisional update to the Director’s Rules would adequately remediate frictional operational issues and provide simplified access for new and innovative mobility options to enter Austin’s shared mobility marketplace.”

ATD will post the proposed revisions and solicit public comment on them in early 2020.