Los Angeles Stands Firm on Mobility Data We Can Trust

Mobility companies collect vast amounts of data to maximize the usage and profitability of their vehicles. Those vehicles are operated on the public right of way, which means that transportation officials like me are tasked with maintaining safety, access, and order on neighborhood streets and sidewalks. As I’ve written about before, cities need access to the proper tools to execute a list of rapidly evolving tasks. Otherwise, cities will always be one step behind the next new mobility trend, with outdated regulations based on incomplete information. Catching up requires regulators to have access to data to adequately protect the public interest as ride-hail, micromobility, and other emerging vehicles deploy en-masse – and it has to be data you can trust and verify.

To deal with the largest dockless scooter and e-bike program in the short-term, and to inform long-term policymaking, we developed a digital tool in open source, the Mobility Data Specification (MDS), to acquire data, unfiltered, and in near real-time.

MDS is a straight forward tool. Shortly after a rider unlocks a scooter, its location and status is automatically sent to our system. Then, after the trip ends, that location is sent again. Within a day, our system receives the route taken. The system also records when an operator moves a scooter from one location to another, and records when a scooter is taken offline for maintenance or because it is out of service. The system is built to process only the minimum amount of vehicle data needed to fulfill our responsibilities to the public. Information about the rider is never requested – the system isn’t even built to receive it.

It’s not news, cities and private operators are driven by different goals – one is guided by profit and shareholders, the other by its responsibility to policymakers and residents. Competing priorities can create tension – and mobility operators have, at times, been willing to go to great lengths to mislead regulators and skirt regulations.

But whether we’re addressing challenges with taxi meter tampering or unforeseen causes of congestion, our role as a public agency requires us to independently verify any data we receive.

MDS allows us to do just that.  With a cellphone in hand, my staff can use an app and conduct internal quality checks to confirm, on the spot, that data generated by scooter and e-bikes has been shared accurately by operators. Field teams are also able to conduct street audits to validate that what we see digitally accurately reflects the real world.

Through MDS, the city has a high-resolution and accurate digital picture of how mobility providers are using public space. Public servants can effectively validate and enforce program policy compliance. MDS gives us complete, accurate data that has not been manipulated.

This technicolor picture of our mobility landscape helps us solve a myriad of issues that we would otherwise need dozens of staff, millions of taxpayer dollars, and countless support resources to handle.

Shortly after our pilot launched, our 311 system was swamped with 11,000 complaints about scooters blocking sidewalks, operating unsafely in crowded areas (such as the Venice Beach boardwalk), and being thrown in waterways. MDS data allowed us to make policy decisions about our new program because we could verify the data. We used our confidence in the data to quickly and accurately deploy parking corrals, establish no-ride zones, and limit the number of scooters that could be placed on local streets in a neighborhood. The result was that even as ridership continued to increase, complaints from residents fell by 73% percent.

With tens of thousands of scooters in operation in unconventional locations, traditional policy and enforcement measures like parking tickets, or speeding tickets, or people with paper and pen are simply inadequate to address challenges with new mobility devices and providers.

In my days running bikeshare programs, my team relied on a digital tool called the General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS) for information. But GBFS was designed to create transparency for the general public and easy data access for 3rd party app developers; it was never meant to be used to regulate the right-of-way. Broken and discharged vehicles, which can account for more than half of the devices on the street, are usually invisible in these systems, but can still pose a risk to residents and also present a significant sidewalk safety risk to pedestrians. Unlike GBFS, our MDS systems also allows us to check if improper parking or over concentration (i.e. too many scooters in one place) is due to vehicles left by riders or issues with mobility providers’ deployment tactics, allowing us to quickly make operational adjustments informed by accurate data.

As an alternative, many third-party companies now offer to distill data into figures and maps for cities to use for planning purposes. However, third-parties do not usually have the authority, staff, or financial incentive to ensure data they receive is valid.

But my staff goes out to the field on a regular basis, comparing sidewalks, bicycles and scooters to their digital equivalents in MDS.

And occasionally, my staff find grave inconsistencies with the data reported and the reality on the ground. This fall, we found that one of our providers seemed to be inaccurately reporting vehicles by nearly 30% in MDS. Errors like these can and do lead to significant an over-supply of vehicles. In fact, my staff found that companies had deployed nearly 8 times as many scooters and bicycles in Venice Beach (averaging between 2,000 to 2,700 per square mile) than what is considered best practice (250 – 350 vehicles per square mile).

Other audit trips have revealed new, unregistered devices in the public right-of-way, creating unnecessary and unsafe sidewalk clutter. Improper parking and deployments can  result in huge chaotic piles in popular tourist areas or in local neighborhoods, threatening businesses and creating a nuisance for residents.  Over-supply of these vehicles can also threaten accessibility of our sidewalks for people with strollers, in wheelchairs, or with other mobility impairments.

Elected, appointed, and career transportation officials are tasked with regulation of mobility providers. We act as stewards of the city’s public space. And as mobility providers adapt their business models to become both mobility providers and operators of digital platforms, we must adapt our regulatory tools to digital platforms as well.