A one-year pilot program with VeoRide was approved by City Council in August 2019 and extended until the present. VeoRide provides micromobility share services to the City of College Park, Town of University Park, and the University of Maryland (hosts). The hosts desire to enter a new 3-year contract with VeoRide and have negotiated the terms of the contract over the last several months. A summary of the key contract terms follows:
Fleet
• 100 electric bicycles and 150 scooters to start.
• Seated scooters to be added with agreement from the parties.
• Incremental increases to fleet size up to a maximum of 400 total vehicles will be allowed based on an average of 2 or more rides per day per vehicle, fewer than 20 parking violations per month, and a minimum of 80% reports/requests by Hosts being resolved within 2 hours.
Hours of Operation
• 24 hours per day and seven days per week in the City and Town.
• For UMD, electric bicycles will operate 24 hours and seven days per week, and scooters will operate between 5:00 am and 10:00 pm, 7 days per week.
Parking
• Parking is required in designated hubs or bike racks enforced through geofencing.
• Users will not be able to end their rides outside of designated parking, and fees will continue to accrue until the vehicle is parked in a geofenced parking space.
• Rebalancing is required to satisfy demand and designated priority parking hubs at least once per day.
• Veo is responsible for notifying users of parking restrictions and enforcing them.
• The hosts can issue fines to Veo for parking violations ($35 if a reported vehicle is not moved within 2 hours).
Fees
• Cost to users is $1.00 to unlock and $0.20 per minute for electric bicycles, and $0.38 per minute for scooters (a discounted pricing program is available for lower-income users).
• Prepaid debit card payment methods available to users without smartphones, credit cards or bank accounts.
• Veo to pay the hosts collectively $50 per vehicle per annum and $0.15 per ride monthly (distribution based on trip generation).
VeoRide Hub sites