San Diego State has announced a partnership between San Diego State Parking and Transportation and micro-mobility company Bird. The company will bring e–scooters and e-bikes back on campus.
The partnership will see the official return of micro-mobility transportation options to the campus community. Bird will be the exclusive provider of micro-mobility scooters and bikes to the San Diego State area; other similar companies are still banned from campus.
This partnership comes after San Diego State updated its ban on micro-mobility devices in May.
“The decision to return micro-mobility devices to campus was made following a noted change in the micro-mobility rental landscape and technology, and a California State University system requirement to review transportation demand and accessibility on campus,” a statement given after lifting the ban, from the university said.
The partnership comes with several safety measures for the e-scooters and e-bikes. Bird has implemented geofences and geospeeds to the campus area. Slower speed, no parking and no ride zones will be implemented using geotagging. Information will be available to riders in the Bird app about where they can and cannot ride and park e-scooters and e-bikes.
Riders will also be incentivized to follow proper parking procedures. If an e-scooter is returned correctly to a designated parking zone on campus, the rider will receive an automatic credit to their Bird account.
The micro-mobility devices were initially banned from campus at the start of the Fall 2019 semester. The primary reasons given for the ban included an increase in accidents involving the scooters as well as scooters being left around campus, cluttering walkways and common areas.
The ban received criticism when it was announced. The school had voted to ban the scooters in March of 2019 but did not inform students until a week before the start of the fall 2019 semester. The data used for the ban was also inconclusive, as most of the data did not specify if the incidents involved motorized or manual scooters.
More information about micro-mobility machines and how they can be used on campus can be found here.
