Bike Share Permit Requirements
June 30, 2017

Safety
Requirement S1: All bicycles used in systems issued a permit under this pilot program shall meet the
standards outlined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) under Title 16, Chapter II, Subchapter C, Part
1512 – Requirements for Bicycles. Additionally, permitted systems shall meet the safety standards
outlined in ISO 43.150 – Cycles, subsection 4210.
Requirement S2: Any electric bicycles used in systems issued a permit under this pilot program shall meet
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations (NHTSA) definition of low-speed electric bicycles; and
shall be subject to the same requirements as ordinary bicycles (described in Requirement S1). This means
that electric bicycles shall have fully operable pedals, an electric motor of less than 750 watts, and a top
motor-powered speed of less than 20 miles per hour when operated by a rider weighing 170 pounds.
Additionally, the City reserves the right to terminate any permit issued under this pilot program if the
battery or motor on an electric bicycle is determined by SDOT to be unsafe for public use.
Requirement S3: All bicycles shall meet the Revised Code of Washington's (RCW) requirements for lights
during hours of darkness, described in RCW 46.61.780. This includes a front light that emits white light
and a rear red reflector.
Requirement S4: All operators permitted under this pilot permit program shall provide a mechanism for
customers to notify the company that there is a safety or maintenance issue with the bicycle.
Requirement S5: All permitted operators shall have commercial general liability insurance on form CG 00
01 or the equivalent and additional coverages that include the terms contained in the attached document
Bicycle Share Insurance Requirements.
Requirement S6: All permitted systems shall have visible language that notifies the user that:
1. Helmets shall be worn while riding a bicycle in King County.
2. Bicyclists shall yield to pedestrians on sidewalks.
Requirement S7: As required by Seattle Municipal Code (SMC) 15.04.060, prior to the permit being issued,
all permittees shall sign and record an indemnification agreement indemnifying and holding harmless the
City. Please see attached Bicycle Share Indemnity Agreement.
Requirement S8: Permitted operators agree that the City of Seattle is not responsible for educating users
regarding helmet requirements and other laws. Neither is the City responsible for educating users on how
to ride or operate a bicycle. Permitted operators agree to educate users regarding laws applicable to
riding and operating a bicycle in the City of Seattle and King County and to instruct users to wear helmets
and otherwise comply with applicable laws.

 Parking
Requirement P1: For bicycle share stations that
require the installation and maintenance of
objects in the right-of-way (ROW), an annual
permit is required for every location in
addition to an annual permit for this pilot
program. SDOT’s Street Use division will
provide guidance on locating bicycle share
stations, as well as the additional permits.
Requirement P2: For free-floating bicycle share
systems, bicycles shall be parked in the
landscape/furniture zone of the sidewalk, as
defined in section 4.11 of the Right-of-Way
Improvements Manual, or at an SDOT bicycle rack.
Bicycle share operators shall inform customers on
how to park a bicycle properly.
Requirement P3: Restrictions to eligible bicycle
parking zones on sidewalks:
1. Bicycles shall not be parked at the corners
of sidewalks as defined by section
15.02.042 of the Seattle Municipal Code
(SMC).
2. Bicycles shall not be parked on blocks
where the landscape/furniture zone is less
than 3 feet wide, or where there is no
landscape/furniture zone.
3. On blocks without sidewalks, bicycles may be parked if the travel lane(s) and 6-foot pedestrian
clear zone are not impeded.
4. The City reserves the right to determine certain block faces where free-floating bicycle share
parking is prohibited.
5. Bicycles shall not be parked in the landscape/furniture zone adjacent to or within:
a. Parklets or streateries;
b. Transit zones, including bus stops, shelters, passenger waiting areas and bus layover and
staging zones, except at existing bicycle racks;
c. Loading zones;
d. Disabled parking zone;
e. Street furniture that requires pedestrian access (for example - benches, parking pay
stations, bus shelters, transit information signs, etc.);
f. Curb ramps;
g. Entryways; and
h. Driveways.

 Requirement P4: This permit is only valid for operations within the City of Seattle Right-of-Way. Additional
zones may be established; for example, locations within parks, publicly-accessible plazas, on-street
parking spaces, off-street parking lots/garages, or campuses. However, permission to do so shall require
coordination with the appropriate department, agency, or property owner; and shall be communicated to
the customer through signage approved by the respective entity and/or through the mobile and web
application..
Requirement P5: SDOT retains the right to create geo-fenced stations within certain areas where bicycles
shall be parked.
Requirement P6: Any free-floating bicycle that is parked in one location for more than 7 consecutive days
without moving may be removed by City of Seattle crews and taken to a City facility for storage at the
expense of the bicycle share operator. SDOT shall invoice the violating opera tor as stated in Requirement
O12 below.
Requirement P7: All permitted operators shall provide on every bicycle contact information for bicycle
relocation requests.
Requirement P8: Bicycles shall be upright when parked.
Requirement P9: Any bicycle that is parked incorrectly shall be re-parked in a correct manner or shall be
removed by the operator based on these times:
•
•

6am to 6pm on weekdays, not including holidays - within two hours of receiving notice,
All other times – within 10 hours of receiving notice.

Requirement P10: Bicycles can only be parked on hard surfaces within the landscape/furniture zone (e.g.
concrete, asphalt).

Operations
Requirement O1: All permitted operators under the pilot permit program shall have a staffed operations
center in the City of Seattle.
Requirement O2: All permitted operators under the pilot permit program shall have a 24-hour customer
service phone number for customers to report safety concerns, complaints, or ask questions.
Requirement O3: All permitted operators under the pilot permit program shall provide SDOT with a direct
contact for bicycle share company staff that are capable of rebalancing bicycles. All permitted operators
under the pilot permit program shall relocate or rebalance bicycles based on these times:
•
•

6am to 6pm on weekdays, not including holidays - within two hours of receiving notice,
All other times – within 10 hours of receiving notice.

Requirement O4: All permitted operators shall have a performance bond of $80/bicycle, with a cap of
$10,000. The form of the bond shall be approved by SDOT. These funds shall be accessible to SDOT for
future public property repair and maintenance costs that may be incurred, removing, and storing bicycles
improperly parked, or if a company is not present to remove bicycles if its permit is terminated. If a
permitted operator increases the size of their fleet, the performance bond shall be adjusted appropriately
before deploying additional bicycles.

 Requirement O5: Any inoperable bicycle, or any bicycle that is not safe to operate shall be removed from
the right-of-way within 24 hours of notice by any means to the operator by any individual or entity, and
shall be repaired before putting the bicycle into revenue service.
Requirement O6: All permitted operators shall have systems with service areas that do not exceed 340
bicycles per square mile.
Requirement O7: All permitted operators shall have a minimum bicycle fleet of 500 bicycles if using
standard (non-electric) bicycles; operators shall meet this fleet size within four weeks of initial launch
date.
Requirement O8: Permitted vendors using only electric bicycles do not have a minimum fleet size.
Requirement O9: SDOT may determine by Director’s Rule additional or altered permit conditions based on
data received as part of the data sharing requirements specified below.
Requirement O10: Every bicycle shall have a unique identifier that is visible to the user on the bicycle.
Requirement O12: If SDOT or any other City department or office incurs any costs addressing or abating
any violations of these requirements, or incurs any costs of repair or maintenance of public property,
upon receiving written notice of the City costs, the permitted operator shall reimburse SDOT for such
costs within thirty days.
Requirement O13: All applicants to the pilot permit program shall include the fleet size in their
application. Permitted operators shall notify SDOT if they plan to change their fleet size two weeks before
deployment; and include the additional program administrative fee for the expanded fleet (Requirement
F3), and documentation of their updated performance bond (Requirement O4).
Requirement O14: SDOT reserves the right to terminate permits at any time and require that the entire
fleet of bicycles be removed from Seattle streets. The decommissioning shall be completed within 30 days
unless a different time period is determined by SDOT, consistent with SMC 15.04.070.
Requirement O15: Any permitted vendors operating systems with 2,000 or more bicycles must include
Tier 1 Priority Hire neighborhoods in 20% or more of their service area. Priority Hire neighborhoods, by
zip code, can be found here http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/FAS/PurchasingAndContracting/Labor/Zip_Codes.pdf.
Requirement O16: Permitted operators’ fleets are limited to 500 bicycles during the first month of the
pilot, 1,000 bicycles during the second month of the pilot, and 2,000 bicycles during the third month of
the pilot. After the third month, permitted operators can expand beyond 2,000 assuming they fulfill the
other requirements in the permit. The start date used to define the first, second, and third month will be
the 7th of July, 2017.

Data Sharing
Requirement DS1: Permitted operators shall provide SDOT with real-time information on the entire
Seattle fleet through a documented application program interface (API). The permitted operator is
directly responsible for obtaining an API key from SDOT to which they will publish the data described

 below. The data to be published to the SDOT API will include the following information in real time for
every bicycle parked in the Seattle operational area:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Point location
Bicycle identification number
Type of bicycle
Fuel level (if electric)

Requirement DS2: The City of Seattle is permitted to display real-time data provided via the API described
in DS1.
Requirement DS3: The City of Seattle is able to publish real-time bike availability data to the public.
Requirement DS4: All permitted operators shall provide the following anonymized data for each trip
record to inform and support safe and effective management of the bicycle share system, and for
transportation planning efforts. Data will be submitted to SDOT via an API to be distributed by SDOT.
Field name
Company Name
Type of bicycle
Trip record number

Format
[company name]
“Standard” or “Electric”
xxx0001, xxx0002, xxx0003, …

Trip duration
Trip distance
Start date
Start time
End date
End time
Start location
End location
Bicycle ID number

MM:SS
Feet
MM, DD, YYYY
HH:MM:SS (00:00:00 – 23:59:59)
MM, DD, YYYY
HH:MM:SS (00:00:00 – 23:59:59)
Census block
Census block
xxxx1, xxxx2, …

Description
n/a
n/a
3-letter company acronym + consecutive
trip #
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Unique identifier for every bicycle,
determined by company

Requirement DS5: All permitted operators will provide the following bike availability data for oversight of
parking compliance and bicycle distribution by minutes. Data will be submitted to the SDOT API.
Field name
GPS Coordinate
Availability duration
Availability start date
Availability start time

Format
X,Y
Minutes
MM, DD, YYYY
HH:MM:SS (00:00:00 – 23:59:59)

Description
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a

Requirement DS6: If a permitted operator has a signed agreement with the UW Transportation Data
Collaborative (TDC), they are exempt from requirements DS1, DS2, DS3, DS4, and DS5. Instead, the signed
agreement must show that the company is inputting the data below into the UW TDC, via API keys
obtained from the TDC to the participant. Records to be submitted are divided into three categories; rider
profile, current bike location, and trip record.

 1. Rider profile:
a. Gender
b. Age (bracket)
c. City resident / or not
2. For each trip taken:
Field name
Company Name
Type of bicycle
Trip record number

Format
[company name]
“Standard” or “Electric”
xxx0001, xxx0002, xxx0003, …

Trip duration
Trip distance
Start date
Start time
End date
End time
Start location
End location
Bicycle ID number

MM:SS
Feet
MM, DD, YYYY
HH:MM:SS (00:00:00 – 23:59:59)
MM, DD, YYYY
HH:MM:SS (00:00:00 – 23:59:59)
X,Y
X,Y
xxxx1, xxxx2, …

Description
n/a
n/a
3-letter company acronym + consecutive
trip #
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Unique identifier for every bicycle,
determined by company

3. For bicycle availability:
Field name
GPS Coordinate
Availability duration
Availability start date
Availability start time

Format
X,Y
Minutes
MM, DD, YYYY
HH:MM:SS (00:00:00 – 23:59:59)

Description
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a

Requirement DS7: All permitted operators shall distribute a customer survey, to be provided by SDOT, to
all users prior to the end of the pilot program.
Requirement DS8: All permitted operators under this pilot permit program shall keep a record of
maintenance activities, including but not limited to bicycle identification number and maintenance
performed. These records shall be sent to SDOT weekly.
Requirement DS9: All permitted operators will keep a record of reported collisions. These records will be
sent to SDOT weekly.
Requirement DS10: All permitted operators will allow SDOT to temporarily install 10 mounted GPS
trackers on a random sample of bicycles for research and trip analysis purposes. Trip data will be
anonymous.
Requirement DS11: All permitted operators shall report the aggregated breakdown of customers by
gender and age monthly. Gender will be reported by male, female, and other. Age will be reported into
these age groups: under 5, 5-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 56 and over.

 Requirement DS12: All permitted operators agree to SDOT using a third-party researcher for evaluation of
the pilot bike share program. Data will be shared with the third-party researcher only for the purposes of
evaluation and/or enforcement of the requirements in this permit.
Note: if a public disclosure request is submitted that could result in SDOT sharing data required by this
permit, SDOT will notify all vendors prior to sharing data.

Fees
Requirement F1: Applicants shall pay $146 for an Annual Permit for the pilot bicycle share program. Note
if any stations or other structures are proposed, each site shall require additional review deposits and
permitting.
Requirement F2: Applicants shall pay SDOT’s Street Use division $209 for every hour of permit review and
inspection needed. Estimated times for reviewing pilot bicycle share permits is eight hours; therefore,
upon submitting an application, applicants shall pay $1,672 to Street Use. Any time not used shall be
reimbursed to the applicant and any additional time shall be billed, upon permit closure.
Requirement F3: Applicants shall pay a program administrative fee of $15/bike to SDOT’s Transit &
Mobility Division for the administrative time during pilot permit program.
Requirement F4: Any fees arising from the need for City crews to relocate or remove bicycles from any
location where a bicycle is prohibited under this permit (Requirement O12) shall equal the City crews’
hourly rate plus fifteen percent.

Application
Any company interested in applying for a permit shall submit an application to SDOT. The application
must include these items:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Table listing all the policies above and the applicant’s response;
Completed Annual Permit – use “Other” for Permit Type;
Insurance documentation (Requirement S5);
Images and description of bicycle and mobile application;
Size of fleet at launch, including any planned fleet expansions during the pilot period;
Service area at launch, including any planned expansions during the pilot period;
Plan for educating users on proper bicycle parking;
Plan for encouraging compliance with King County Helmet Law;
Plan for providing an equitable bicycle share service; and,
$1,672 deposit to SDOT Street Use (Requirement F2).

If the application meets all the requirements, operators will need to submit the items below prior to
issuance of the permit.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Bond (Requirement O4);
5 account logins for City oversight;
$146 permit fee, check made payable to City of Seattle;
Program administrative fee (Requirement F3) to SDOT Transit & Mobility.

 Applications can be sent to:

SDOT

ATTN: Public Space Management
PO Box 34996

Seattle, WA 98124