LimeBike  
2121 South El Camino Real, Suite B-100 
San Mateo, CA 94403 
 
City of Dallas 
1500 Marilla Street 
Dallas, TX 75201 
 
January 24, 2018 
 
Subject: L​ imeBike Operational Capacity and Our Path Forward 
 
To:  
Mayor Mike Rawlings 
Dallas City Council 
T.C. Broadnax, City Manager 
 
Since launching last August, LimeBike has been pleased to serve the City of Dallas, 
helping roughly 70,000 residents and visitors take more than 180,000 trips across the 
city. We are also excited to be part of a community, providing riders with access to 
schools, shopping, entertainment, and everything that makes living in Dallas great. 
We’ve heard time and again from businesses and the public about the vibrant and 
innovative feel that LimeBike has brought to the City. 
 
We recognize that the particular speed and scale of dockless bike deployments from 
LimeBike and other companies has not been without challenges. We actively 
follow-up on all 311 inquiries passed along to us, monitor social media and news 
outlets, and take to heart complaints and concerns associated with our service. We 
have heard the Dallas community’s feedback loud and clear and are prepared to 
respond accordingly to ensure bikeshare serves the City well. At LimeBike, we take 
pride in our responsiveness and dedication to serving the communities in our over 
40 markets nationwide.  
 
We are eager to work together with city officials on regulations that preserve the 
dockless bikeshare program and enable us to best serve the people of Dallas.  
 
Immediate actions: 
● We are increasing the size of our local Dallas operations team to better serve 
the community;  
 ● We are stopping the deployment of new bikes other than those that are 
currently on the ground; 
● We are modifying the distribution of the bike fleet, ensuring bikes are better 
spread throughout the city; and 
● We are continuing to work with city officials on regulations that preserve the 
benefits of dockless bike programs to best serve the people of Dallas. 
 
Our Operations Today 
 
Local Operations: ​To ensure our network operates at the highest possible level, we 
have a local team of over 50 bike operations specialists, repair technicians, and 
drivers. This team is led by our Dallas General Manager, Anthony Fleo, and our 
Operations Manager, Jeff Roberts. Both are Dallas locals and intimately familiar with 
the city. 
 
On a daily basis, our field operation monitors our fleet on foot or on bike with a 
special operations team focused solely on Downtown Dallas. We also have a similar 
team dedicated to Uptown, another to White Rock Lake, as well as a separate 
operations team patrolling the Town of Highland Park, the Village Apartments, and 
Greenville Avenue. Lastly, we have another two teams dedicated to serving the 
entirety of the City of Dallas, responding to reports submitted to our 24-hour 
customer support line, our in-app reporting feature, and the City’s 311 operations 
center.  
 
Commitment to Customer Service: ​In addition to our in-app reporting feature that 
allows riders to report bikes that are irresponsibly parked, out of network, or require 
maintenance, we have a 24/7 customer service team available through the app, 
email, and phone. Our 24-hour customer support satisfaction rating outperforms the 
national average with 96% of riders reporting being satisfied with their customer 
experience.  
 
Operations Moving Forward 
 
Distribution of Bikes: O ​ ur goal is to serve the City of Dallas with the highest quality 
operations and the best product. We also clearly have areas where we can improve. 
In addition to increasing our overall staff number, we are reexamining the 
distribution of LimeBikes across the city and hope to work together with you to 
identify areas where we can do a better job serving residents and visitors throughout 
the Dallas area. In particular, we anticipate adding more bikes to Dallas communities 
that were previously underserved or where mobility was limited.  
 
We have received feedback from residents that the concentration of bicycles along 
Katy Trail and at White Rock Lake exceeded perceived levels of demand. As you can 

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see from the trip origination maps (attached), each of those locations are among the 
highest demand areas for LimeBike. Nonetheless, we will expand our operations 
presence at parks and trails to ensure our bikes do not impede the ability of Dallas 
residents and visitors to enjoy these wonderful public spaces. 
 
Spreading Out Bike Distribution: A ​ nother area where we will do better is to spread 
out the distribution of bicycles so that prepositioned bicycles do not exceed demand 
at any one particular location. Our team aims to place no more than four to six 
bicycles at one physical location except in particularly high demand areas. We will 
aim to limit the number of locations that receive more than four to six bikes. We 
seek to meet the demand we see on a daily basis; however, finding the right balance 
between ensuring bikes are available for everyone who wants them and limiting our 
visual impact on the city remains a challenge. 
 
311 Response Reporting:​ O ​ n a daily basis, we receive requests from the Dallas 311 call 
center to move, stand upright, or in some other way modify our bike fleet. Those 
requests are submitted to our team via email, at which point they are assigned to 
the nearest operations team. Moving forward we will implement a system that will 
provide additional follow-up information on 311 requests that we receive indicating 
response times and outcomes. We look forward to working with City staff to find a 
solution that works for everyone. 
 
Technology Improvements: I​ n addition to regular field patrols, one technology 
advancement we have in our product pipeline is to activate the embedded 
gyroscopic sensor in our smart bicycles so that it signals to our operations team if 
the bicycle has been knocked over. We expect to have this implemented in the 
near-term and are eager to integrate it into our active field operations. 
 
Proactive Rider Education: ​As part of our continued efforts towards rider education 
on bikeshare etiquette, we are releasing a series of videos this month aimed to 
educate riders with tips on how to use and park their LimeBikes responsibly. 
LimeBike is committed to going above and beyond to promote responsible parking 
— ​both proactively, through rider education and creative video channels as well as 
reactively, through our in-app reporting, our local operations teams, 24/7 customer 
service support, and our bikes’ GPS data and built-in sensors.  
 
Data Sharing 
 
Our data team is constantly collecting information that can help city transportation 
planners better understand how residents and visitors are getting around, which can 
help make city streets safer and more connected.  
 

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In the coming weeks, we will provide city officials with a secure online portal 
showcasing up-to-date information on bikes in circulation, ridership, bike usage, 
distance traveled, trip duration, areas of high demand, CO2 emissions saved, and 
other anonymized trip data.  
 
Residents and visitors are welcoming LimeBike into the community, as is evidenced 
by our ever-increasing ridership and rider numbers:  
 
● Increasing Rides & Ridership:  
○ Since launching in August, 69,879​ ​residents and visitors have ridden 
LimeBike 183,514 times and counting.  
○ Last Saturday (January 20), LimeBikes in Dallas were ridden 5,768 times, 
a milestone for Dallas and the most trips on LimeBike in one day. Over 
the last three Saturdays, we have consecutively broken our Dallas 
record for most trips per day.  
● Connecting to Transit​: 2 ​ 0%​ ​of of all Dallas LimeBike trips start or end near a 
public transit station, meaning LimeBike is providing a first and last mile 
solution for Dallas residents to more easily access public transportation.  
● Alleviating Traffic Congestion​:​ ​51% of Dallas riders use LimeBike during the 
evening rush hour, which equates to 39% of all Dallas rides, demonstrating 
that LimeBike is helping Dallas reduce traffic on roadways.  
● Environmental Impact​: ​90,348.37 pounds saved in Carbon Dioxide, equating 
to 4,244 trees saved.  
● Health Benefits To Riders:​ 5 ​ ,010,362 calories burnt by Dallas LimeBike riders, 
equating to 8,899 big macs.  
 
Additionally, we have attached a number of maps that detail areas of high demand 
(by trip origination), including Downtown, Uptown, Katy Trail, and White Rock Lake. 
We look forward to working together with your team to provide data on the most 
frequent routes taken by LimeBike riders as well as neighborhood-based trip 
origination and destination data.  
 
Looking Forward 
 
We will continue to engage with city officials and the Dallas City Council in the 
coming weeks and months. As the leading U.S.-based smart bikeshare company, we 
have successfully operated in a range of regulatory environments, from 
multi-provider programs to exclusive markets. As we have from day one, we aim to 
continue to be a collaborative partner throughout the process, and look forward to 
LimeBike serving Dallas for many years to come.  
 
Among the regulatory priorities we believe the City should implement: 
 

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 1) Ensuring any bike share company operating in the City is deploying “smart 
bikes” ​— w
​ hich can be tracked in real-time through active GPS —​ ​is essential 
to ensuring the effective operations and management of a fleet of bikes; 
2) Integration and reporting feedback with the City’s 311 service to ensure 
operations calls are being responded to in an effective and timely manner;  
3) A minimum number of bikes to operate in order to ensure a company has the 
scale to support operations and bike management; and 
4) Bike safety standards and compliance to ensure bikes deployed are safe for 
the public. 
 
We are eager and grateful to continue working with the City of Dallas. We are open 
to feedback to ensure our program meets the needs of the community. Please feel 
free to reach out to us if we can be helpful in any manner. 
 
Sincerely, 
 
Toby Sun 
Co-Founder and CEO 
LimeBike 
toby.sun@limebike.com 
 
Sam Sadle 
Director of Strategic Development for Texas 
LimeBike 
sam.sadle@limebike.com 
 
Anthony Fleo 
General Manager for Dallas 
LimeBike 
anthony@limebike.com 
 
 
CC: 
● Majed Al-Ghafry, Assistant City Manager 
● Michael Rogers, Director of Transportation 
● Tanya Brooks, Assistant Director of Mobility Planning 
● Jared White, Bicycle Transportation Manager 
 
Attachment: 
● Trip origination heat maps for Downtown, Uptown and Katy Trail, and White 
Rock Lake. ​(Note: Red indicates an area of highest ridership)   

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 Trip Origination Heat Maps 
 
Downtown 

 
 
Uptown and Katy Trail 

 
 

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White Rock Lake 

 
 
 

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January 22, 2018

Everett Weiller
ofo
1601 Elm Street
33rd floor
Dallas, Texas 75215

T.C. Broadnax
City Manager, City of Dallas
1500 Marilla Street, 4EN
Dallas, Texas 75201

City Manager Broadnax,

It was with considerable relief that we received your letter dated January 18, 2018
calling for an end to bad behavior and repercussions for those dockless bike share
operators who have flouted generally accepted operational standards. While we take
issue with the failure to differentiate between the various bike share companies, we
confess that the behavior of some of our fellow operators worries us deeply and
tarnishes the reputation of the industry that ofo created.

Ofo has always been laser-focused on creating a best-in-class operation. Our strategy
has never been to mindlessly flood a market indiscriminately, leaving broken or
vandalized bikes in situ. Instead, we have invested significant resources to make sure
that our program serves the needs of our riders and cities in a dynamic, responsive
manner based on best practices and hard won understanding of each market.

We applaud the free market approach you have taken to bike share in Dallas but think
the market still needs time to winnow out the bad operators and inform any proposed
regulations. However, in the spirit of leading from the front, we voluntarily commit to the
following operational standards:

1. 24 hour customer service

 2. Best in class customer service response times
3. Field operations running across multiple shifts per day
4. Best in class speed of removal of bikes that have been vandalized
5. Monthly maintenance on every bicycle

These are standards that ofo has held itself to since launch and we are confident that
adoption by all operators would assist the City’s efforts in mitigating the issues you have
identified. Working with cities and stakeholders as a responsible partner has always
been critical to our success and fundamental to our process. Dallas is no exception and
we are proud of our efforts to address vandalism, improperly parked bikes, and
stakeholder concerns. As the City of Dallas learns about the industry, we are learning
how to improve our services and be the number one choice for riders.

Dallas is a national leader in the dockless bike share movement and we are encouraged
by the rapid adoption of our service by residents of all ages and backgrounds. If Dallas
does decide to impose regulations, we respectfully ask you to engage the dockless
operators and cycling public in a transparent and inclusive decision making process.
Our greatest concern is that regulation will impair the ability of responsible operators to
provide a much needed service to residents and visitors but fail to prevent damage
caused by the less conscientious among us.

We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the City of Dallas to achieve
our twin goals of universal access to cycling and responsible stewardship of the public
realm.

Respectfully,

Everett Weiler
General Manager - Dallas
ofo