BART adds e-scooters to trip planner to enhance ease of travel

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) aims to make it easier to take car-free trips by adding shared electric scooters (e-scooters) to BART’s multi-modal trip planner.

Trip planner results on BART’s website and app now show real time availability of Spin scooters in San Francisco, LINK by Superpedestrian scooters in Oakland and HOPR scooters in Fremont.

Integrating e-scooters into the customer experience is BART’s latest effort to make taking transit easier and to increase ridership during pandemic recovery. Pairing e-scooters and BART expands the geographic area that BART riders can quickly and easily reach. By showing how much faster it is to take a scooter to and from BART compared to walking or driving in traffic, more people may opt for BART to get where they need to go.

“No other trip planner in the Bay Area is offering this level of real-time customized directional itineraries with as many car-free options while promoting transit region wide,” said Ravi Misra, BART Chief Information Officer.

How it works

In the trip planner, riders enter their starting location and their destination. Real time results will show door-to-door, turn-by-turn directions and the amount of time it will take to complete the full trip. The results will compare different modes of getting to and from BART including walking, biking, driving and now Spin, LINK or HOPR scooters.

Real time scooter locations will show on the trip planner map to help customers determine if they are a good choice and, in some cases, the estimated cost of the scooter rental will be included in the itinerary. When using BART’s official app, results include direct links to book the scooter through the provider’s app.

Promotes all transit options

BART’s multi-modal trip planner promotes taking transit by including the various transit systems across the Bay Area in the results. During the pandemic, BART has been coordinating with the Bay Area’s 27 transit operators and exploring ways to make transit more user-friendly.

Shared electric scooters are not allowed inside BART stations or on BART trains. All shared scooter terms and conditions and user agreement rules apply including service range areas. Where e-scooters are equipped with locks, BART requires scooters on BART property to be locked to a bike rack to keep scooters from blocking access to the stations.

BART customers are welcome to bring their own personal folding electric kick-scooters on BART.