Rentable electric bikes and scooters are returning to Dallas, and City officials say things will be different this time.

The City of Dallas recently announced it is bringing back rentable transports by early 2023, and it has contracted with three manufacturers — Bird, Lime, and Superpedestrian — to provide these services again.

The City plans to reboot the Shared Dockless Vehicle program with 1350 scooters, 100 seated scooters, 45 e-bikes, and five assisted scooters. Some of these transports are to be placed in previously underserved areas.

Each of these companies will be allowed to deploy no more than 500 of these vehicles at any given time, with an opportunity to increase this number based on “meeting benchmarks for ridership and complaint statistics,” according to the program information page.

The pilot program was halted on September 2, 2020, in order to make substantial changes, which Transportation Director Mike Rogers noted were needed to address “public safety considerations.”

It appears now that these changes have come into effect with these new and returning models.

One new safety feature is programming that prevents a user from operating the devices in a non-designated area, according to NBC DFW. For example, in 2019, a man riding a rentable scooter was captured on video crossing several lanes of traffic on a busy Dallas freeway.

“That will be impossible now. With the latest technology we’re implementing now in geofencing, both on [the] device and in the back end, you won’t be able to take it into specific zones,” said Lime Dallas Operations Manager Kelly Pierce, according to NBC DFW.

The City has also implemented a number of new restrictions in advance of the vehicles’ return, such as prohibiting their use on sidewalks, trails, parks, plazas, and roads with a speed limit of or greater than 35 miles per hour, and in other designated no-ride areas. Hours of operation are limited to 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and renters must be 16 or older. 

Other restrictions include a city-wide speed limit of 20 mph, with certain “Slow-Ride Zones” limited to 10 mph. 

Riders will be advised of these rules and given safety training via the phone app used to access the devices, NBC DFW reported. Those violating the rules could be fined up to $200. 

Riders must park these vehicles in parking corrals, locked to a bike rack, upright in the buffer zone between the sidewalk at the street, or facing the street on sidewalks wider than eight feet. Improperly parking the devices can result in a fine of $20. 

“We’ll be launching in the coming weeks and we’re working with the City of Dallas to be sure the program is a success from day one,” said Pierce, according to NBC DFW.