The Italian Competition Authority has fined micromobility operators Bird, Dott and Lime a total of €2.7m for preventing free travel as part of Rome’s local public transport system.

Investigations into the companies started late last year. They are authorised to provide micromobility services such as e-bikes and e-scooters within the territory of the Roman municipality from 2023 to 2026.

Bird, Dott and Lime (www.li.me) were fined a total of almost €2.7m for preventing holders of the Metrebus card (the annual pass for Rome’s local public transport system) from using the free ride packages that the operators had undertaken to provide when bidding for the service.

In particular, the authority found that the three companies had adopted inadequate measures and organisational arrangements for handling users’ requests. This made the activation process burdensome, caused lengthy delays in issuing the passes and, consequently, reduced the period during which users could benefit from them.

In the case of Bird (bird.co), the authority also established a further unfair commercial practice consisting of the arbitrary deactivation of user accounts, without providing prior information about the circumstances that could justify such action or giving users an opportunity to be heard.

The authority (en.agcm.it) said the practices had a significant impact on consumers as the three companies restricted access to a more sustainable mobility service that complements local public transport through the use of less polluting vehicles.

A statement from Dott (ridedott.com) acknowledged the authority’s decision but disagreed with its conclusions, which it believed did not adequately take into account how the company managed and promoted the benefit available to annual Metrebus pass holders.

“Throughout the investigation, we cooperated with the utmost transparency and used this opportunity to meaningfully strengthen the pass activation experience for our users, improvements whose value was also recognised in the authority’s decision,” said the Dott statement. “Since the launch of the promotion, Metrebus pass holders have benefited from over two million free rides with Dott, meaning that approximately 30% of all rides in the capital were taken free of charge by Atac pass holders. We therefore believe that we have demonstrated fairness and accessibility in the interests of our users, and we remain committed to continuously improving our service.”

IMC Connected Transportation News has also asked Bird and Lime to comment.