Terms of Service guidelines

To help riders clearly understand their rights and responsibilities, users must accept the transit agency’s Terms of Service (ToS) that are provided through the integrator. For security reasons, transit agencies must comply with the following requirements in their ToS to ensure they're presented properly. Google removes prohibited content from a non-compliant ToS before we present it to the user. If we identify any new risks, Google reserves the right to update its review process.

To format the ToS, use one of the following two options:

  • Plain text: UTF-8 encoded.
  • HTML: Use with a limited subset of tags.

Plain text option

Plain text is the simplest option to use in order to create a compliant ToS because it doesn't allow you to include non-compliant tags or hyperlinks. Content must be UTF-8 encoded.

If you use the plain text option, use the following template:

Section Header
Text for this section...
Section Header
Text for this section...
* Bullet 1
* Bullet 2
* Bullet 3
Section Header
Text for this section…

HTML option

When you use the HTML option, you have more control over the formatting and still remain compliant with our ToS guidelines. However, we only allow certain HTML tags. All non-compliant tags are stripped from what's presented to the user.

The ToS must be a well-formed HTML v4 or v5 document. The document must have proper document structure and balanced tags.

The following are the only tags allowed:

  • Document structure: <html>, <head>, <title>, and <body>.
  • Headers: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>,<h5>, and <h6>.
  • List elements: <li>, <ul>, and <ol>.
  • Tables: <table>, <tr>, <td>, and <th>.
  • Paragraph and line breaks: <p> and <br>.
  • Text formatting: <b>, <i>, <u>, <strong>, and <em>.

Don't use any of the following commonly used tags:

  • Images: <img> tags
  • Javascript:
    • <script> tags
    • <link> tags to javascript files
  • CSS in any form:
    • <style> tags
    • <link> tags to stylesheet
    • <style> tags to attributes
  • Links:
    • <a> tags
  • Tracking tags and pixels
  • Any of the following tags:
    • <applet>
    • <base>
    • <embed>
    • <form>
    • <iframe>
    • <link>
    • <math>
    • <meta>
    • <object>
    • <script>
    • <style>
    • <svg>
    • <template>

Keep the following things in mind:

  • We only support plain text and HTML MIME types.
  • Bold and italics aren't text options.
  • Keep the uncompressed size of the ToS to less than 100 kB.
  • The maximum font size for headings is 24 px.
  • Headings must be less than 10% of the total characters in the ToS.