---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT RELATING TO MOTOR AND OTHER VEHICLES - COMMERCIAL LOW SPEED VEHICLES (Authorizes commercial low speed vehicles of 8 persons or less to operate on roadways of the city of Newport as a commercial jitney service.)"
description: "AN ACT RELATING TO MOTOR AND OTHER VEHICLES - COMMERCIAL LOW SPEED VEHICLES (Authorizes commercial low speed vehicles of 8 persons or less to operate on roadways of the city of Newport as a commercial jitney service.)"
jurisdiction: "us/states/ri"
legislature: "Rhode Island General Assembly"
session: "2018"
identifier: "SB 2971"
citation: "Rhode Island SB 2971 (2018)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: ["Motor Vehicles"]
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["DiPalma"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 9
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2018-06-14"
last_action: "2018-07-02"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/624769b0-25ea-4ebd-9b36-e0a92e10354d"
source_url: "http://status.rilin.state.ri.us/"
source_hash: "b14fcf9f92f284756743eb1526b3cb383e19c56103c8b6e76c4a369f39cf6836"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ri"]
---

# Rhode Island SB 2971 (2018) — AN ACT RELATING TO MOTOR AND OTHER VEHICLES - COMMERCIAL LOW SPEED VEHICLES (Authorizes commercial low speed vehicles of 8 persons or less to operate on roadways of the city of Newport as a commercial jitney service.)

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **2971 SUB A** (committee substitute) — [source](http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText/BillText18/SenateText18/S2971A.pdf)

## Votes

- Passage — **33–0** (pass) · upper
- IN CONCURRENCE — **56–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- DiPalma — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2018-06-14** 06/14/2018 Introduced, referred to Senate Judiciary `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2018-06-22** 06/22/2018 Scheduled for hearing and/or consideration (06/22/2018)
- **2018-06-22** 06/22/2018 Committee recommends passage of Sub A `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2018-06-22** 06/22/2018 Placed on Senate Calendar (06/23/2018)
- **2018-06-23** 06/23/2018 Senate passed Sub A `passage`
- **2018-06-23** 06/23/2018 Placed on House Calendar (06/23/2018)
- **2018-06-23** 06/23/2018 House passed in concurrence `passage`
- **2018-07-02** 07/02/2018 Transmitted to Governor `executive-receipt`
- **2018-07-02** 07/02/2018 Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/624769b0-25ea-4ebd-9b36-e0a92e10354d`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Rhode Island legislature records).