A Submission Guide for Scooter and Bike-Share Operators With Referral Programs

Shared scooter and bike operators that reward riders for inviting friends can send those programs to TechAmerica.ai for editorial review. This guide starts with the submission process, then explains how micromobility referral programs work and what our editors look for before deciding whether to describe one.

A quick note on our position: TechAmerica.ai has no partnerships, sponsorships, affiliate approvals or discount codes with any micromobility company. We review programs as editors, describe them using official sources and do not earn money when readers sign up.

Step One: Gather the Official Documents

Before you contact us, collect the public pages that govern the program. Editors verify everything against official sources, so a submission without them usually stalls. At minimum, we need:

• The public referral or invite terms, with a last-updated date.
• The general rider terms of service and pricing page for at least one participating city.
• Any separate terms for passes, memberships or subscription plans that referral credit interacts with.
• The privacy policy section covering invitations, contacts and location data.

If the referral rules appear only inside the app, include screenshots and tell us when they were captured. We will note in any coverage that the terms are app-only, which makes them harder for readers to check.

Step Two: Describe the Program in Plain Terms

Next, write a short summary of how the program works, in the order a rider would experience it. Who can send an invite? What does the friend have to do: create an account, add a payment method, finish a first ride or buy a pass? What does each person receive, and when? We find that a five or six sentence summary written for a rider, not a marketer, saves several rounds of follow-up questions.

Be specific about the reward form. Micromobility referral rewards are typically ride credit added to an in-app wallet, free minutes, a waived unlock fee or a discount on a pass. Say which one applies, whether it is the same in every city, and whether it can be converted to cash. If the answer to that last question is no, say so.

Questions to answer up front

• Does credit apply to per-minute charges only, or also to unlock fees, parking fines and taxes?
• Can credit be used on both scooters and bikes, including e-bikes and seated scooters?
• Does credit work in every city the app serves, or only where it was earned?
• How long does credit last, and does an inactive account lose it?
• Is there a cap on referrals per rider per month or year?

Step Three: Explain the City Layer

Micromobility is unusual because cities, transit agencies and universities often control whether an operator can run at all. Many U.S. cities issue permits or run pilots that limit fleet size, set service areas, require parking rules and specify data reporting. The National Association of City Transportation Officials publishes guidelines for regulating shared micromobility that cover permits and pilots, operator insurance, data management with privacy protections, equity programs, pricing and parking.

Those rules shape referral programs. An operator may be allowed to run only in certain neighborhoods, or required to offer reduced-fare plans for income-qualified riders. Some docked bike-share systems are owned by a city or transit agency and operated under contract, which can mean the public agency approves promotions. Tell us who owns the system, who sets prices and whether city approval is needed for referral promotions.

Universities add another layer. Campus systems may be limited to students and staff with a school email address, may offer subsidized memberships through student fees and may restrict vehicles to campus boundaries. If your referral program runs differently on a campus, for example by limiting invites to people with the same school domain, describe that variation separately so readers on and off campus get accurate information.

Permit changes and program continuity

Permits are often issued for a set term and then rebid. An operator that loses a permit may have to pull its fleet within weeks. Riders who earned credit in that city then want to know whether it moves with them. Explain your policy, and tell us how you notify riders when service in their area is ending.

Equity and reduced-fare plans

Next City's coverage of the NACTO guidelines reported that NACTO treats an equity program as something cities must consider, and that some cities have tied fleet expansion to operators meeting equity goals. If your system offers discounted plans for riders who qualify through public benefits programs, explain whether those riders can earn or receive referral credit, and whether a referral can affect their discounted status. Readers in reduced-fare programs deserve clear answers.

Step Four: Cover Safety, Age Limits and Rider Rules

Safety rules are part of any honest description of a scooter or bike program. The Consumer Product Safety Commission advises e-scooter riders to wear helmets, check brakes and tires before riding, carry only one person, avoid riding impaired and follow manufacturer age and weight limits. Many shared scooter services require riders to be adults and to hold a driver's license or verify their age.

A referral program should not invite people who cannot legally ride. If your app blocks under-age accounts or requires identity checks, state how that applies to referred users. If credit can be used on bikes by younger riders where local law allows, say so.

Device safety and fleet standards

In a December 2022 letter, the CPSC urged manufacturers, importers and retailers to comply with UL 2272 and UL 2849 electrical safety standards for micromobility devices after reports of fires and overheating. Shared fleets are commercial devices maintained by operators, but readers often ask about battery safety. A short note on how your fleet is certified and maintained helps editors answer those questions accurately.

Step Five: Address Privacy and Disclosure

Every micromobility trip generates location data: where a ride started, the path taken and where the device was parked. Cities commonly require operators to share trip data for planning and enforcement, and NACTO's guidelines emphasize getting accurate data while protecting individual privacy. Referral programs add one more data flow, linking two riders to each other.

Your submission should confirm that a referrer sees only whether a referral qualified, not where the friend rode. It should also explain whether invite contacts are uploaded and whether invitations are sent from the rider's own phone or from your systems. Readers interested in how apps handle this kind of data can find related reporting in our apps coverage.

Disclosure for riders who share codes

Under the Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides, a reward for referring friends is a material connection that should be disclosed when someone promotes a code. The FTC's guidance says even an incentive without cash value can affect how people weigh a recommendation, and that disclosures work best when placed close to the recommendation. Campus ambassadors and social media creators who post scooter codes should state that they get credit when people sign up.

Step Six: Send the Submission and Know What Happens Next

Send your materials through our contact page, with the operator name, the cities covered and "Micromobility referral program" in the subject line. Include a contact who can answer questions about both the referral terms and city-specific variations.

An editor reviews the official terms, compares them with your summary and may ask follow-up questions. If we describe the program, we report what the official page said and the date we checked it. We do not publish referral codes, tracked links or reward amounts we cannot see on an official page.

Submission does not guarantee coverage. Editors can decline programs that lack public terms, conflict with their documentation or appear to have ended. Micromobility markets change often as permits are renewed or withdrawn, so please tell us when you enter or leave a city, change reward types or end a program.

Background: How Shared Micromobility Makes Money

For readers new to the category, shared scooters and bikes are rented by the ride through an app. Dockless systems let riders find a vehicle on a map and park it in an approved area, while docked systems require returning bikes to a station. Pricing commonly combines an unlock fee with a per-minute rate, and many systems sell day passes, monthly passes or annual memberships that include a set amount of riding time.

Riders range from commuters who use bikes daily to tourists who take one scooter ride on vacation. Operators include venture-backed companies that run fleets in many cities, smaller regional operators and nonprofit or public systems. Universities and corporate campuses sometimes run their own small fleets.

Referral programs suit this market because a first ride is a small commitment and riders often learn about the service from friends who use it. A credit worth a few rides can be enough to convert someone standing next to a parked scooter. The challenge for operators is preventing abuse, since creating extra accounts is easy and the cost per account is low.

That abuse risk explains several common controls. Operators may require a payment method before issuing credit, limit one account per phone number or card, hold rewards until the friend completes a paid ride, and cap the number of referrals each rider can earn. When we review a program, we look for these controls in the public terms, because they tell readers how strict the operator will be if something looks unusual.

Passes versus pay-per-ride

Referral programs interact differently with passes than with pay-per-ride pricing. A rider on an annual membership may have little use for ride credit, while a pay-per-ride user values it highly. Some systems offer referral rewards as extra pass days or a discount on a membership renewal instead. Tell us which approach you use and why, since readers on passes frequently ask whether a referral is worth anything to them.

What a Strong Micromobility Referral Page Discloses

Operators sometimes ask what a model referral page looks like. There is no single template, but the best pages we have seen in transportation share a few habits. They put the reward, the qualifying action and the expiry in the first few lines instead of burying them below legal boilerplate. They give a date showing when the terms last changed. And they use the same words the app uses, so a rider can match the page to the screen in front of them.

For scooters and bikes specifically, a strong page also covers:

• Whether the referred friend must complete a paid ride, or whether a ride using only promotional credit counts.
• Minimum ride length or distance, if any, needed for the first ride to qualify.
• Whether rides ended outside a permitted parking zone still count.
• How credit is applied when a ride crosses from one pricing zone into another.
• Whether a group ride, where one account unlocks several vehicles, can trigger more than one referral.
• What happens to credit if the rider's home city loses service.

Those may sound like edge cases, but they come up constantly in rider support queues. A page that answers them in advance reduces disputes and gives editors confidence that the program is run carefully.

Language and accessibility

Shared bikes and scooters serve tourists, students and residents who may not read English as a first language. Operators that publish referral terms in the languages their apps support make life easier for riders and for editors. Accessibility matters as well: terms presented as images or inside collapsible menus can be hard to read with screen readers, while plain text pages work for everyone.

Adaptive and accessible vehicles

Some systems offer adaptive cycles, seated scooters or other vehicles designed for riders with disabilities, sometimes through separate booking channels. If those vehicles exist in your fleet, explain whether referral credit applies to them and whether riders who book through a separate channel can take part in the program at all.

Red Flags Riders Should Know

Riders can protect themselves by watching for a few warning signs in referral offers:

• Codes that claim to give "unlimited free rides" when operator terms cap rewards.
• Websites selling scooter credit or accounts preloaded with credit.
• Requests to share a phone number verification code with a stranger to "receive" a referral.
• QR code stickers placed on vehicles that lead to unofficial payment pages.
• Promotions that appear in a city where the operator no longer runs.

Fake QR codes are a particular risk in this category because riders are used to scanning codes on vehicles. Riders should open the official app directly rather than scanning stickers that look out of place.

For coverage of how shared bikes and scooters fit into cities' emissions and transit plans, see our climate section.