Subscription services have been sweeping the nation in 2019, offering monthly boxes for everything from succulents to books to makeup. And now, electric scooter operators are getting in on the fun.
Lime, an electric scooter company that was one of the first in the market, has launched a weekly subscription service in Tampa called LimePass. Users can pay $5 a week, which will offer unlimited unlocks that are usually $1 per ride. Lime officials state depending how often the user uses the scooter, the subscription could pay for itself in two to three days.
“We know that more than 50% of our riders worldwide trust Lime for their commutes and personal daily trips around the city,” Kevin Shi, product manager at Lime, said in a statement. “With our new LimePass service, we’re proud to offer them a more cost-efficient way to get around town and manage their busy schedules.”
This is the first subscription scooter service in Tampa. JUMP, the Uber-owned scooter company, has a monthly unlimited subscription but is only available in Washington D.C., Miami and San Fransisco.
Tampa also offers Bird and Spin electric scooters, neither which have subscription or unlimited option offerings.
Electric scooters unveiled in Tampa in June. The city of Tampa recently released scooter data over the last six months, showing 730,000 trips have been completed. That breaks down to 856,333 miles and roughly 4,000 trips a day. The average distance was just over a mile and the average time spent on an e-scooter was 16 minutes.
St. Petersburg and Clearwater are also inching toward electric scooters. In October, the St. Pete City Council approved a micro-mobility ordinance that would allow the scooters in the city. The program will kick off in spring 2020. And in November, Clearwater city council members agreed to have further discussions on launching a pilot program for the electronic scooters.
