Doing this starts with making it easier for employers to incentivize bike use, which is where Philadelphia-based technology platform Jawnt enters the picture. The company's platform allows company officials to manage incentives for using POGOH, a city-led bike-share program with nearly 350 conventional and electric-assist bikes.
The bikes can be rented on a pay-as-you-go basis; but POGOH also offers annual and other membership packages like a “corporate membership.” Jawnt functions as the intermediary between the employer and POGOH to serve as the account manager so that employers can easily subsidize a worker’s bike-share membership.
“In Pittsburgh, Jawnt will work with employers to implement cost-sharing options that align with their financial needs,” said Jeff Stade, CEO and co-founder of Jawnt. “While all of POGOH's current corporate members fully cover the costs of their employees' passes, the partnership with Jawnt will allow companies to offer partial subsidies instead, if they prefer. These cost-sharing models are used by some employers in Philadelphia, such as Amtrak, which subsidizes two-thirds of the costs of transit passes for their employees.”
An initiative to integrate the city’s bike-share program into company benefits packages is not the only effort to expand micromobility use and reduce car trips. Move PGH is a mobility-as-a-service program that pulls together shareable bikes, scooters and cars into one system with the aim of advancing transportation equity in a city where 20 percent of households do not have access to a car.
“We wanted to make it easier for people to get around our city, without having to take a car, to be able to connect between multiple modes, and to not have to figure out the technology to do it, the payments to do it or even where the physical assets were located,” said Kim Lucas, assistant director for the Pittsburgh Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, during a presentation discussing the Move PGH program at the 2023 Urbanism Next Conference in Portland, Ore., in April.
The POGOH bike-share network has been extended to 60 stations around the city, said Erin Potts, director of marketing and community outreach at POGOH.
“This gives people more connections that they can easily make by bike in Pittsburgh whether that be a commute to work, a quick errand or a reason to get outside and just go for a bike ride,” she explained.
A standard annual POGOH membership is $120 a year, which provides an unlimited number of 30-minute free rentals. Participants can also purchase a $25 flex pass, which offers 200 minutes of ride time. A $4 single-use pass is good for 30 minutes.
Jawnt is able to structure cost-sharing arrangements with employers, “making it a seamless addition to any company's existing benefits package,” said Stade.
“The platform gives employers access to real-time reporting and analytics, while serving as a one-stop shop for employees to find and manage their transit benefits,” he added.
Major employers like the Allegheny Health Network, University of Pittsburgh and Google are some of the organizations offering POGOH Corporate Membership benefits to their employees.
