It is not uncommon to experience vandalism, rough handling and theft in a micro mobility sector, so below you will find some useful tips that could help you minimize the damage that is left after these acts:

Suggestion 1 - Enable parking photo submission at the end of a ride

You can enable asking the customer for the parking photo when they finish the ride to evaluate where the vehicle is located and what state it is in. It can be especially useful if you have the previous photo available for comparison to identify if the vehicle was damaged and during which ride.

Suggestion 2 - Use additional cable locks

You can require customers to use additional external cable locks to secure your vehicles to railings, bike racks or lamp posts after the ride (you can read more in a case study here). This is not going to resolve the problem entirely, but in addition to making it harder for thieves to steal the vehicles, it will also minimize the frustration of pedestrians when the vehicle might be blocking their way or someone would want to park in the wrong area.

Suggestion 3 - Enable email notifications of possible theft and min. wallet balance

While this might not be the most effective method to prevent vehicle theft or customers not paying for the ride, it does protect some vehicles from being stolen and making sure that the customer can't use the vehicle further if they have insufficient funds. You can enable alerts and notifications in your Dashboard under More -> Settings -> System preferences -> Other -> Alerts and Notifications and enter there your e-mail address for "Vehicle is moving" alerts. For maintaining the minimum wallet balance in order to ride, navigate in the same System preferences section to the Payments tab where you can set the Stop the vehicle if the balance goes below X amount. Please note that this is possible only on specific vehicle types (you can find more detailed description in your dashboard settings).

Suggestion 4 - Define no parking and/or no-go zones in criminal neighbourhoods

As you are best familiar with your local area of operations, you can anticipate where in your city most probably the vehicles could potentially get damaged or stolen, so we also suggest to create no-go and/or no parking zones in the areas where the criminal activity is more frequent.

Suggestion 5 - Insuring your fleet and/or employing a security service

This is a more pricey solution, however, if by the end of the day you see that you are losing more on purchasing new scooters or chasing down the stolen ones versus paying the insurance company, it might pay off for your company. You can also contract a security service and make sure that they also receive your "Vehicle is moving" email alerts, so the security team could respond to the theft faster.

In conclusion, it is not possible to prevent theft and damage to the vehicles fully, however, there are multiple ways how to reduce this to a minimum and you can start with the tips shared in this article and tailor them to your operational area and business case.