Using Partnerships to Build Rider Loyalty in Transit

A transit partnership program links a transit agency's rider rewards with local businesses, venues and institutions, which offer riders discounts or perks, often at the destinations they travel to, in exchange for being promoted to the agency's riders.

Partnerships let an agency add value to riding without paying for every incentive itself. They can also give riders a reason to use transit for trips beyond the commute, such as dining, events and leisure travel. This guide covers how partnerships work, which partners to approach, what a partner agreement should settle, the rules on fares and rider data, and how to tell whether partnerships are adding trips. For how brands and partners see transit programs, see the hidden potential of transit loyalty programs.

Key Takeaways

How do partnerships build rider loyalty?

They stack value on one trip: riders earn transit rewards for traveling and get a partner offer on arrival, a reason to ride for more kinds of trips.

Riders use transit to reach work, but also restaurants, events, campuses and attractions. If the places they are going offer something for arriving by transit, riding gains a benefit for those trips that driving does not offer. A rider might earn points toward a free ride for the trip to a restaurant, then redeem a partner offer there. The partner gains customers who arrive by transit; the agency gains trips and a reason for riders to open its app.

Partnerships work best when they target trips the agency wants more of. Weekday commuters may already ride; partner offers aimed at evening, weekend and event travel where trains and buses have room are more likely to add new trips than offers that reward rides people would take anyway; the guide to designing a transit loyalty program covers choosing which trips to reward.

Which partners should a transit agency approach?

Start with businesses close to busy stations and on routes with spare capacity, and pair each partner type with an offer riders value and a benefit the partner wants.

Partners are not free to run: recruiting, onboarding and reporting take staff time, so weigh that against the trips they add. Smaller agencies can start with a handful of partners near their busiest stations and grow from there. Different riders respond to different offers, as the post on marketing to different transit riders covers.

What should a partner agreement cover?

Agree in writing who funds each offer, how riders redeem it, what data is shared, how partners are promoted and reported on, and how either side can leave.

• Funding: whether the partner absorbs the discount, the agency subsidizes it, or a sponsor pays.
• Redemption: how staff confirm the offer, such as an in-app code or a pass shown at the counter, whether the offer requires proof of a recent trip, since an app code alone does not show the rider arrived by transit, and how fraud is handled.
• Promotion: where the partner appears in the app and at stations, and any limits in the agency's advertising policy on which businesses it can promote.
• Data and reporting: what the partner receives, ideally aggregated counts of redemptions rather than rider records, and what partners may collect from riders when they redeem.
• Terms: duration, review dates and how either side can leave the program.

As a public body, an agency should also check how its state's public records law treats partner agreements and program data.

What rules apply to fares and rider data?

Federal fare equity rules for larger agencies changed in June 2026, so confirm current FTA guidance, and California limits what an agency may share from riders' fare accounts.

The Federal Transit Administration notes that Title VI "protects people from discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance" (FTA). FTA's 2012 notice adopting its Title VI circular limited fare equity analyses to "transit providers with 50 or more fixed route vehicles in peak service in large urbanized areas," exempted "a promotional fare reduction that will last six months or less" from advance analysis, and agreed that where a sponsor pays for free or reduced fares, "a fare equity analysis is not required unless the transit provider changes the fare" (Federal Register). On June 11, 2026, the Department of Transportation rescinded portions of its Title VI regulations tied to disparate impact, named the circular's "service and fare equity analyses" among the related submissions, and said program submissions "no longer need to include items such as disparate-impact policies and disproportionate-burden policies" (Federal Register). Until FTA updates its circular, a larger agency planning a standing reward that lowers fares should confirm with its FTA regional office whether an analysis is still expected. Title VI itself still prohibits intentional discrimination. Offers available only in the app can also leave out riders without smartphones.

Partners should not receive rider records by default. In California, a transportation agency "may not sell or otherwise provide to any other person or entity personally identifiable information" of people who subscribe to an electronic transit fare collection system, except as the law allows; the law counts "travel pattern data" as personally identifiable information, allows communications about a business partner's products only with the subscriber's "express written consent," and permits sharing "aggregated traveler information" with that information removed (Cal. Sts. & Hy. Code 31490). Other states set their own rules. This is general information, not legal advice.

How does a loyalty program and app support partnerships?

The app is where riders find partners, see offers and redeem them, and the loyalty account links trips to rewards so the agency can see which partners bring riders back.

Riders need to see which businesses take part, what each offers and how to redeem it, ideally in the agency's app with a map or list by station. Linking trips to an account lets riders track progress toward rewards and lets the agency count partner redemptions by rider group. Keep a way for riders without the app to take part, such as offers shown with a registered fare card. Brandmovers' BLOYL™ platform supports OCR receipt validation, which Metrolink's program applies to photographed paper tickets, and A/B testing against a control group, so an agency can include paper-ticket riders who submit their tickets to an account and test a partner offer against riders who do not see it.

How do you measure whether partnerships work?

Track redemptions by partner and trips to partner destinations, and compare riders who use offers with similar riders who skip them, rather than counting how many partners have signed up.

• Partner activity: offers viewed, redeemed and repeated, by partner and station.
• Trips: whether riders who redeem take more trips, especially at the times and places the agency wants to grow.
• Comparison: riders who redeem partner offers are often already frequent riders, so compare against similar riders, or test an offer at some stations before others.
• Partner value: redemptions at each partner alongside what partners report about new customers, which decides whether they stay.
• Equity: who uses the offers, by rider group and neighborhood.

The guide to how loyalty programs can modernize public transit covers program-wide measurement.

Conclusion

Partnerships let a transit agency make riding more rewarding without funding every incentive, and they work best when aimed at the trips the agency wants to grow. Choose partners near stations, settle funding, redemption and data in writing, check fare equity and data rules, give riders an easy way to find and redeem offers and measure the trips partners add. Which trips would your agency most like to grow, and which local partners already serve them?

Sources

• Federal Transit Administration, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Federal Register, Title VI Requirements and Guidelines for Federal Transit Administration Recipients, notice of final circular (August 28, 2012)
• Federal Register, Rescinding Portions of Department of Transportation's Title VI Regulations, final rule (June 11, 2026)
• California Legislative Information, Streets and Highways Code section 31490
• Metrolink, "Metrolink Introduces New Loyalty and Rewards Program for Riders"