What Northern should do is work with the likes of Metro, Travel South Yorkshire, Transport for Greater Manchester, Merseytravel, Connect Tees Valley and Nexus and do what WECA, the West of England Combined Authority have done and that is an E-Scooter project which covers Bath and Bristol. Maybe its time to do the same up north with each E-Scooter being plated up (and if in West Yorkshire bearing both Metro and Northern branding and either a C, K, L, B or W* then a series of three numbers and have a set of ten being docked at target locations such as outside various railway stations and town centre docking points. Then there won't be a need for anyone to carry a private one, its simply register online or travel centre and go from there.
The letters denote Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Bradford or Wakefield. Meaning if E-Scooter unit K233 is seen wizzing around Leeds city centre, it will mean someone has breached the Northern E-Scooter ban.