Uber is launching a new service in the US called Route Share and the internet isn’t impressed.
Several social media posters have mocked the offering, saying the company have basically ‘invented the bus’.
Unveiling Route Share in a blog post, Uber said the service would allow riders to share a car over a predetermined route with with designated pickup points.
Speaking at a conference, Uber’s head of product Sachin Kansal: ‘We ask the riders to walk a few blocks to a predetermined point at a predetermined time to participate in a predetermined route which they will share with a couple of other riders. We call that Route Share.’
It will cost up to 50% less than UberX the firm said on its blog, with savings made if you buy subscriptions or prepaid passes.
The user goes into their Uber app and puts in where they will be going from and their desired destination and the app will show you nearby routes with pickups available every 20 minutes.
The driver will then wait for up to two minutes before the cost rises. Similar to UberX Share, you could be riding with up to two others.
One TikTok user, ‘Sharkveyno’, shared a video of Kansal explaining the concept, before telling viewers: ‘Uber made buses. Our brightest, most innovative minds have recreated buses.
‘They’ll really do anything than have affordable transportation in the United States.’
Uber aren’t actually the first to test this type of idea. In 2017 Lyft, another US ride hailing service, piloted Shuttle, which worked in a similar fashion. It was never rolled out fully, however.
There was also Ford’s Chariot, which ran in nine US cities as well as London and offered commuter shuttle services. After launching in 2014, it shut five years later in 2019.
Citymapper’s Smartbus, which was later known as SmartRide, then simply Ride, didn’t fare much better.
It launched in 2018 with a fleet of eight-seater buses that picked up and dropped off passengers at fixed points in central London and took specific predetermined routes.
It lasted little more than a year.
Uber do actually run a more regular type of bus service in the US and India, which is called Uber Shuttle.
It uses normal size buses, which take a predetermined route at set times and users book their seat through the app.
Route Share will be available in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Boston, and Baltimore, with more cities to come, according to Uber.
It’s not clear if the firm plans to bring the service to the UK.
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