Uber to introduce fixed-route shuttles in major US cities designed for commuters

Summary

Ride-hail and delivery giant Uber is introducing cheap, fixed-route rides along busy corridors during weekday commute hours in major U.S. cities – one solution to a world that feels, for most people, more expensive everyday. Starting Wednesday, riders in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco will be able to save 50% off the price of an UberX trip by booking with Uber’s new “Route Share” feature. The company announced Route Share and other new features and discounts designed to help customers save money on rides and deliveries at its annual Go-Get event. The aim is to attract and maintain a loyal customer base that continues to use the Uber app in spite of outside economic pressures. The commuter shuttles will drive between pre-set stops every 20 minutes, according to Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer. He noted that there will be dozens of routes in each launch city – like between Williamsburg and Midtown in NYC. The routes, which are selected based on Uber’s extensive data on popular travel patterns, might have one or two additional stops to pick up other passengers. To start, riders will only ever have to share the route with up to two other co-riders. Riders can book a seat anywhere from seven days to 10 minutes before a scheduled pickup, and the app will provide them with turn-by-turn directions to get them from their house to the corner where they’ll be picked up. Uber is relying on the same underlying technology that it uses for Uber Share, its shared rides offering where riders can get 15% to 30% off the cost of an UberX ride by pooling with others. Kansal told TechCrunch that Uber completes millions of shared trips annually and has been seeing more traction lately as riders look for more ways to save. Hence, Route Share. “Because of the size of our network, both on the consumer side as well as the driver side, and our core matching and market-based technology, it allows us to do something like this and pu...