Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced yesterday, April 11 in Washington regarding expanding the services of the company. The expansion includes bikes and cars for rent and even public transport like buses and trains.
Khosrowshahi adds that Uber will share more of its data on traffic patterns to be ‘true partners to cities for the long term.’ With debates around the company going on for a long time now and even the recent unfortunate accident, these plans are rather more transforming Uber in being a global transport marketplace and not just another ride-hailing company.
He has been a pinnacle for the company after taking the helm of office last year, amid all turmoils going around.
Earlier this week, Uber acquired dockless bike-sharing company Jump. Yesterday’s announcement includes addressing Washington residents who can now reserve and pay for Jump bikes via Uber’s app.
Later this month, Uber and Getaround will together provide a car-sharing service in San Francisco, with the former launching its new product Uber Rent. The two companies have been working in the city for about a year, and now the citizens can rent a car for a few hours or the whole day via Uber’s app.
If it goes well in San Francisco, Uber Rent is expected to be brought to other cities of Getaround’s operation. These include Boston, Portland, New Jersey, and Washington. Sam Zaid, CEO of Getaround, said that they are a ‘much more mature company’ than Jump, which means there’s no possibility of an acquisition by Uber, but only collaboration.
As for public transport, recent studies suggest that Uber and Lyft have been poaching riders away from buses and subways. Uber said that it is committed to providing further links to public transit. They are collaborating with the well-recognized London-based mobile ticketing company Masabi. This lets Uber users buy and use transit tickets via the app. The companies are presently working on which markets to spread their services across.
While this much is going for Uber, Khosrowshahi said at an event sponsored by Goldman Sachs: “I want to run the bus systems for a city. I want you to be able to take an Uber and get into the subway… get out and have an Uber waiting for you.”
Concerning the data-sharing part, Uber looks to expand its Movement Project to more than 12 new cities. The company launched this project last year to provide users with mapped travel times with the help of the company’s vast ride data. It is an online tool to measure travel times across various parts of a city by tracking trips in terms of being faster or slower over time. The first cities that are to be served by this tool are Amsterdam, Bangalore, Brisbane, Cairo, Hyderabad, Melbourne, Mumbai, Nairobi, New Delhi, Perth, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.
Uber is as well partnering with Washington and SharedStreets to compile and analyze data on curb usage in the city. The data will be shared by Uber on popular curbs for pickups and drop-offs of ride-hailing services. This is aimed at convincing authorities to create more space in cities for ride-hailing companies like Uber.
Therefore, it seems that Uber is hot and happening, bouncing back from debates to the mainstream productive scenarios in the transportation industry. We sincerely hope things get right tick for the convenient ventures the company is working on.
Stay with us to know more about Uber’s new activities on transport for social welfare.
