Uber is easily the most well known when it comes to the ride-share industry, for both good and bad reasons. Having shaken up the industry by offering a taxi like service to individuals who need rides, and with the ease of use access by ordering them through the app on their smartphones. They’re about to begin testing on a new part of their service with Car Pooling in NYC called UberPool, although this isn’t the first place that it has sprung up. Uber previously rolled out the car pool feature in both San Francisco and Paris. However, New York City is without a doubt the best place to see how people react to it and whether or not it’s a feature of the service they should continue offering, since NYC is laden with taxis and people share taxis all the time.
Part of their goal is to take as many cars off of the road as possible. They are attempting to do so by introducing the car pool service, where people can share the same Uber regardless of having different destinations as long as the rides are somewhat similar. Their goal is to remove as many as 1 million vehicles from the road and if the car pooling takes off in New York, we don’t see why they couldn’t make that a reality. The benefits of UberPool could extend past environmental improvements that could come from having fewer drivers on the road. As people who share their rides through UberPool with others could save some serious cash (as much as 50%) by splitting the fare with the other riders involved.
Uber won’t be without their hurdles to overcome though as they still face strong opposition from the taxi cab services in many cities where they operate. Not to mention they also have to compete with similar companies and services like Lyft and Sidecar. While also facing the challenge of trying to enter certain markets where other more traditional transportation services still reign supreme, like major west coast city Portland OR where they have yet to be allowed to operate. If UberPool becomes a major success in NYC, perhaps there is a chance it could shift things for Uber and open up the possibility of them being offered as a service in cities where they are currently prohibited.