Items tagged with uber
Three Uber riders experienced one of the worst-case scenarios skeptics of the rideshare service--a high-speed car chase and a (brief) de facto kidnapping--during a visit to the Washington, D.C. area. The Washington Post reports that Ryan Simonetti, co-founder of a company called Convene, and two colleagues hailed an Uber car after a meeting, and despite noting that a D.C. taxi inspector was talking to the driver, they hopped in. It appears that the driver decided at that time, with his documents in the hands of the inspector, to make a break for it with the three passengers on board. The inspector turned on his siren and followed, and the Uber driver led him on an 8-10-minute chase that...
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Rideshare service Uber is already established in New York, but competitor Lyft is about to launch its service in the city as well, beginning with Queens and Brooklyn. From Lyft’s perspective, this isn’t just about edging into a market to keep pace with a competitor--it’s about bringing a much-needed service to areas that need it. “Brooklyn and Queens are vastly underserved by public transit options compared to the rest of New York City,” reads a Lyft blog post. “In fact, just one of New York’s 23 subway lines passes solely between boroughs, and 95% of taxi pickups happen in Manhattan or a local airport.” If Lyft can grab a chunk of this apparently...
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Rideshare services Lyft and Uber (“hipster taxis”, a friend calls them) are facing some backlash over their business model of peer-to-peer ridesharing, particularly in the state of Virginia. The Virginia DMV has made it clear that this ridesharing paradigm is against current law. There’s a provision in the law for ridesharing in the case of, for example, carpoolers trying to save a buck getting to work, but Uber and Lyft violate the part of the law that applies to “any business that receives compensation to provide or facilitate transportation”. The Virginia DMV has sent cease and desist letters to both companies, warning them that after months of warnings and civil...
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UberX, the non-professional version of driver service Uber, is a rideshare service wherein any Tom, Dick, or Harriet can sign up to be a driver and offer themselves and their vehicle for hire. The whole thing runs on mobile apps; riders use an iOS or Android device to book rides, and drivers use the same to accept a gig, process payments, and of course, navigate. Like other similar rideshare services, there are obvious (and serious) pitfalls to this sort of paradigm. To help things a bit, Uber is introducing a $1 Safe Rides Fee to uberX fares in the U.S., which gives riders the peace of mind that their drivers has undergone “an industry-leading background check process, regular motor vehicle...
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Hailing a taxi used to be a frustrating affair, but now, it's as easy as pulling up an app and tapping a screen... in select cities, that is. Uber has taken off in a major way, and it's expanding fairly rapidly. But obviously, the market is big enough for other players to step in, and that's exactly what's happening with the introduction of Way2ride. VeriFone Systems has this week announced the new app, which allows New York City taxi passengers to get in, tap, and get out the moment their ride is over. Way2ride, currently available for iOS and Android smartphones, doesn't require NFC or any other tap-to-pay technologies. Once inside the cab, passengers can pay at any time with a tap of their...
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It seems like such an obvious feature, but Uber's car-hailing app did not have a way to easily split fares until this week. Now, at last, users can ride together without worrying about settling up later. Now, riders can just request a pick-up, tap the 'up arrow' near the driver information, tap the 'Split Fare' option, select your friend and hit 'Send.' Then, your friend will get a notification that someone is about to split a fare with them, and then can accept or reject. (But don't worry, they'll accept.) It's the latest feature to an app + service that's truly disrupting the taxi industry at large. Still, pricing remains fairly high, but as soon as normal yellow cabs can become an integral...
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