In select US cities, Uber is finally restoring the option for shared rides, giving people the chance to save a little money the next time they use the ride-hailing app.
The carpooling option is now available in major cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Portland, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh. “We plan to expand UberX Share to even more cities this summer,” the company wrote in a Tuesday blog post.
The company hit pause on the UberPool program back in 2020 to help limit the spread of COVID-19 during the onset of the pandemic. Now it’s decided to bring back the option, but under a new name called UberX Share.
“Since pausing shared rides in 2020, our teams have been working tirelessly to revamp the experience,” the company said. To do so, Uber has been taking feedback from both riders and drivers, in addition to running various pilots across the globe.
The revamped experience will now only match riders headed in the same direction. This means customers will “arrive no more than 8 minutes later” if they had taken a standard UberX ride.
However, UberX Share is only promising to offer up to a 20% discount on the total fare compared to normal Uber X ride. That's down from the potential 50% discount riders could receive from the original UberPool program.
Still, the company expects UberX Share will appeal to riders when inflation and high gas prices continue to hit their wallets. “At Uber, we know affordability is important to making transportation more accessible for more people —especially in the current economic climate,” it added.
Rival Lyft has also decided to bring back its own carpooling option after halting the program in 2020. Last month, the company announced it had expanded shared rides to more cities including San Francisco, San Jose, Denver, Las Vegas, and Atlanta.