Uber Brings Back Shared Rides To Select Cities

(RTTNews) - Ride-hailing service Uber Technologies (UBER) is bringing back its Uber Pool service, after the company had suspended it for the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The company has now relaunched the feature under a new name, UberX Share. It is available in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Portland, Oregon, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. The company plans to expand UberX Share to even more cities this summer.

Under the revamped UberX Share feature, riders will receive an upfront discount if they choose UberX Share, and get up to 20% off the total fare, if matched with a co-rider along the way.

The feature will now only match riders heading in the same direction to prevent unexpected delays. The company claims that the updated service will make sure that UberX Share rides are no more than eight minutes longer than an equivalent solo ride.

Uber has also made several changes to make the feature driver-friendly as well. Unlike Uber Pool, drivers can opt-out of participating in Uber X Share.

Additionally, passengers can only request UberX Share rides for themselves, and only one other co-rider can join per trip. Uber Pool gave riders the option of booking up to two seats, and during very busy times could match drivers with more than one co-rider.