One has heard of self-driven cars and then there are the driver-less cars and now, if the Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has his way, no one needs to own a car. In his opinion, hardly 5% of the cars owned by individuals get used regularly and the remaining lie ide. He feels that is no smart solution to transportation of commuting within the cities.
Khosrowshahi was addressing the media to make a new announcement of adding car-sharing and train ticket-booking facilities to its app.
He repeated his earlier statement of making Uber deliver end-to-end urban transport solution rather than remain just a ride-hailing app. He reiterated that Uber looks at its business model as one that enables people to move from point A to point B and whatever means they need to adopt for this will be provided by Uber. This was also the principle behind Uber acquiring the bike sharing company JUMP.
That is why Khosrowshahi claims in his scheme of things, there’ll be cars, bikes and whatever other urban mode of transportation is best suited will be included.
The inclusion of train ticket booking through the Uber app is yet another step in this direction. Uber is involving its technology in helping the cities they operate in with managing traffic congestion by sharing data. The bike sharing business of JUMP has been expanded to include Washington DC.
Car sharing is another service Uber is bringing to the city of San Francisco, and for this, a peer-to-peer sharing of privately owned cars will be made available through a tie-up with Getaround. For the ticket booking facility, Uber’s associate will be Masabi and will include tickets to train, bus and ferry services and Uber customers can book them through the Uber app.