ride-hailing Archives - TravelSkills

Surprisingly few Americans use Uber, Lyft

July 29, 2016

Ride-hailing apps like Lyft are popular with a surprising small sliver of Americans (Image: Lyft)

As ride-hailing apps continue to grow in importance an option for business travelers, it seems they still have a way to go among the public at large. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that only 15 percent of U.S. adults have ever used a ride-hailing app – and fully one-third of adults have never heard of them! (That’s definitely not the case among TravelSkills readers!)

Of those who do use the apps, only 17 percent said they do so daily or weekly, while 26 percent use them at least once a month and 56 percent do so less frequently than that. Why? Pew says “With some exceptions, they are largely only available in and around urban areas.” It notes, not surprisingly, that Uber or Lyft are most popular among young adults, urbanites and college grads.

Check out the Pew Survey here for some more enlightening numbers about the use of ride hailing services.

In related news this week Uber rolled out a new app for business customers – and it’s not for smartphones.

Instead, it’s for tablet computers. It’s called UberCENTRAL, and companies can use it to order rides for their customers, clients and guests. The app can handle multiple ride requests simultaneously, and provides for payment by the company and centralized billing and reporting from different locations.

When a company orders a ride for a customer, that person will receive a text message informing them of the trip and driver, along with a link to a live map to facilitate pick-ups.

Uber’s new tablet app lets companies order rides for customers. (Image: Uber)

The company said UberCENTRAL works on any tablet and with any browser, and it is now available for use in the U.S. and Canada.

In other ground transportation news, JetBlue said this week that its new Silicon Valley-based venture capital subsidiary, JetBlue Technology Ventures, is putting money into a four-year-old tech star-up called Mozio. JetBlue said the San Francisco-based company’s mission “is to build the ultimate urban mobility app,” one that allows consumers to book shuttles, taxis, limos, express trains, buses and public transit from one interface.

NOTE: Be sure to click here to see all recent TravelSkills posts about: How to get the BEST summer fare deals | One airline fee fading fast | Trip Report: Aer Lingus Economy Class | 5 top jobs for frequent travelers | First class phase out coming soon

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Airport ride news: Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Austin & New York

May 20, 2016

Ride-sharing pick-ups at the Phoenix airport should begin this summer. (Image: Phoenix Sky Harbor International)

Ride-sharing pick-ups at the Phoenix airport are set to begin June 18. (Image: Phoenix Sky Harbor International)

Travelers to Phoenix Sky Harbor will be able to summon Uber and Lyft rides starting next month; an Uber/Lyft competitor expands to five Texas airports; and specialty rental firm Silvercar adds an east coast airport location.

The Phoenix city council has voted in favor of a proposal to let Uber, Lyft and other app-based ride-hailing companies start picking up passengers at Sky Harbor International Airport effective June 18. Uber and Lyft have been negotiating with city officials for almost a year before the approval finally came through. The city initially demanded that drivers undergo a fingerprint check, but that requirement was not included in the final agreement. The agreement imposes a special fee for airport pick-ups of $3.25 for vehicles that carry up to eight passengers.

Another app-based ride-hailing service, Wingz, has expanded into the Texas market, adding new service at Dallas/Ft. Worth, Dallas Love Field, Houston Intercontinental, Houston Hobby and Austin. The difference between Wingz and its two larger competitors is that Wingz does not use surge pricing, so that its rates might be higher than Uber and Lyft’s base rates, but lower than their prices during periods of peak demand. A Wingz executive told the Dallas Business Journal that a three-passenger ride from DFW to downtown Dallas would cost about $42. Wiingz also allows repeat customers to request a specific driver if they want to. Wingz also operates at five Los Angeles-area airports and three in the Bay Area, as well as San Diego, Seattle, Sacramento, Phoenix and Denver.

Note: In Austin, Uber & Lyft have left the house

(Photo: Silvercar)

Silvercar, a boutique car rental firm that has a fleet of nothing but fully-loaded silver Audi A4s, has opened a location serving Newark Liberty International Airport. Silvercar uses a mobile app for reservations and rental transactions. At EWR, the company is basing its cars at the WallyPark location. It has also opened a rental outlet in Brooklyn, at the McCarren Hotel & Pool in the Williamsburg district. Silvercar already has a Manhattan outlet, as well as airport locations in Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas. Denver, Miami, Phoenix, Ft. Lauderdale and Chicago.

Have you used Silvercar? What did you think?

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Uber/Lyft news: Newark, Twin Cities, Miami, Denver

May 5, 2016

Uber and Lyft rides will soon be legal in Miami — including its airport. (Image: Marc Averette/Wikimedia Commons)

Ride-hailing is caught in a tangle of competing regulators at Newark Airport; airport pick-ups start at Minneapolis-St. Paul International; ride-sharing wins a big vote in Miami; and an Uber car races the new train to Denver International.

Ride-hailing firms have been going through tough negotiations with Newark’s city council to win the right to pick up passengers at Newark Liberty International Airport – at one point the city threatened to have police tow the cars of their drivers at EWR — and now a new agreement has been reached between Uber and the city. It would require Uber to pay Newark $3 million up front for airport access, plus $10 million over 10 years. Drivers would get a separate staging area at EWR but could not wait at the terminals. But there are two problems. First, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey claims it has control of who can operate at the airport, not the city, and said it might try to block the deal. And second, Newark’s Terminal A is actually inside the border of the city of Elizabeth, N.J., and the city council there is considering an ordinance that would ban ride-sharing firms from picking up passengers at that terminal.

Despite heavy opposition from local taxi companies, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has started allowing UberX drivers to pick up passengers at the airport. The deal imposes a $6 pick-up fee on drivers. Passengers who summon an UberX car can meet up with it at a designated area in the airport’s Ground Transportation Center. The higher-priced Uber Black cars had already been operating at MSP.

In Florida, Miami Dade County Commissioners have passed an ordinance that will allow Uber and Lyft to operate legally in the county – including Miami International Airport – starting in 10 days. In fact, ride-hailing cars have been operating there for many months without official approval, with drivers sometimes asking riders to sit in the front seat to avoid suspicion. But in the process, they racked up some $4 million in fines, with enforcement especially tough at the airport. Uber and Lyft drivers can only be at the airport if they are summoned by a rider; they can’t hang out there waiting for a fare. The new rules also allow licensed taxis to charge less than their posted rates in order to compete.

In Denver, a new airport train started operating last month between Union Station downtown and Denver International Airport. So a local TV station decided to run a test comparing an Uber ride to DEN with a trip on the new A Line train. Results: The train, which makes six intermediate stops between downtown and the airport, took 37 minutes – about what its schedule calls for. An Uber driver made the trip from Union Station in 26 minutes. So Uber won on travel time by 11 minutes. But the cost? A ticket on the train goes for $9; the Uber ride was just under $44.

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Lyft surges. Taxis drop. And we love Delta, National and Hampton Inn

April 22, 2016

Lyft, surging 44%, is giving Uber a run for its money (Image: Lyft)

The latest quarterly report on business travelers’ spending habits from expense tracking giant Certify came with a separate supplement that spells out the boom in business for ride-sharing apps at the expense of traditional ground transportation services.

While Uber continues to dominate the new ride-sharing business, the report sees Lyft moving into a stronger second place in the months ahead.

Certify said its Q1 2016 numbers on business traveler spending show that “use of ride-hailing services among business travelers is at an all-time high and shows no signs of slowing.”

In just two years, Certify said, the new ride-sharing segment’s portion of business travelers’ ground transportation spending has soared from just 8 percent in Q1 of 2014 to 46 percent in the most recent quarter. Over the same two-year period, the share for traditional taxis has fallen from 37 to 14 percent, while rental cars’ share declined from 55 to 40 percent.

In the first quarter of this year, Certify said, Uber captured 43 percent of all ground service rides, but it noted that Lyft is showing signs of a surge. From Q4 of 2015 to Q1 of this year, Certify said, Lyft showed a 44 percent jump in business travel transactions.

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“We anticipate Lyft will become a bigger player in the business travel market in 2016,” Certify said, citing its recent closing of $1 billion in new investment capital, which included $500 million from General Motors.

Eliminating the spending numbers for rental cars and looking only at taxis and ride-hailing, Certify said, Uber commanded a 69 percent share of all transactions in Q1 2016, making it “the dominant provider for business travelers in every U.S. city.”

Check out how much more Delta earns per traveler compared to other carriers (Image: Certify)

Other data from the report, which looked at more than 9 million business travel receipts in the first quarter, found that the three most-expensed restaurants were – in order – Starbucks, McDonald’s and Panera Bread; the most-expensed airlines were Delta, American and Southwest; most-expensed hotel brands were Hampton Inn, Marriott and Homewood Suites; and most-expensed car rental companies were National, Enterprise and Hertz. See the charts below: