Lyft's new 'most affordable ride' involves extra waiting and walking



[ad_1]

Lyft – who will beat Uber in public next month – is proposing a new type of ride-sharing service that she calls "the most affordable ride", but these savings may be at the expense of your patience. Riders who select the new Lyft "Shared Saver" service in the app will have to wait a few more minutes before they can be paired with a driver. After that, they will be forced to walk a few blocks to an optimized support site. Then, at the end of the trip, they will be dropped a few blocks from their final destination.

In many ways, Shared Saver is similar to the Uber's Express Pool, which also involves extra waiting and walking. However, unlike Express Pool, Lyft claims that Shared Saver will not be subject to upward pricing fluctuations.



"With Shared Saver, you'll never have to worry about the tariff surcharge again," the company says in a blog post. "You will always get the lowest prices, even when there are people. So, you will always have a reliable way to go wherever you are, no matter the circumstances. "

Initially, Shared Saver is only available in Denver (Colorado) and San Jose (California), but more cities will be added in the coming months. Lyft does not say exactly how much less expensive Shared Saver is than its usual carpool service, but the screenshots shared by the company seem to indicate a lower rate of 25 to 30% for the next cheapest type of journey. . However, it is not a precise calculation, as Lyft says, its prices vary according to the routes and are based on time and distance.

Encouraging ridership is a core mission at Lyft for almost a year. Lyft was one of the first transport companies to offer carpooling with the launch of Lyft Line in 2014. Last year, Lyft changed the name to Shared Rides and set itself for goal that these carpooling trips account for 50% of all its activities. end of 2020. This objective fits perfectly with its other predictions, such as road pricing to encourage more carpooling and end the possession of personal cars in cities.

Lyft is not the first service to offer ridiculously low prices for less convenient shared routes. There is the aforementioned Express pool, which is usually 50% cheaper than UberPool and 75% cheaper than UberX. Via carpooling service, in which short trips can cost as little as $ 5, is operational in New York, Chicago and Washington, DC.

Lyft has been experimenting for over two years by asking customers to walk more to further optimize their travel. Similarly, the now discontinued Lyft Shuttle was using fixed routes and fixed fares to essentially imitate a public bus system during limited testing in San Francisco and Chicago. (The service has been widely ridiculed on the Internet for failing to recognize its similarity to pre-existing public transit.)

[ad_2]

Source link