NYC taxis are taking a tip from Uber and pooling riders
UberPool, but for actual taxis.
The next time you want to rideshare in New York you could call a real yellow cab. Regular New York City taxis will soon have a carpooling option facilitated by Via and the app Curb.
Curb already brings ride-hailing technology to regular taxis, letting users hail cabs from their phones and use the Curb app to pay for their taxi rides. Now the app is adding the ability to choose to carpool with other passengers in your taxi.
Via offers a carpool-only rideshare service in New York, mostly in giant vans that can carry at least six passengers. Curb will use Via's ridesharing algorithm to figure out where to pick up carpooling passengers in taxis.
The two startups say that taxi riders will save about 40 percent if they choose to carpool—pretty close to the difference in cost between a solo Uber ride and an UberPool.
“We’re delighted to offer a new lower-cost option for taxi riders while simultaneously increasing earnings for hardworking New York City taxi drivers with more passengers, longer trips, and reduced downtime,” Amos Tamam, senior vice president of Verifone Taxi Systems, which runs Curb, said in a statement.
Another option to avoid Uber. Or just to support old-fashioned yellow cabs.
Topics Uber New York City
Emma Hinchliffe is a business reporter at Mashable. Before joining Mashable, she covered business and metro news at the Houston Chronicle.
