Uber begins letting passengers schedule rides up to 30 days in advance
Right on schedule: Uber is following in Lyft's footsteps.
Uber on Thursday began rolling out a new option for passengers to schedule rides up to 30 days ahead of time, marking a departure from the traditional on-demand model of requesting a ride at the moment you need one.
The option is currently available for riders in Seattle with plans to expand to markets globally, according to a blog post from the company.
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Uber's announcement comes a little more than two weeks after Lyft began testing a similar option to schedule rides up to 24 hours ahead of time. Lyft's feature is not currently available to the general public.
For both of these multibillion-dollar ride-hailing companies, this embrace of the more traditional ride-scheduling model caters to busy professionals who want the assurance of knowing their ride to the airport or important meetings is guaranteed.
For drivers, however, the new option can be a mixed bag.
"The biggest difficulty with pre-scheduled rides for drivers is that they have to clear out their schedule ahead of time in order to make sure that they're available," said Harry Campbell, a driver for Uber and Lyft and creator of The Rideshare Guy, in an earlier interview with Mashable about Lyft's feature.
To make it more worthwhile for drivers, Lyft is testing rides at various higher price points or minimums. Uber is not.
A spokesperson for Uber says fares for scheduled rides in Seattle is consistent with non-scheduled rides, and there is no minimum distance required to take advantage of the feature.
That's good for passengers, maybe not so much for drivers.
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Topics Uber
Seth Fiegerman was a Senior Business Reporter at Mashable, where he covered startups, marketing and the latest consumer tech trends. He joined Mashable in August 2012 and is based in New York.Before joining Mashable, Seth covered all things Apple as a reporter at Silicon Alley Insider, the tech section of Business Insider. He has also worked as a staff writer at TheStreet.com and as an editor at Playboy Magazine. His work has appeared in Newsweek, NPR, Kiplinger, Portfolio and The Huffington Post.Seth received his Bachelor of Arts from New York University, where he majored in journalism and philosophy.In his spare time, Seth enjoys bike riding around Brooklyn and writing really bad folk songs.
