People in Delhi spend 90 minutes on average commuting to and from work each day. That’s eight hours a week getting to and from work–and a whopping 17 days a year! It’s a chronic waste of people’s time, and a drain on productivity. What’s more, the resulting traffic and pollution undermine everyone’s quality of life.
Looking that Uber launched its carpool service in Delhi on Wednesday, 16 December. People going to the same place at the same time–including commuters driving themselves to work–will now be able to share their journey for the first time. Getting more butts into fewer cars is an important step towards reducing congestion and pollution in the capital over time.
For passengers it works as follows:
- Select the uberGO option in the app and enter your destination. Choose whether you want to share the ride or travel solo. We’ll show you the price for both. Fares for shared riders will be 10%-30% cheaper.
- When you select the carpooling option, we’ll pair you with another passenger–or fellow commuter who is driving themselves–headed in the same direction. Whether you’re first or second into the car, Uber will ensure that you’re never taken more than a few minutes out of your way.
- Uber’s product safety features will be on before, during and after the ride–such as the ability to see your driver’s details in advance, GPS tracking, share my journey and the HELP button in case of an emergency.
The service also enables people who like to drive to work–or make trips across town–to share the journey and recoup the cost of their trip.
- If you want to share your commute–or other trips–sign up with Uber. Once we have your ID, we’ll put your application through our screening process.
- On the days you’re driving, switch on the app anytime between 7AM and 9PM. You’ll be prompted to enter your destination and we’ll then pair you up with an uberGO passenger heading the same way.
Uber Carpooling model that has worked in other cities to cut congestion and pollution:
- Carpooling now makes up nearly half of all Uber trips in San Francisco and over 30 percent of trips in the Los Angeles.
- In its first eight months in LA, passengers did over five million carpool trips–cutting the number of kilometers driven across town by 12.7 million and carbon dioxide pollution by 1,400 metric tons.