Uber has announced a major change to how you hail cabs on its famous location based platform: You will now be able to schedule a new trip for a later date.
The company’s strategy has always been getting a taxi ride when you need it within minutes and this shook the taxi industry where we have seen startups offer similar products and traditional cabs release apps that work like the Uber app.
It will be easy to schedule a trip. You’ll only need to select uberX on the app, tap on schedule a ride, set the pickup date, time, location, destination and you will get a fare estimate. You will be able to request for a trip between 30 minutes to 30 days in advance and can edit anytime before your ride comes to pick you up. On the day of the trip, the Uber app will send you reminders where it will notify you of the incoming cab and also if there will be surge pricing. If you have second thoughts or something came up, you can cancel anytime although when the cab is dispatched to your location, you will only have a 5 minute window to do this.
This feature is limited right now where it will be available first to business travelers. This makes sense since business people tend to have scheduled itineraries and this would make it appealing to them. In addition, the roll-out will start in Seattle in the US and the company promises it will be rolled out to other “business travel cities” later on.
This is a great move by the company and it will make Uber more competitive in this industry as we have seen other apps like the local Pewin Cabs app offering such services. We only have to wait and see when this will be rolled out to everyone.
