Uber Rolling Out New Feature That Lets Passengers Book Up To 30 Days in Advance
Uber Reserve will go live in 20 cities, including NYC. Reserve requests can be claimed by drivers on a first-come, first-serve basis. The service will start with UberBlack/SUV.
Uber announced a newly launched service that allows customers to request rides up to 30 days in advance. While Uber previously had an advanced booking option for customers, Uber Reserve, the name of the new service, is more built out. For example, a passenger will be matched with a driver 2 hours before the pickup and can request a Favorite Driver (i.e. request will be offered to the preferred driver first), the passenger will also have an additional 15 minutes of waiting time and if an on-time pickup doesn’t happen a passenger will receive $50 in Uber Cash (coming directly from Uber, not the driver who missed the trip).
On the driver side, Uber believes the Reserve option “opens up even more possibilities for drivers to control how they earn on Uber’s platform”. Uber reasons drivers now can select a mix of pre-planned trips and on-demand work, based on their preference and schedule. The service will launched this week in 20 cities, including NYC, and will start with UberBlack and SUV. The idea though is to extend the offering to Uber Comfort and XL as well by the end of the year. According to Geoff Tam-Scott, an Uber product manager, the company noticed more customers using the scheduling feature during the pandemic so they accelerated the launch of Uber Reserve.
It seems like Uber, and I assume Lyft will follow in short order, is now fully going head to head with traditional black car and luxury limo bases. It will be interesting to see if the service gains traction in NYC. My guess is once office workers and travel returns, Uber Reserve will effectively compete and take a large portion of pre-arranged corporate business away from traditional black car and luxury limo bases, unless those bases offer a differentiated service to compete with Uber.
Link to Uber newsroom post
AutoMarketplace NYC covers the for-hire transportation industry and automotive news. Check out AutoMarketplace on YouTube ▶️