A subscription will make taxi rides cheap every time

Photo: Uber

The cheapest Uber rides can become the most expensive overnight. A monthly subscription to Ride Pass will keep the taxi rates steady.

Occasionally, we still stand on the pavement, frantically hailing a passing taxi, hoping it will stop. Sometimes it does, other times not. It’s become more reliable to use a specialised mobile application to get around, which will also tell us what kind of car will be picking us up, when it will be arriving, and how much the ride will cost. 

Photo: Uber

Think of the Uber app, which is so focused on the consumers’ comfort, that it, for better or worse, managed to completely upend the rules of the taxi industry across the globe. 

Uber isn’t stopping. It’s racing into the future with self-driving cars and is planning commercial flights with VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft, but for the present, it has expanded its services to include renting electric bicycles, pet transport (the owner rides along, of course), food delivery, the occasional helicopter flight or rides in luxurious super cars, and more.

Ride Pass allows subscribers to ride for a »locked« price that was set in advance.

Last autumn, its unique version of doing business was upgraded, using the principles of the subscription economy. Its users often noted that night rides in taxis cost up to three times more than daytime rides, even though they take the exact same routes. 

To minimise such unpleasant surprises, about a year ago, Uber started testing various subscription packages. The Ride Pass pilot project went commercial when it obtained over a million users, who completed over ten million rides in 25 cities across the USA. At the moment, the service is available in five of them – Los Angeles, Austin, Orlando, Denver, and Miami. 

Photo: Uber

But subscribers, who pay 14.99 dollars per month in Austin and 24.99 dollars per month in Los Angeles, do not get unlimited rides in return for the fee. This life per month model allows them to ride for a »locked« price that was set in advance. 

If the Uber driver picks them up at the same place every day, and takes them to the same location, it will always cost the same guaranteed price, regardless of traffic jams, late night hours, weather, or other unpredictable circumstances. 

Uber introduced its subscription service shortly after Lyft, its main competitor on the American market, made a similar move.

Ride Pass is included in the existing Uber app, which allows users to directly monitor their savings during the ride itself. But they do not have to be especially careful about renewing the service; the app does that on its own. They can cancel anytime. 

Uber introduced its subscription service shortly after Lyft, its main competitor on the American market, made a similar move, which for a monthly fee of 299 dollars allows their subscribers to be able to use 30 rides in the value of 15 dollars, which can save them up to a hundred and fifty dollars if used to its fullest value.

Photo: Uber

There is no indication that the transportation giants are running out of ideas how to further improve the user experience in this competitive system, fuelled by fast technological progress. The possibilities are limitless, especially in cities where parking is nearly impossible to find, and public transport is unreliable.