All posts tagged: Ride-sharing

Uber’s robotaxi service in UAE now includes fully driverless vehicles

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Uber and WeRide are now deploying fully driverless vehicles as part of its robotaxi service in the United Arab Emarites. Customers in Abu Dhabi who request an UberX or Uber Comfort may be matched with a fully autonomous WeRide vehicle if the route is part of the company’s service area. Uber and Chinese autonomous vehicle operator WeRide first launched their robotaxi service with safety drivers back in December 2024. At the time, the companies they anticipated pulling safety drivers out of the vehicles the following year. Initially, the fully autonomous vehicles will only be available in select locations throughout the 12 square miles of Yas Island, a popular tourist destination in Abu Dhabi. Uber and WeRide say they will expand its fully driverless territory in the future. Customers interested in riding in a driverless car can select the “Autonomous” option in the Uber app for a better chance of being matched. Disclaimer: We do not own any of the content, ideas, images, or text presented here. All rights belong to their respective owners. For more …

Uber is making it easier to get a ride at the airport or pay for someone else’s

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A few new features are coming to the Uber app, including one that could make it simpler to pick someone up or cover their ride. The new “Send a Ride” feature allows you to pay for someone else’s Uber ride directly from the app. You set the number of rides and spending limit, then send a link to whoever you want to gift the rides to. Additionally, John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and Orlando International Airport are now available for Uber Share, which discounts your Uber fare when you share your ride with someone heading in the same direction. The update arrives as airports are still experiencing disruptions that could carry on for a while, even now that the government shutdown has ended. Another new feature, Uber Ski, makes it easier to reserve an UberXL or UberXXL directly to nearly 40 top ski locations around North America and Europe, and allows you to purchase “Epic” ski and snowboard passes at the same time. Lastly, Uber Eats is getting a Cameo-like feature for the …

Lyft’s AI ‘Earnings Assistant’ offers ideas about how drivers can make more money

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Lyft has launched “Earnings Assistant,” an AI chatbot tool for drivers seeking to “optimize their time on the road.” With it, drivers can create plans based on information about things like airport arrivals or local events, announced Jeremy Bird, EVP of driver experience at Lyft in an email to The Verge. The Earnings Assistant feature is in early access, and drivers will need to join a waitlist to use it. Once they have access and start planning with the tool, it can offer reminders, and drivers can also ask it for recommendations if they aren’t sure where to go next. In Lyft’s hypothetical example, the driver asks for a plan that stays within a five-hour period in San Francisco and ends at an address in Oakland. It then creates a time-blocked visual that shows where they’re going to be and includes a mention of when the driver can expect a “Turbo” time, when earnings are higher. Lyft says this builds on other recent roll-outs like tweaked Lyft Rewards, and a “Driver Accomplishment Letter” feature, another …

Surge pricing, the scourge of ridehailing, is evolving for the robotaxi era

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It’s a familiar frustration for ridehail users: you open the Uber or Lyft app, enter your destination, and discover that your intended trip costs several times more than expected. The culprit is surge pricing, one of ridehail’s most important and controversial innovations. Customers grumble about higher fares, but Uber and Lyft executives have insisted that surge pricing benefits them by attracting additional drivers, which allows the companies to fulfill more trips and reduce wait times. That justification makes intuitive sense, but it raises an awkward question about robotaxis, which are expanding across the US, from San Jose, California, to Washington, DC. If surge pricing is intended to expand the driver pool, why is it now being used by companies with driverless vehicles? Waymo, which offers robotaxi trips in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, charges surge pricing during peak times, as did Cruise, its now-defunct competitor. Assuming a robotaxi fleet is already fully deployed, higher fares cannot expand vehicle supply in the way they could for Uber or Lyft. Instead, riders simply need to …

Lyft’s robotaxis will launch in Atlanta this summer

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Lyft will let users in Atlanta catch robotaxi rides starting this summer, as reported by NBC News. “Atlanta riders will have the opportunity to be matched with a fleet of autonomous Toyota Sienna minivans equipped with May Mobility’s autonomous technology, a deployment that Lyft and May Mobility aim to scale over time across multiple markets,” Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin tells The Verge. Macklin said the company plans to bring autonomous vehicles to Dallas next year using Marubeni cars outfitted with Mobileye technology and that “thousands of vehicles and more cities” will follow. Lyft announced its partnerships with May Mobility and Intel-owned Mobileye in November, when it indicated its intention to launch the autonomous, May Mobility-powered cars sometime in 2025. Lyft announced its partnership with Marubeni in February. Disclaimer: We do not own any of the content, ideas, images, or text presented here. All rights belong to their respective owners. For more information and to view the original source, please visit the following link: Source link

Lyft is using Anthropic’s Claude AI for customer service

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Lyft announced a new partnership with Anthropic to use the Claude AI assistant to handle customer service requests. Claude is already being put to use handling service inquiries from drivers, reducing the average resolution time for a request by 87 percent, the company said. In an example provided by Lyft, a driver asks the chatbot for the requirements for driving for Lyft in their area, to which the chatbot responds with a list of five requirements. How well the new AI-powered service requests will go over with drivers remains to be seen. Lyft drivers, along with Uber drivers, have long complained about the impersonal nature of the companies’ stance toward drivers, including the lack of human customer service support. Using an AI chatbot to handle even more service requests could exacerbate those sentiments among drivers. Lyft says the new chatbot will only handle the most common support questions, redirecting customers to human specialists when more detailed assistance is required. The company is also using generative AI to boost productivity among its engineers, with as much …