After more than a 2-year hiatus, Uber Pool is finally coming back. The ridesharing feature which allows passengers to split the cost of a trip with individuals traveling in the same direction was temporarily suspended in early 2022 right as the coronavirus pandemic began. Today, Uber announced that Uber Pool is back, albeit with a new name: UberX Share.
Uber Pool is now UberX Share
As part of a rebrand, the Uber Pool name is being tossed aside and is being replaced with UberX Share. UberX Share originally debuted a pilot program in Miami and is now coming to 8 cities across the US: New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Portland, Oregon, and San Diego.
Uber details how a typical UberX Share trip operates below:
- Accept a trip, as you would with UberX for your first rider. The Driver app will search for ways to pick up more riders along the way.
- You’ll be notified when another rider is added, your route will update automatically.
- If a rider doesn’t arrive at the pickup location within 2 minutes, you’ll have the option to cancel and receive the cancellation fee.
- Riders only get the full UberX Share discount on their price if you pick up a co-rider. We designed it this way so riders would be welcoming to each other while in your car.
How the new service works
While similar to Uber Pool, UberX Share does incorporate several minor changes gleaned after months of research and customer feedback.
With the new service, riders who choose to use UberX Share will get a discount upfront. Passengers can enjoy additional savings — up to 20% off the total ride — if another passenger joins the trip.
Thankfully, Uber is addressing a longstanding frustration with Uber Pool, namely that shared rides can sometimes add an exorbitant amount of time to a given trip. To streamline matters, UberX Share will only match riders with passengers heading in the same general direction. Uber notes that the new service is designed such that no more than 8 minutes will be added to a trip relative to a standard UberX ride.
Notably, Uber didn’t mention when UberX Share will expand to additional cities. That said, we imagine it won’t be long before the rollout goes nationwide.
Incidentally, Lyft earlier this year also brought back shared rides. Similar to Uber, Lyft is rolling out the feature slowly. As it stands now, shared rides on Lyft are only available in a handful of cities. That list includes San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami, San Jose, Denver, Las Vegas, and Atlanta.
With gas prices soaring, it’s nice to see that shared rides are finally coming back.
