UBER has introduced Scheduled Rides in Seattle, with the company revealing plans for a “global rollout”.
Scheduled Rides allow uberX users to request a pickup up from 30 mins to 30 days in advance and are priced exactly like a normal uberX ride, meaning they are subject to surge pricing.
The service is being made available first to business travellers and Uber has promised “other top business travel cities” will follow Seattle’s introduction, but has confirmed there are no “current plans to launch Scheduled Rides in Australia”.
Despite the changes, Niklas Andreen, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Hospitality, Car and Digital Marketing at Travelport believes if, when or how the new addition will impact on the travel and car rental industry remain to be seen, “as it’s only available to a very select group at this point”.
Andreen says there will still be a level of uncertainty as to if there will be any cars available, as Uber is taking the responsibility of sending out the ride request to drivers in a particular area close to the requested time.
“Business travellers are generally time poor – they need a guarantee that a car will be there to pick them up from point A to point B,” Andreen says.
“If Uber gets this right then the prebooked car with driver (supplement to taxis in many markets) will have a fight on their hands.”
Due to surge pricing still applying and a guaranteed rate not being made available, Andreen says it will be hard for travel agents to book with the ridesharing company.
“Travel agents will not want to bear the responsibility of additional surge pricing incurred for the traveller, thus pre-booked car with driver companies (limo services, etc) will still hold a competitive advantage of their centrally negotiated rates,” he adds.
“Uber will not be a replacement for pre-booked cars just yet, even with the Scheduled Rides offering, it’s still very much complementary rather than a replacement for rental cars.”
