With options to rent scooters and electric bikes via its Jump subsidiary, a ride with Uber today doesn’t always mean getting in a car. Now, thanks to a new feature, it may soon mean hopping onto a train.
Today, Uber will launch a new Transit feature in Denver that allows users to plan their trips with public transportation in mind, and in the near future, pay for rides on buses and trains in-app.
The new feature will include real-time transit information for the Denver Regional Transportation District, as well as step-by-step directions. Developed with technology from Masabi, a mobile ticketing service that began working with the ride-hailing giant last year, this new service will eventually allow users to purchase and use transit tickets within the Uber app.
The company and transit agency hope this collaboration allows more users to utilize Uber as first-mile-to-last-mile solution.
This launch highlights both the push by transit companies to create all-in-one mobility solutions—what Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has called the “Amazon of transit”—and the increased competition between Uber and Lyft to broaden their offerings and incorporate more multimodal options as they prepare for IPOs.
Uber has already made partnering with transit agencies worldwide a part of its growth strategy, according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, collaborating with cities such as New Delhi, Cairo, and Sydney in a bid to increase ridership.
Uber users in Denver will be able to select “Transit” as an available transportation option, and then be able to plan their trip utilizing bus or light rail. Trip planning with transit already exists—Lyft offers directions to scooters and transit stations in Los Angeles, for example, part of its bid to increase multimodal transit options and decrease personal car ownership—but Uber’s bid to combine planning and routing with ticketing will be a first for a U.S. city.
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According to Masabi, combining public transit and private ridehailing options to get around is an increasingly common choice. A 2018 survey by the company found 35 percent of people with access to public transit combine it with services like Uber and Lyft “on at least an occasional basis.”
Uber has previously worked with cities on last-mile solutions, launching pilot programs that allowed cities to subsidize rides to and from transit stations via the app. The Denver partnership represents a shift toward working with transit agencies directly, and highlights how the company, under Khosrowshahi, has made collaboration with cities a higher priority.