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Uber adds public transportation options in app

Posted at 5:39 PM, Jul 09, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-09 17:39:28-04

More than 15 million Uber rides happen worldwide daily. More than 34 million Americans use public transportation weekly. To get even more people to rideshare and take public transportation, Uber has teamed up with Denver, Colorado’s transit system to get people moving differently.

In the Uber app, users in Denver can type in their destination and have the ability to choose the fastest and cheapest mode of transportation. One of the options available is to take Denver’s public transportation.

“Denver is the first place we launched this,” David Reich, head of transit for Uber, says. “You get real time information.”

If riders using the Uber app in Denver choose public transportation, they will see how to get to the transit location and the option to buy their ticket in advance.

“The truth is in a lot of situations, the train or the bus might be faster than taking an Uber,” Reich says. “So, we wanted to provide that information to our riders when they need it the most.”

Uber wants to be known not just for their rides, but as the destination for all modes of transportations.

Currently, Denver is the only city where riders can purchase transit tickets through the app. Cities like Boston and London only have the ability to see what mode of transportation will be the cheapest and fastest.

“This is a very exciting development,” Reich says. “It doesn’t exist anywhere beyond Denver yet, but hopefully in the future, this will be in many more places yet to come.”