By LAUREN KASZUBA
Staff Writer
As a loyal Uber customer, it’s quite exciting to hear that the company is expanding.
Uber, a ridesharing service, has been around since 2009 (then known as UberCab). Just recently, the company announced that they were expanding their services, including car rentals through a partnership with Getaround and bikes. They are also including services that will allow customers to pay and book tickets for buses and trains.
The car rentals will go through a feature named Uber Rent, allowing users to be able to find short-term car rentals through the Uber app. As for the bus and train tickets, Uber has partnered with Masabi, a public transit mobile ticketing platform. Users will be able to buy tickets for bus and train travel through the Uber app. The company does not have a set date for this particular feature, however.
Personally, when I first heard of this, I thought of all of these additions to be quite useful and I feel as if Uber will gain customers through this expansion. However, I am interested to see how well the features will work on through the app.
How reliable will this be? The company surely has some great ideas, but, one has to wonder if this will really end up working in the long run.
I travel frequently. In a more specific sense, I’m a frequent traveler on Amtrak, the main passenger rail service in the U.S. I also have been finding myself using the bus to get to New York City more often lately as it is a cheaper (but not the most reliable) option. I use Uber almost every time I need to get somewhere local these days, as I’m a transfer student whose hometown is three hours away and didn’t bring a car to campus.
So, as a frequent traveler and Uber user, I find myself quite excited for these upcoming additions. However, I can’t help but to question it’s reliability. For example, I’ve had multiple problems in the past with e-tickets for travel on my phone. I never trust them enough and I always bring a paper copy of my ticket when I travel.
Maybe that’s just me, though. I didn’t mention that I have the worst luck when I’m traveling, did I?
Here’s the thing – I’m not opposed to trying these features out at all. I will be more than happy to try them when they finally arrive and see if they are actually helpful to my ever so busy life. After all, unless I try it out for myself, I’ll never know if they really work well or not.
So, here’s to you, Uber. Hopefully these features will be as good as they sound.
