Uber has made its new fare-splitting service Uberpool available in San Francisco as a cheaper way to get rides through the city.
Users of the new offering will be able to share rides with other people who are going in the same direction, which lowers the overall cost of the ride, according to TechCrunch.
The service was first introduced last month, and was then made available a couple of weeks ago to users in a beta form. The offering was tested with almost 100,000 passengers before being made open for anyone in San Francisco to try out.
Uber is facing competition from other ride-sharing services like Lynch, Sidecar, and Hitch, all of which were also started in San Francisco, The Business Journal reported. Uberpool has so far received positive responses from early adopters, which suggest positive impacts the service can have traffic and parking.
"The enthusiasm took us by surprise," said Wayne Ting, general manager for Uber in San Francisco and former White House economic policy advisor. "The results were more exciting than we expected."
Uber said passengers using Uberpool will pay up to 40 percent less than they would with a ride from their UberX platform, which the company said costs less than traditional taxis.
Ting said the company was able to match "thousands" of riders in San Francisco with each other during the tests, The Business Journals reported. Riders were also matched from San Francisco to the South Bay and from the East Bay to the city. Ting expects Uber's service to be available in the rest of the U.S. after it is established in the Bay Area.
Users can find UberPool in the Uber smartphone app, which can also be used to order rides from taxis, limos, and people from UberX driving for hire in their own cars.
"When I tried Uber for the first time myself in Boston, that was a moment when I saw a glimpse of the future," Ting said. "The convenience, the value - I thought, this could change the way people thing about transportation. There are only a few companies that can change the landscape of a city."
