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Lyft uses Via-like feature to offer surge-free shared rides

It's called Shared Saver.

Marrian Zhou Staff Reporter
Marrian Zhou is a Beijing-born Californian living in New York City. She joined CNET as a staff reporter upon graduation from Columbia Journalism School. When Marrian is not reporting, she is probably binge watching, playing saxophone or eating hot pot.
Marrian Zhou
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Lyft offers surge-free shared rides.

Lyft

If you're not in a hurry, Lyft offers you a way to save money on shared rides.

The ride-hailing giant on Wednesday rolled out a new feature called Shared Saver, which will lock you in the lowest prices for shared rides even when it's busy, according to a Lyft blog post.

It works in similar ways as another ride-sharing app, Via, though Via is available only in New York City. You wait a few minutes for a ride, walk a few blocks to a pickup point to meet your driver and save money on your ride. Via uses this method to offer lower rates for riders (start at less than $5) than Lyft and Uber , it seems Lyft and Uber are doing the same thing to attract users.

Uber in June started testing a feature called Express Pool, which directed riders to a certain pickup point to get on their rides with other passengers, similarly to Lyft's Shared Saver and Via. 

To try Shared Saver, you can set your destination and then choose "Shared Saver" as your ride type. Then you can see where you might be walking to confirm your pickup area and you'll be informed where you should go to meet your driver and co-riders.