Uber moves beyond ride-hailing with new partnerships
The company announces car rental, bike rental and public transportation collaborations in the US.
Uber expands its bike rental program to Washington, DC.
Uber is looking to give people several options for getting around in US cities.
The ride-hailing service said Wednesday that it's expanding its partnerships with several companies that deal with other types of transportation besides car ownership. It's getting into both car and bike rentals, along with mobile tickets for public transport.
"Having a greater variety of transportation modes at your fingertips helps make it increasingly easy to live without a car," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in a blog post Wednesday.
Since its founding in 2009, Uber has expanded rapidly. Its ride-hailing service is now in 73 countries worldwide and in 600 cities in the US. Even though the still-private company is flush with investor cash and valued at $72 billion, it has yet to turn a profit. So Uber is looking for new ways to expand and wean people off owning cars.
Khosrowshahi wrote about three partnerships on Wednesday. One is an expansion into Washington of Uber Bike by Jump, a bicycle rental program Uber first tested earlier this year in San Francisco. On Monday, Uber said it had acquired Jump.
Another partnership is with Getaround, an on-demand car rental service. Khosrowshahi said that later this month Uber will launch a product called Uber Rent, which lets people use their Uber app to rent Getaround's cars. These cars are randomly parked around cities and can be rented on the spot.
The final partnership is with a company called Masabi, which lets people use their smartphones to buy tickets for public transportation. As part of the partnership, people will be able to purchase bus and rail tickets with the Uber app.
Along with these three partnerships, Uber said it wants to give back to cities by continuing to provide its nonproprietary data to public transportation agencies and urban planners.
"We share many of the same goals as the 600 cities we serve, and are committed to addressing the same challenges: reducing individual car ownership, expanding transportation access and helping governments plan future transportation investments," Khosrowshahi wrote.
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