The Uber logo at the headquarters in San Francisco, USA.Jeff Chiu (AP)
Uber, the global mobility platform based in San Francisco, unveiled its 2023 news this Wednesday in New York. Among them, the family profile stands out, with rides for teenagers and real-time parental supervision, as well as booking options for the elders of the house; More ways to split trips, purchases and expenses, and a vacation program, such as an all-inclusive mobility service (including boat reservations) on the Greek island of Mykonos, expandable to other destinations in the future, or the ability to book trips with a phone call to the United States .
The teen travel program, “a highly requested service” according to product manager Camiel Irving, allows 13-17 year olds to manage their own Uber account after their parents add them to a family profile. The company, which has been testing the program in the US and Canada for more than a year, will launch the service in 14 cities, including New York, next week.
Parents can track their teens’ rides in real-time and contact drivers directly. The rides will have additional security measures such as a PIN verification system and an audio recording option that can be activated by passengers and drivers. The audio file is stored in the user’s app and encrypted so that Uber can only access it when the customer reports an incident.
“It’s about helping you deal with the madness that family life brings in 2023,” said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi presenting the company’s third annual news. “From booking to the end of the trip, there are incredible security features built in, giving you peace of mind as a parent, and that’s priceless.” Teens can also create their own accounts with Uber Eats, the home delivery service for restaurants and supermarkets. Khosrowshahi cited her own mother-in-law as an example when explaining other innovations aimed at older family members who are less experienced with using a smartphone, such as B. a telephone line, with attention to English or Spanish, to book a race.
According to Uber, youth rides are restricted to “highly qualified and experienced drivers.” All drivers on the platform must pass a background check, which includes their driving history and a “comprehensive” criminal record report that records crimes from the provincial to the federal level, meaning all U.S. government crimes. Uber requires drivers to have a background check every year and receives notifications of updates to their records.
Technically, Uber requires riders to be over 18, and drivers can ask for ID to verify age. The youth program thus legitimizes the practice and at the same time expands the market. According to the Bloomberg agency, the proportion of young drivers in the United States has fallen dramatically in recent decades. In 2022, only 25.3% of 16-year-olds held a driver’s license, almost half compared to 1984 (47.8%).
This isn’t the first time Uber has attempted to offer rides for unaccompanied minors. The company attempted to launch the service in 2017, during a difficult period of transition at the helm from the tenure of former CEO Travis Kalanick, who left the company amid allegations of sexual harassment, to that of Khosrowshahi. The company’s current boss enacted new safety measures and a transparency policy, including the release of Uber’s first safety report in 2019.
In the family program, a novelty that already existed in Spain stands out: the possibility of requesting a stroller with a baby seat. The same applies to the cooperation with local taxi fleets, which was also a pioneering service in Spain and has expanded to 4,000 vehicles (3,000 in Madrid alone) since November 2019 and has brought double the income to the industry. Working freehand, according to company sources. It was accepted into service by local taxis in cities like New York a few months later.
Spain is a good market for Uber judging by the news forecasts. The Uber Eats division has just launched two new programs: Precision Shopping, to find substitute products if the order is out of stock, and Add Ons, which allow the user to add products from other stores near the route, such as the Example bottles of wine or wine sweets and a dinner.
After fully overcoming the problems caused by the pandemic – above all the driver shortage, which is particularly serious in countries like the United Kingdom – and despite the particular rate of inflation in the service sector in the United States, the results show that the health of the leader in the sector is good , according to the results of the first quarter of the year presented on May 2nd. Uber grew 19% year over year to $31.4 billion during the period, with gross mobility bookings of $15 billion (up 40% year over year) and gross delivery bookings of $15 billion (8%). Trips grew 24% year over year to 2.1 billion in the quarter, averaging about 24 million trips per day.
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