Nuked Uber customers were opening the app late at night and entering a nearby train station as a destination. The app sounds stressful, so the company’s product team got together and designed a new feature to automate much of this planning planning.
The Long Island rail road (lirr) in New York and Caltrain in the San Francisco Bay area are among the largest commuter rail systems in the country.
Declining bus and subway ridership has been pegged to the rise of app-based ride-hailing in dozens of cities across the US. Uber hopes that by giving transit equal footing in its app it can blunt that criticism.
When riders enter a station, they will be prompted to pick the train they want to make based on Uber’s real-time transit data data. Uber’s algorithm spits out a suggested time to schedule their ride.
Uber went to summit, New Jersey, 30 miles from Manhattan. The program has since expanded to dozens of cities and towns across the country.
Uber is a crucial piece in solving the so-called’last mile’ challenge. Using ride-hailing to connect commuters to transit, it would also allow towns to redevelop parking lots near commuter train stations.
