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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A fan favorite for getting from Point A to Point B in Miami-Dade is about to get cheaper and help a bit to unclog the county’s traffic congestion.
On Friday, Uber’s Senior Vice President and Head of Global Operations Ryan Graves announced the launch of uberPOOL – or basically carpooling using Uber.
Designed to help save riders money, uberPOOL matches Uber riders heading in the same direction. Riders can then split the fare and reduce costs by 25 to 50 percent.
uberPOOL will also help the company’s drivers by maximizing their time efficiency earning money on longer trips, without the downtime between passengers.
“uberPOOL will become an important supplement to Miami’s transportation system. Launching uberPOOL in Miami is a step in the right direction toward fulfilling our vision for the future that looks a whole lot greener, cleaner, and more efficient thanks to fewer cars and more shared rides,” said Graves in a statement.
Kasra Moshkani, General Manager for Uber in South Florida, said carpooling using uberPOOL will have a positive impact on reducing traffic congestion.
According to the 2014 Urban Mobility Scorecard, Miami commuters cumulatively wasted nearly 200 million hours and more than 90 million gallons of gas as a result of congestion. On average, this delay cost more than $1,000 per commuter. This congestion accounted for more than 1.6 billion pounds of additional CO2 emitted.
Moshkani said their launch of uberPOOL in other major cities have already shown results. In October of this year alone, uberPOOL helped save 400,000 miles of driving in Los Angeles, saved nearly 50,000 gallons of gas in San Francisco and avoided nearly 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions in Boston.