Despite its legality in Indonesia being still somewhat up in the air, transportation service giant Uber continues to roll out new services for the local market. Just a few weeks after the surprise launch of their Go-Jek and GrabBike competitor UberMOTOR, they have announced that they will finally launch their UberPOOL service in Jakarta this week (we say finally because they first mentioned launching it here back in November).
UberPOOL allows users to share their ride—and the cost of that ride — with another nearby Uber user. It automatically matches them up another rider taking a similar route and each only pays for their portion of the trip.
“Savings can reach 50% off the UberX tariff and it is more cost-effective compared to regular taxis,” Mike Brown, president director of PT Uber Teknologi Indonesia told Bisnis.com on Sunday. UberX is Uber’s lower-cost car-hailing service.
In addition to cost savings for consumers, Brown noted that UberPOOL could help reduce Jakarta’s notorious traffic and air pollution by decreasing the number of cars on the road. He mentioned Los Angeles as an example of a city where UberPOOL had already launched and had a significantly positive impact on traffic and the environment.
He also said that the service would compliment Jakarta’s efforts to encourage carpooling (like the 3-in-1) and that it could theoretically help put an end to private car ownership altogether – though he admitted that the service could face regulatory hurdles.
We’re certainly intrigued by the idea, and possible savings, of UberPOOL, but we wonder how happy Jakartans will be to share their rides with complete strangers? We’re willing to deal with some potential awkwardness to save money and reduce traffic, but it’ll be interesting to see how many others feel the same way.
