School’s back in session, and there’s a new ride-sharing service to help parents get their kids to school. Schoolber — a play on Uber? — starts operations today, the first day of school, after last Monday’s launch of its mobile app. The three-month-old start-up allows parent-drivers and subscribing parents to pair up and discuss rates between $70 and $150 per month, based on one or two-way rides and the distance travelled.
About 200 parents made school runs to pick up 400 other children residing nearby today. Parents can also be alerted when their kids are dropped off and picked up via the app, which tracks the students through their journey.
The entrepreneur couple behind this platform conducted trials over the last three weeks, with parent-drivers carrying out mock drives to assess traffic conditions and test the app’s tracking function. Over 8,000 parents have expressed interest in the service, but only 800 parent-drivers have signed up so far. To increase the number of parent-drivers to at least 2,400, Schoolber is looking at partnerships with car rental companies like WhizzCar and Popular Rent-A-Car for parents who don’t own vehicles.
In November, the Singapore School Transport Association was concerned that the app could be a ‘pirate’ taxi service, but according to TODAY, Schoolber asserted that it was ‘an IT enabler in a sharing economy’.
