Ride-hailing major Uber launches hourly rentals on Monday, a 24×7 on-demand intracity service that allows riders to retain a car with its driver for several hours and make multiple stops on their journey at Rs 189 for a one-hour/10 km package.
Riders will have the option to select from multiple hourly packages, up to a maximum of 12-hours.
The new Hourly Rentals package, a 24×7 on-demand, intracity service, will allow riders to retain a car with its driver for several hours and make multiple stops on their journey, thereby providing them greater flexibility as they restart their lives after a lengthy lockdown, said Prabhjeet Singh, Head of Cities, Uber India & South Asia.
Singh told The New Indian Express in a telephonic interview that the package was launched after riders expressed the need for it as they don’t want to book cabs multiple times.
The service is available in 17 cities — Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Kochi, Lucknow, Guwahati, Kanpur, and Bhopal–, the statement added.
Riders need only update their Uber app to the latest version if they aren’t able to see ‘Hourly Rentals’.
“As our cities start moving again, many of our riders will have new use cases and different needs from Uber, one of which is keeping their Uber with them for a longer duration as they go through their day. Hourly Rentals is our solution for that – it allows users to book their Uber for multiple hours with flexible and affordable packages, make multiple stops on their journey, and of course these rides will provide the highest possible safety standards. For our drivers, this offers them yet another opportunity to earn on the platform,” said Singh.
Over the past few weeks, Uber has launched a comprehensive set of safety measures, such as the Go Online Checklist, a mandatory mask policy for both riders and drivers, pre-trip mask verification selfies for drivers, mandatory driver education and an updated cancellation policy allowing both riders and driver to cancel trips if they don’t feel safe.
