American taxi service company Uber has added its latest feature in its pursuit to achieve "the perfect ride" – a plan where it along with the driver earns the most money possible while the passengers spent the least on fares.
The latest feature launched on Thursday, 26 November, allows drivers to receive and accept nearby requests for rides while they're still finishing their previous ride. It means that if an Uber is occupied, but can complete the ride faster and get to the customer quicker than an Uber that is unoccupied, but far away, then the former Uber will be selected to drive the customer.
The car will be scheduled to pick the customer up in one minute after dropping off the current passenger instead of making the passenger wait for five minutes for the unoccupied, but further away car to reach.
"We're rolling out a new feature worldwide that connects drivers with their next trip when their current trip is nearing its end. The ability to accept new nearby requests while still on trip cuts down on time wasted between one drop-off and the next pick-up – all while reducing ETAs for riders and increasing the overall efficiency of the platform," Uber said, TechCrunch reported.
The back-to-back ride feature follows 10 steps for being a "perfect ride". The passengers chooses a nearby driver who is still finishing the current ride, tracks the car's route, be notified of the driver arriving ahead of pick-up time so neither of them has to wait, follows an optimal route both while reaching to the passenger as well as the destination to cut down on ETA and wasted gas, and finally the driver receives another back-to-back request to start it all over again.
This feature is significantly advantageous for Uber because cutting down on ETA means getting more ride requests, which readily earns the company a flat starting fee.
For the drivers, this means preserving their gas money when they are not paid, and doing more rides in the same amount of time they're on the road, even when Uber is not providing them with a higher cut.
Finally, for the passenger the feature means reaching the destination faster without having to pay extra or share the car, TechCrunch reported.
