Uber is moving beyond car hailing into more types of transportation, saying this week that it’s adding new services, including car-sharing and public transportation ticketing. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi explained at Washington, D.C., forum, “We’re going beyond cars. We are about mobility — making mobility available to everyone, everywhere.” Uber has teamed up with peer-to-peer car sharing service Getaround, which offers privately owned cars for rent, to launch Uber Rent later this month in San Francisco. It’s also partnered with Masabi, which offers mobile ticketing for public transportation, to let people buy and use tickets for trains, buses and ferries in the Uber app.
Additionally, it’s expanding its Uber Bike service to D.C., after it debuted in San Francisco earlier this year. Khosrowshahi said they want to work with cities on transportation solutions, and they are sharing more data with cities to help them manage congestion. Uber’s vision of the future is about moving beyond private car ownership, with the CEO saying, “We have to solve the issue of car ownership,” and noting that private cars are inefficient because most of the time they are sitting unused.
