Uber Portugal announces new service that allows you to share trips with strangers – Transport

To celebrate a decade of existence in Portugal, Uber announced this Wednesday the launch of a new travel option – UberX Share – which allows users to save up to 30% in costs if the trip is shared with strangers who choose the same trip. option and which is now available in Lisbon, Margem Sul and Greater Porto.

In the presentation of the company’s 10 years in Portugal, Francisco Vilaça, general director of Uber in the country, exemplified that in the case of a trip in which someone travels from Campo Grande to Cais do Sodré, he could pick up a user in Saldanha and another in Almirante Reis until you reach your destination, and thus have a cheaper trip and a more sustainable choice, with the travel time not exceeding eight minutes of the total scheduled.

For the driver, and according to the person in charge, this option is the “equivalent of taking a longer UberX trip”, but it could increase the “target audience for your transport services by pairing trips and people”. The general director of Uber Portugal today made a positive assessment of the TVDE platform’s 10 years of activity in the country, but recognized the discontent of some drivers who have been demonstrating for better working conditions.

Francisco Vilaça also revealed that the platform, the first to operate in the country, carried out 200 million trips in 195 Portuguese cities, made by 12 million passengers of 150 nationalities. The entry of the company and TVDE (Individual Passenger Transport in Uncharacterized Vehicle) in Portugal “tripled the turnover of occasional passenger transport in light vehicles, an increase of 480 million euros”, the mobility manager also explained.

Furthermore, and according to the general director of Uber Portugal, during this decade of operation Uber created “13 thousand net jobs, currently 28 thousand”. As a curiosity, Francisco Vilaça announced that “the most active user of the platform has already made more than nine thousand trips” and the “longest trip was between Lisbon and the south of France”. Asked about the stoppages of TVDE drivers in recent times for better working conditions, and on the eve of yet another protest, the person in charge reiterated that the company “respects every right to demonstrate”, adding that it heard “all requests and all needs that industry players have”.

“It is important to emphasize that we always work to direct and respond to these needs. The need for increased income comes, not just from the right rate, because we are talking about an industry in which we have found demand – which is the great service that the platform provides -, and the generation of demand for mobility needs and the service provided”, he pointed out.

The person in charge also highlighted that “it is through ensuring that there are trips priced correctly for demand to exist, and then supply [dos serviços] can be provided.”

“It is always in this balance that we can increase numbers, we work to improve tariffs, [mas] Increasing tariffs does not necessarily mean increasing income and that is the work that must be done”, he highlighted.

The person in charge recalled that the company has received “all participants in the industry” in order to talk “about all the topics put on the table and the plans announced”.

Regarding the issue of the existence of foreign drivers driving for the platforms, Francisco Vilaça explained that data from the Mobility and Transport Institute (IMT) from 2023 reveal that “70% to 80% of drivers were Portuguese-speaking or came from Portuguese-speaking countries”.

The official highlighted that access to the Uber platform “meets extremely demanding document verification requirements, ensuring that those who provide services through the platform are qualified”. Among the documents requested is the driving license, which is verified by the services, in addition to the TVDE license issued by the IMT and the criminal record which is checked every three months, he explained.