“Uber’s Invented Buses!” Uber Targets Commuters With Route Share

Tech companies have been accused of inventing the bus before — notably with Tesla’s Robovan and Lyft’s Suttle, while Elon Musk’s Loop has been described as a subway — so Uber must have seen this coming with Route Share.

In a blog post, Uber unveiled Route Share: a new offering from Uber that lets riders share a car over a preset route with designated pickup points for a lower cost.

At a conference, Uber’s head of product Sachin Kansal said: "We ask the riders to walk a few blocks to a predetermined point at a predetermined time to participate in a predetermined route which they will share with a couple of other riders. We call that Route Share."

Everyone else calls that the bus — and plenty of people on social media were keen to point that out, with mocking posts noting that "Uber’s invented the bus".

Of course, it worked when Uber "reinvented" taxis, though plenty of others have tried to create on-demand private buses without success, notably CityMapper’s on-demand "Smart Bus" in London, Ford's Chariot and Lyft Shuttle in the US.

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Why recreate buses with Uber Route Share?

Given those stumbles, it may seem surprising that Uber is shifting into something similar to public transport, but it's previously had success with Uber Pool, since rebranded as Uber Share in most regions, and back in 2018, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said: “I want to run the bus systems for a city… I want you to be able to take an Uber and get into the subway… and get out and have an Uber waiting for you.”

And with the US federal government pulling back on funding for public transport and publicly run services struggling to win back commuters post COVID, it’s easy to see why private companies are seeing an opportunity once again.

That poses a challenge for public services, if it manages to draw bus riders off the existing public services onto a private network. Why? It means the lucrative routes will earn less in fares, making it harder to pay for less profitable routes or to pay to enable accessibility.

Kansal suggested public buses weren't the target, but cars. "We are complementary to public transit," he told the Verge. “We think of this as a journey towards lower and lower car ownership, as people transition from driving themselves over to using products like Uber Share and now Route Share.”

Uber has said similar about its ride-sharing/taxi service, including via its One Less Car trial run in 2024, though research has suggested Uber has led to a decline in bus ridership in London, largely owning to congestion damaging the quality of those services.

Uber Route Share details

Here’s how Uber says Route Share will work. During morning and evening commuting times — 6am to 10am and then 4pm to 8pm on weekdays — Route Share services will run along set routes with a pickup every 20 minutes.

Book a spot in a car, and the driver will meet you at a nearby corner and wait for up to two minutes before charging you more. There will be up to two other riders in the car, and it will cost "up to" half the price of a regular UberX ride.

Uber is also offering a way to lock in the price for a specific route by paying a subscription charge, as well as a prepaid pass, in which you buy your bus – sorry, Route Share – fare in a pack of up to 20 ahead of time for a discount. Ride passes will also be made available for teenagers, “making the school run… easier than ever”.

At launch, Route Share will be available in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Boston, and Baltimore, with more cities to come, Uber says.