In a twist that’s almost as surprising as finding a techie without a smartphone, the clever folks at Uber over in Silicon Valley have set their sights on reinventing something we all thought was already pretty nifty: the bus. Yes, you heard it right! Those “innovative minds” from the San Francisco Bay Area have become quite the modern-day alchemists, turning the mundane into the “revolutionary,” from homelessness to success, and even trains.
Last month, Uber rolled out a new feature called “Route Share,” which promises cheap, fixed-route rides during those delightful rush hours in various American cities. Now, if this doesn’t make you think of your good old neighborhood bus, I don’t know what will! But wait, there’s more. This feature lets users save nearly fifty percent off the standard UberX fare. Imagine that! Shuttles will chug along predetermined routes every 20 minutes, all thanks to Uber’s Movement platform, which has more data on route patterns and traffic than your grandma has recipes.
Now, Uber isn’t exactly new to the shuttle game. They’ve had a Shuttle feature for a while, using different buses depending on the city. In India, they’ve even started using electric buses manufactured by Eka Mobility. Fancy, huh? These buses generally follow the Chalo Bus Model, and in Gurgaon, Uber operates something called Gurugaman Plus. It seems like Silicon Valley has indeed reinvented the bus, for probably the umpteenth time.
But let’s not stop there. Silicon Valley has a knack for reinventing all sorts of things. Taxes? Reinvented. Trains? Reinvented. Homelessness? You guessed it—reinvented. Elon Musk’s grand Hyperloop concept was essentially a high-speed rail, or in this case, a Maglev rail, dressed up in futuristic garb. And his Boring Company? Well, building tunnels for vehicles isn’t exactly a new idea, but hey, it sounds cooler when Elon does it.
When it comes to Uber, Ola, and their various counterparts, the difference is mostly that you can book a ticket on the bus, pay with the app, and have guaranteed seating. Essentially, what was already a feature in inter-city buses has now become a feature in intra-city buses. It’s like when Reliance Jio, after its ‘free’ phase during launch, essentially offered postpaid rates for prepaid plans. Groundbreaking, right?
And let’s not forget Ola’s Share Express feature in India, where you’d be picked up at specific points en route, just like a bus stop. It’s almost as if someone looked at a bus and thought, “What if we made it… an app?”
In case you’re wondering: A company named Cooperative Capital allowed neighbours to pool in money to enable them to ‘invest’ in their communities. That’s taxes. As for homelessness; well, the image below should help.
Featured Image: Silicon Valley reinventing the bus, not metaphorically, but literally, generated by Apple Intelligence
