Uber Improves Public Transit in Chennai
The beaches and bustling streets of Chennai met Uber on February 28th of 2014. Since then, we’ve been working to make Uber the most reliable way to get around. The Uber platform allows safe and reliable rides to happen at all hours of the day, supporting and extending Chennai’s public transportation system.
We enable this in two key ways:
1. Gaps in public transportation become hubs for Uber. We go where bus and rail routes don’t run.
2. We complement public transit, making it easy for people to take advantage of the existing public infrastructure.
This means that people in Chennai aren’t just using Uber to get a ride on nights and weekends, but also to commute to school and work as well as to connect them to the existing public transit infrastructure, making the city that much more accessible to residents, commuters and tourists.
To gauge how people have incorporated Uber in their daily commutes, we looked at trips that started or ended within 200 meters of a metro/suburban rail station. What did we find?
Trips that started or ended near transit stations accounted for 14% of all Uber trips in Chennai.
We’re expanding transportation options to people in places who didn’t have alternatives otherwise. Many of these locations lie outside the range of public transportation including the Chennai Metro Railway and Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS).
Below you’ll see how Uber covers much more surface area, from often-traveled areas to underserved areas that were previously difficult to get a ride.
With rates more affordable than other equivalents, economic barriers of a ride available anywhere anytime, slowly diminish. This means that fewer people need to own cars—and those who can’t afford a car can still count on a reliable ride within or outside of the current public transit system.
We’ve come a long way since our 2014 launch. In the years to come, we will continue to provide greater access and availability across Chennai, that riders and drivers can count on for years to come.