Our favourite ride-share service has now come up with the most brilliant plan to decongest the metro and it's called Uber Pool. How does this work you ask? In a nutshell if Uber Pool is selected, the rider gets matched with another rider going the same direction. This program provides a fixed amount along with a 25% discount which means that traffic or not a flat rate applies. Ever since its launch Uber Pool has had a mostly sour reception from both riders and partners let me enumerate why.
Riders:
1. it's a bit awkward to down right scary especially at night whenever someone you don't know enters the car and sits beside you at the backseat.
2. Riders run the risk of being late for work during the daytime since there's no telling how a match would impact the duration of a trip. Unlike elsewhere, here in Manila taking a U-turn to reach a subdivision on the other side of the road could take forever!
Partners:
1. We don't get paid for extra time stuck in traffic.
2. We get deducted 35% total for every Uber Pool trip matches included. To break it down that's the 25% plus the Uber fee of 10%.
3. Uber Pool uses Uber X cars, I'm personally reluctant filling up my G4 to its capacity since it bottoms out on humps with all the weight. I imagine other cars running into the same issues since many X belong to either the sub-compact or mini-car category.
Uber has put in quite a huge effort trying to promote this feature and the most recent announcement from the LTFRB halting new TNVS applications is definitely a huge setback. This means that the company is put in a position that forces them to abandon their process of simply replacing uncooperative partners with new applicants. With more and more partners getting bolder about declining Pool requests I feel that this feature will die a natural death sooner rather than later.
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