Features
2 May 18

Ride hailers Uber and Lyft go green

Last month the two biggest ride hailing companies Uber and Lyft announced they were to go green. Both companies declared that they wished to clean up their business model, and Lyft even wants to become carbon neutral.

For Earth Day on 22 April, Uber encouraged its passengers to use a more sustainable way of transportation than driving alone in a private vehicle. The company promoted several active modes of transport, besides carpooling and public transit. The most remarkable part of the campaign, however, is Uber’s declaration that they will go green after Earth Day as well. Ride hailing competitor Lyft recently made similar announcements, even declaring that it would start offering carbon neutral rides.

Shared Miles

The more passengers per car, the less emissions per passenger mile, hence filling up the empty seats of the ride-hailed vehicles is the first way to green up the rides. Uber offers several carpooling options, such as UberPOOL, Express POOL and UberXL, with additional options such as Split Fare and Multiple Destinations to encourage ride sharing. Uber claims to have saved 82,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2017 thanks to its POOL applications, by saving 314 million vehicle miles. Ride hailing company Lyft offers several carpooling options as well, such as Lyft Line and Lyft Shuttle. However neither company offers its carpool applications in every city where they are operating. 

Green miles

Besides reducing the amount of miles driven, the companies wish to drive the miles in an environmentally-friendly manner. Efficiency in routing and driving, and encouraging alternative-fuel, and hybrid, and electric cars are Uber’s main strategies. For EVs Uber is even teaming up with several EV programmes around the world.

Ride hailer Lyft declares it will become carbon neutral in the near future, by direct funding of emission mitigation efforts. However the sponsored projects will all be US-based, they will not be exclusively in the automotive sector: (re)forestation programmes, emissions capture projects and renewable energy programs are on the list as well. This initiative will turn Lyft into one of the biggest voluntary purchasers of carbon offsets in the world.

Public Transit

What's more, the companies are thinking out of the box by implementing other and more sustainable modes of transportation in their mobility offering. Since a mile driven in public transit is the greenest option, ride hailers are teaming up with public transport companies. The implementation of public transport into the ride hailing application, or the option of a hailed ride in public transport applications, connect both means. It provides an integrated mobility option, with excellent first- and last-mile solutions.

Active Miles

Besides public transport, both companies are willing to encourage their passengers to participate in more active modes of transportation. Uber and Lyft offer services in which the passenger has to walk to a virtual pickup point, in order to reduce the miles driven by vehicle, and to increase the miles walked by the passenger. Killing two birds with one stone!

Uber goes even further, in motivating active transportation and reducing vehicle miles driven, by stimulating biking. Uber’s acquisition of bike-sharing company JUMP, resulting in Uber Bike, includes shared bikes in the company’s mobility offer.

Future Miles

To emphasise their desire to become green, both ride hailing companies have signed up to the Shared Mobility Principles for Liveable Cities. The principles are created by a group of international NGOs, in order to guide urban decision-makers and stakeholders towards liveable cities, where people are prioritised above vehicles. Besides Uber and Lyft, several other ride hailers such as BlaBlaCar, DiDi, Zipcar, and Via have signed up as well, as have other mobility companies, such as shared scooter companies LImeBike and Scoot.

Eventually the steps both ride hailers are taking towards green mobility, might enhance and stimulate each other and other companies to follow a similar path. Because if one goes green, the others cannot lag behind.

Author: Fien Van den Steen