Carpooling is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves. Carpooling is considered a Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) service.
Uber Technologies, Inc., commonly referred to as Uber, is an American multinational transportation company that provides ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and operates in approximately 70 countries and 10,500 cities worldwide. It is the largest ridesharing company worldwide with over 150 million monthly active users and 6 million active drivers and couriers. It facilitates an average of 28 million trips per day and has facilitated 47 billion trips since its inception in 2010. In 2023, the company had a take rate of 28.7% for mobility services and 18.3% for food delivery.
Lynn Breedlove is an American musician, writer, and performer who was born in Oakland, California.
Lyft, Inc. is an American company offering mobility as a service, ride-hailing, vehicles for hire, motorized scooters, a bicycle-sharing system, rental cars, and food delivery in the United States and select cities in Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dynamic pricing model based on local supply and demand at the time of the booking and are quoted to the customer in advance, and receives a commission from each booking. Lyft is the second-largest ridesharing company in the United States after Uber.
Taxicabs and other vehicles-for-hire in Canada are regulated by local municipalities and provinces, and are owned & operated by private companies and individuals. Unlicensed cabs in some cities are referred to as bandit taxis/cabs.
Shared transport or shared mobility is a transportation system where travelers share a vehicle either simultaneously as a group or over time as personal rental, and in the process share the cost of the journey, thus purportedly creating a hybrid between private vehicle use and mass or public transport. It is a transportation strategy that allows users to access transportation services on an as-needed basis. Shared mobility is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of transportation modes including carsharing, Bicycle-sharing systems, ridesharing companies, carpools, and microtransit.
Zimride by Enterprise Holdings was an American carpool program that matched inter-city drivers and passengers through social networking services. It was offered to universities and businesses as a matchmaking service. The company was founded in May 2007. After the launch of the Lyft app in May 2012 for intra-city rides, the Lyft app rapidly grew and became the focus of the company. Zimride officially renamed as Lyft in May 2013, and the Zimride service was sold to Enterprise Holdings in July 2013. As of July 2013, the service had over 350,000 users and had partnerships with Facebook and Zipcar.
Wingz, Inc. is a vehicle for hire company that provides private, scheduled, and fixed-price rides in 30 major cities across the United States via mobile app. The service provides rides anywhere in the cities it serves, with a focus on airports. Wingz offers the ability to request specific drivers for rides and allows users to build a list of their favorite drivers for future bookings.
Sidecar was a US-based vehicle for hire company that provided transportation and delivery services. It was founded in 2011 in San Francisco and closed on December 31, 2015.
Summon was a vehicle for hire company operating in portions of Silicon Valley. The company was shut down in November 2014.
A ridesharing company, ride-hailing service, is a company that, via websites and mobile apps, matches passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire that, unlike taxis, cannot legally be hailed from the street.
The legality of ridesharing companies by jurisdiction varies; in some areas they are considered to be illegal taxi operations, while in other areas, they are subject to regulations that can include requirements for driver background checks, fares, caps on the number of drivers in an area, insurance, licensing, and minimum wage.
A robotaxi, also known as robot taxi, robo-taxi, self-driving taxi or driverless taxi, is an autonomous car operated for a ridesharing company.
asterRIDE is a referral company that operates and markets transportation services on behalf of limousine and taxi operators across the cities where they operate. AsterRIDE markets their web platform and mobile app asterRIDE, which connects passengers with taxi drivers. As of June, 2015, asterRIDE was available in ten U.S. cities and growing: Chicago, Everett, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Miami, Naples, Orlando, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and West Palm Beach. According to a release on their website, Las Vegas, New York City, Houston, and Philadelphia were to be added.
Vugo is a rideshare advertising company that markets ads on billboards on top of vehicles for hire. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the company is the first to develop in-car advertising for the rideshare marketplace.
Fasten Inc. was an American vehicle for hire company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 2015, it ceased U.S. operations in 2018 and was acquired by the Vezet Group.
A series of general strikes was coordinated on March 25, 2019 by Lyft and Uber drivers in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, California, United States led by rideshare advocate group Rideshare Drivers United. The strikes aimed to protest low wages, long hours, working conditions, and lack of benefits. The event was planned following Lyft's initial public offering. A second strike took place on May 8, 2019 in anticipation of Uber's initial public offering. The strike in response to Uber's IPO took place in 25 major cities across the United States, and were also joined by drivers in other locations worldwide where Uber operates.
Revel was a dockless electric moped sharing startup based in New York City. Founded in 2018 by Frank Reig and Paul Suhey, it first started with a small pilot program in New York, later growing its fleet size in New York and expanding into Washington, D.C., Miami, and San Francisco. Having pulled out of Washington and Miami in 2022, Revel announced in November 2023 that it would end operation of its mopeds and focus on its electric-vehicle taxi service and its vehicle charging stations.
Proposition 22 was a ballot initiative in California that became law after the November 2020 state election, passing with 59% of the vote and granting app-based transportation and delivery companies an exception to Assembly Bill 5 by classifying their drivers as "independent contractors", rather than "employees". The law exempts employers from providing the full suite of mandated employee benefits while instead giving drivers new protections:
The Drivers Cooperative or Co-Op Ride is an American ridesharing company and mobile app that is a workers cooperative, owned collectively by the drivers. The cooperative launched in May 2020 in New York City, with the first 2,500 drivers issued their ownership certificates in a media event.
