Ride Sharing Services

In the last few years ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have taken off tremendously. People of all ages are now using these apps to their advantage instead of using a traditional taxi service. Below are 11 of the most popular ride sharing services and what each of them have to offer.

• Uber: Uber is arguably one of the most popular ride sharing apps in the world. Uber is a convenient, inexpensive and primarily safe taxi service. You can hire a private driver to pick you up and take you to your destination with the tap of a button on any smartphone device. Uber is now in almost 300 cities in just the U.S. and Canada.

Credit: Uber

• Lyft: Lyft, like Uber, is also a very popular ride sharing app. Lyft is an app that where you can order a ride from a carefully screened driver. Once you order the ride the app will send you a picture of the car, driver, and the ETA of the driver. Like Uber, Lyft is in almost 300 cities in the U.S.

Credit: Lyft

• Gett: Gett is a ride sharing app like Uber and Lyft and is available in over 120 cities worldwide and offers 24/7 support in every city. Gett is also the most popular ride sharing app in Europe and powers over half of the black cabs in London.

Credit: Gett

• Juno: Juno is a relative newcomer to the ridesharing industry. The app was founded by Talmon Marco, and functions as a driving service that prioritizes fair compensation for drivers. The app also estimates each tier’s fare, provides an ETA, and, when you’re ready to go, hails nearby cars.

Credit: Juno

• Curb: Curb works much in the same way as Uber and Lyft: Hail a driver, and you’ll be whisked away to your final destination. Uniquely, though, the service lets you schedule pickups ahead of time in some cities for a $2 fee. Curb will let you control the monitor in the back of the taxi and show a running tally of your ride.

Credit: Curb

• Wingz: This San Francisco-based startup started out providing transportation to and from airports. Now, in addition to airport rides, they offer around-town rides in a few, select cities. They are currently up in running in 16 metro areas, including 22 airports. The app also lets you schedule airport rides up to two months in advance, and a flat rate means you don’t have to worry about hidden fees and surcharges.

Credit: Wingz

• Via: Co-founded by Stanford neuroscience Ph.D. Daniel Ramot, Via uses a logistics engine to fill as many seats as possible in cars headed toward popular destinations. Unlike Uber and Lyft, the routes are static which means you simply tell the service where you’d like to go and you’ll get dropped off at a nearby location along the way.

Credit: Via

• Bridj: Bridj was founded and started in Boston by Chicago and Washington, D.C. transportation department head Gabe Klein. Bridj supercharges the concept of crowd sourced busing established by Via and others. Instead of relying on a fleet of SUVs to transport waiting passengers, Bridj operates 14-seat luxury shuttles with wi-fi and leather seating.

Credit: Bridj

• Arro: Arro taps into a database of licensed taxis, 20,000 according to the company, for on-demand transportation. It’s available in a number of cities, including New York City, Boston, Miami, and Houston, and it works like Uber, Lyft, and many other well-established ride sharing services.

Credit: Arro

• Flywheel: Redwood City-based Flywheel asserts that its system is the most reliable of all ride sharing apps. Like Arro, Flywheel recruits cab drivers to ferry users from place to place, but aims to replace traditional the taxi meters in its cars with TaxiOS, its smartphone-based system for handling payments and pickup requests. It’s available in San Francisco, Seattle, Sacramento, San Diego, Portland, and LA.

Credit: Flywheel

• Zimride: Zimride, like Uber and Lyft, is a traditional ride sharing app. Created by the famous car rental company Enterprise, Zimride boasts the same confidence in their newly created ride sharing app. Coworkers and students connect through a private network to carpool to the same destination, relieving parking and traffic congestion, reducing the carbon footprint and improving sustainability, and share the savings on gas.

Credit: Zimride