
Uber now will require drivers and delivery workers, as well as passengers, to wear masks, one in a series of steps the ride-sharing service is taking to both minimize the spread of the coronavirus and to win back customers who may be worried about the risks posed by getting into a vehicle that might previously have been used by someone with the disease.
“Things are going to look a little different for both riders and drivers,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said during a conference call with reporters.
Things already are looking different for Uber and competitors like Lyft. Prior to the pandemic, ride-sharing services were expected to transform the American transportation system. It was widely anticipated that, over the course of the coming decade, millions of American motorists would either give up their personal vehicles or cut back the size of their household fleets.
As the nation begins to exit the lockdown covering nearly 300 million people such conventional wisdom now seems less certain. The crisis has hammered the finances of both Uber and Lyft who, together, reported more than $3 billion in losses during the first three months of the year, with more red ink expected during the April-June quarter. How deep a deficit they run up will depend upon how well they do drawing back nervous travelers and commuters, but there are warning signs that this won’t be easy.
“How can you feel safe when you’re not sure about what you’re getting into,” whether the driver or previous passenger might have been infected with the coronavirus, Brooklyn resident Jeff Ehoodin asked in an interview with TheDetroitBureau.com.
That was a sentiment echoed by close to a dozen other regular users of ride-sharing services around the country:
- “I’m often in New York,” where photographer Joe Polimeni relies on both mass transit and ride-sharing services. Now, however, he says that, “Until there’s a vaccine, I’d rather walk;”
- “I regularly used Uber while traveling (and) I used to travel a lot,” said Harry Bell, the CEO of a creative services company in Charleston, West Virginia. “I will be very reluctant to travel going forward,” especially if it requires the use of ride-sharing. Instead, Bell hopes to rely on Zoom;
- Michigan’s Richard Halprin is another traveler who liked to use ride-sharing both at home and on the road but, “Going forward, I would have to entirely rethink (my) transportation strategy when visiting big cities where some form of public transportation is the norm and private transportation the rare exception.”