Uber launches 'Hourly Rentals', a 24x7 on-demand intra-city service

Riders can retain a car with driver for several hours and make several stops on their journey, due to which they get greater flexibility as they restart their lives after a lengthy lockdown

Uber on Monday launched Hourly Rentals, a 24x7 on-demand, intracity service, which allows riders to retain a car with its driver for several hours, and make multiple stops on their journey, due to which they get greater flexibility as they restart their lives after a lengthy lockdown.

Hourly Rentals replaces Uber's earlier service called Uber Hire, and provides more flexibility to the rider in terms of choosing options for a ride. 

Through the new service, Uber is aiming to disrupt the unorganised cab rental service market. "Instead of offering 4-8 hour packages, a rider can now choose to travel as little as 10 km or one hour, up to 12 hours or 120 km, and pay for what he uses the service for," said  Prabhjeet Singh, Head of Cities, IndiaSA at Uber. 

Starting at a price point of Rs 189 for a one-hour/ten km package, riders will have the option to select from multiple hourly packages, up to a maximum of 12 hours. The final cost will be based on the extra distance and extra time and displayed to the rider on the app, said Singh. 

The service is available in 17 cities from Monday: Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Kochi, Lucknow, Guwahati, Kanpur and Bhopal.   

Riders need only update their Uber app to the latest version if they aren't able to see ‘Hourly Rentals’.                                

“As our cities start moving again, many of our riders will have new use cases and different needs from Uber, one of which is keeping their Uber with them for a longer duration as they go through their day. Hourly Rentals is our solution for that - it allows users to book their Uber for multiple hours with flexible and affordable packages, make multiple stops on their journey, and of course these rides will provide the highest possible safety standards. For our drivers, this offers them yet another opportunity to earn on the platform,” said Singh.  

Over the past few weeks, Uber has launched a comprehensive set of safety measures, such as the Go Online Checklist, a mandatory mask policy for both riders and drivers, pre-trip mask verification selfies for drivers, mandatory driver education and an updated cancellation policy allowing both riders and driver to cancel trips if they don’t feel safe.