Taxi drivers to face more competition

From now on, a ride with a professional driver can be ordered via the app of the Uber travel agency. And Uber is also planning additional investments in Zug.

Check online where the next driver is available, order it with a click, and pay the costs directly in the app after the journey: that’s roughly how a journey with Uber takes place. According to its own information, the driver service is active in 541 cities worldwide, including Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich, Basel, and now also in Lucerne.

The offer in Lucerne will initially include the inexpensive UberX service, writes the Uber travel agency in a media release on Thursday. A further expansion of the range with Uber Black or Uber Comfort is planned - these categories are the special limousine services.

With the start in Lucerne, Uber is responding to a great demand: since the beginning of this year, users there have tried to order a trip via the Uber app around 60,000 times, according to Uber. At the same time, more than a thousand independent drivers have tried to offer rides using the Uber app.

A user orders an Uber taxi.

In addition to the start in Lucerne, Uber is also investing in other cities in Switzerland, in order to offer people there an additional alternative to using their own car and as an addition to public transport. In particular, the existing offer in the regions of Zug, Winterthur and Baden will be strengthened. Users can now reliably order trips there, with average waiting times of four to six minutes.