Last Friday (Jan 19) at 6am, you would’ve probably noticed a new feature on your Uber app. UberFlash, Uber and ComfortDelgro’s new joint service, finally rolled out a month after the announcement of their partnership.
This comes just several months after the launch of Grab’s similar service, JustGrab, which is done in partnership with five taxi companies in Singapore. It’s great because UberFlash gives all of us yet another option to get to where we’re heading to faster. Here’s how it works: when you’re on the Uber app, select the UberFlash service and it’ll match you to the nearest driver-partner, either a ComfortDelGro cab or an UberX car. Apparently, you’ll get a match much faster than the usual UberX service, especially since more than 13,000 taxis now join the fleet of about 14,000 cars under Uber’s rental company, Lion City Rentals (figures are according to this report). However, it still depends on the number of ComfortDelgro taxi drivers who sign up for the service.
Fares for UberFlash will also be about 5-10% lower than UberX, at least according to Uber. We haven’t tried it ourselves, but a quick check on the app for a ride from our office to town during the afternoon non-peak hour stands at $8.21 on UberFlash as compared to $8.62 on UberX. It will arrive two minutes faster as well.
It looks promising, but we’ll stay cautiously positive about the new service, especially during times when we’re looking to get somewhere during periods of high demand (read: surge pricing).
