Uber introduces fare-splitting feature

Uber will now automatically split the bill among groups of friends, making it easier to share rides

I can't even count the number of times I have gone out with friends and we decide we are going to split the bill. It always seems like such a good idea and everything is fine and dandy, until the check actually comes. Then it's time to do math, and that is where things can get ugly.

People don't carry enough cash then "forget" to pay each other back. Battles are fought, feelings are hurt and friendships are strained. And all because of a few dollars or cents.

Uber is absolutely determined to make sure that this does not happen, at least not in the backseat of their own cars, by introducing a new feature that makes it much easier for friends to split fairs.

"It’s been said that 4 out of 3 people can’t do fractions. At Uber, we love math (we have a whole team dedicated to it!) but we understand that not everyone does. So we’re going to do the long division for you," Uber wrote in a blog post announcing the news.

All a customer has to do is request a ride, tap the “up arrow” icon next to the driver’s info, select “Split Fare," choose which to split it with friends and then click send.

Those friends will then get a text from Uber, which then take them to app, where they have to confirm that they want to split the fare. If they don't have Uber they will be prompted to download it and sign up.

"Math is hard, Uber isn’t," the company says.

The benefits of adding this feature are easy to see for users. For Uber, though, the benefits are two-fold:

First, it gets more people to sign up for the service. Every friend that you split the ride with has to sign up to confirm it. That will only bring more people into the fold and drive up their usage numbers.

Second, and more importantly, it perceivably lowers the cost of the ride by making it that much easier to cut the bill in half, or even more. And cost-cutting is an area where Uber has put considerable focus lately.

In January it lowered the prices on its standard Uber Black car service by 10%, and last month it announced that it would be lowing prices on its uberX fleet as well, in order to make them 10% cheaper than a taxi.

Competition in the space is fierce, especially from ride-sharing services that do not use drivers who are licensed to operate commercial vehicles. And Uber needs to stay ahead, partially by taking these companies head-to-head. In April Uber revealed that it it was planning to start its own ridesharing service in markets where it already been given approval by regulators. 

Since launching in 2009, Uber has raised over $57 million, most recently a $37 million Series B round led by Shervin Pishevar’s Menlo Ventures, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Goldman Sachs in September 2012.

It was reported late last week that the company is looking to raise more capital, which could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Adding more users would certainly help the company shore up some of that money.

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