Uber is offering a helping hand to some of the same city leaders it sometimes antagonizes with the aggressive way it runs its popular ridesharing service.
The assistance will come in the form of a free website, called “Movement,” expected to be available to the public in mid-February. San Francisco-based Uber announced the new website earlier this month, on the eve of a transportation-planning conference in Washington.
Although anyone can use the website, Uber says it believes its main audience will be city officials dealing with congestion in their streets and transit systems.
The website draws upon data Uber gathers from its ridesharing service showing average travel times on specific routes at any day or time. The company believes that information will enable city officials to make better planning decisions about road closures and transportation improvements.
The site won’t be comprehensive because Uber acknowledges its service hasn’t provided enough rides on some routes to give reliable estimates on typical travel times. But it remains confident the service will be a popular tool for city planners who currently have to pay for similar data from a variety of vendors.
The website will start with private tests covering the Washington, Sydney and Manila, Philippines. Once the website opens to the public, Uber hopes to gradually provide travel-time data on maps covering most of the hundreds of cities where its service operates.
Uber’s goodwill gesture is a bit of a departure for a company that has tussled with cities around the world about whether its service needs to follow the same rules as taxis.
Copyright 2016 Associated Press.
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