On May 9th, 2016 Austinites woke up to the news that Uber and Lyft had carried out their threat to suspend operations in the city, largely due to the passing of a fingerprint-based background check law approved by the city council and reinforced by voters.
In the weeks and months that followed, ride-hailing startups flooded the market to pick up where Uber and Lyft left off and give thousands of displaced drivers a new option for income. Arcade City quickly emerged as a Facebook group to connect riders with former Lyft and Uber drivers, but unofficial drivers of the peer-to-peer group faced stings from the city and struggled to launch a successful app.
The community pulled together in a time of need.
Fare, Wingz, Get Me, InstaRyde, ScoopMe, Fasten and nonprofit RideAustin all helped fill the void in the Austin market following Uber and Lyft’s departure.
But now, Uber and Lyft are back in Austin after HB100 standardized statewide TNC regulations—including removing the requirement of fingerprinting background checks—effective May 29.
Fare ended operations in Austin within two weeks of the return of Uber and Lyft. InstaRyde and ScoopMe ended operations in Austin prior to the return of the Silicon Valley giants.
We followed up with four of the main players still on (or back on) the scene in Austin to see what’s next and how they plan to compete with each other.
Fasten
Kirill Evdakov, CEO of Boston-based Fasten said he decided to begin operations in Austin the same day that Uber and Lyft left in 2016.
Fasten is currently only operating in Boston and Austin, but Evdakov said they may expand into a third and forth market in the near future. Fasten is unique to other TNCs because of the emphasis on setting the stage for the best possible experience for the drivers, he said.
“For the rider, there are two things that really matter,” he said. “How much it costs to take a ride, and how long the ETA is. So we are going to continue to reinforce this advantage to provide customers with cheaper rides and faster pickup times.”
Since the return of Uber and Lyft, Fasten has mostly seen an impact in terms of visitors to the city, he said. But, overall, he said Fasten has not seen a decrease in the local rider base.
“We are still going very strong with demand from our loyal base,” Evdakov said. “Drivers are still making more with us than with Uber and Lyft. And now the riders have seen an alternative. More money is staying in the community.”
Evdakov said that Austin has shown the world that there are more, and ultimately better, TNC alternatives.
“Competition and choice always benefits the riders and drivers,” he said. “We are just going to keep introducing more and more benefits for both sides.”
RideAustin
Andy Tryba, CEO of RideAustin, said the nonprofit originally started to fill a void and get drivers back to work after Uber and Lyft shut down their apps in Austin.
“Being a community asset doesn’t just mean doing the classic ride-hailing model—we wanted to help the underserved parts of the population as well,” he said. “I think that what we stood for resonated with the Austin rider and driver.”
RideAustin offers a feature that rounds up the rider’s fare, which is donated to charity. More than $250,000 has been donated to local charities through the roundup feature, Tryba said.
“I believe riders like buying local services that give back to the community,” Tryba said. “I think that local Austin culture is what drove Ride Austin to be where we were before Uber and Lyft came back.”
The return has had a pretty big impact on ride volumes for the nonprofit, he acknowledged. But RideAustin is hopeful that the market will pick back up after the summer to some degree.
“It’s been really great to see the Austin community rally behind a solution. The community pulled together in a time of need,” he said. “We’ll see where things go from here, but it’s been great to bring charities, drivers and riders together.”
Uber
Trevor Theunissen, Uber Public Affairs Lead for Texas, said Uber has been working hard behind the scenes to resume services in Austin since last summer.
“When I got on the ground in July, the first thing we did was schedule meetings with the mayor and city council members to try and see if there was a way to broker a compromise for us to return without mandatory fingerprinting,” he said.
Unable to make progress with the city, Uber worked with the legislature on HB100, and resumed services the same afternoon it was signed by Governor Greg Abbott. Of the new TNCs that have joined the Austin market, Theunissen said that competition makes everyone better and Uber is happy to compete in this market again.
“I think what we heard while we were gone was that these other TNCs didn’t live up to people’s experience with Uber,” Theunissen said. “There was still an unmet need in the community that we heard from riders and drivers, specifically with regards to wheelchair accessible vehicles.”
Theunissen said that Uber has been excited to see the response from the community since returning. He said the organization is eager to increase efforts listen to driver feedback. In that vein, Uber is now allowing riders to tip their drivers.
“One of the things we are really excited about is listening to the community on how we can help their needs,” he said. “We know we have a lot of work to do to rebuild the relationships and some of the trust that was damaged when we left. But we have been very encouraged by the response from the community.”
Lyft
Aaron Fox, Lyft Austin General Manager, said Lyft has heard from drivers and passengers that they are excited to use Lyft in Austin again.
“People benefit when there are more options and having more competition is good for consumers,” he said. “Our goal is to always bring safe, reliable and affordable rides to Austinites.”
Fox said that Lyft in Austin already has more drivers than they did last year and that Lyft has recently introduced a new safety feature called Amp, which more easily connects drivers and riders.
“We are happy to get back to working with the community on the things that make Austin special—including more local nonprofit partners we will announce in the near future,” he said.
