Lyft Shuttle is the ride-hailing industry’s latest product to mimic the fixed routes and flat fares of a city bus service. The new feature, which is being tested out in San Francisco and Chicago, is an extension of Lyft’s carpool service, Lyft Line.
But rather than arriving directly at your door and then dropping you off at your exact location, the driver operates along a fixed route, with predetermined pick-up and drop-off locations. So people using the service may save a little money on fares, but they’ll also have some walking to do.
The service is only available during weekday commute hours, from 6:30-10AM and 4-8PM. Fares for the trips are also fixed “at a low price point,” a spokesperson said, but the price is still determined by time and distance. Fares for Lyft Shuttle are not effected by surge pricing (or as Lyft calls it, Prime Time).
We don’t have specifics on prices and how it will run exactly — for example, do drivers just cruise the routes waiting for hails, or do they swing by specific locations every few minutes like a bus — with Lyft promising to reveal more details in the future.