GroundLink will be able to provide a car within 20 minutes
of booking in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, London and Washington, D.C.,
this year. Current lead times in those markets can be as long as two hours. The
service already is available in New York and Chicago, and GroundLink plans to
add it to 15 more markets next year.
"We're doing this at the rate of speed we can do it
profitably, and each instance thereafter will get easier," CEO Liz Carisone
said. "Our customers will be very pleased with the service because it will
be in the same wrapper that they have."
Mileage-Based Pricing
GroundLink also is expanding use of a new algorithm Carisone
said would make pricing more transparent. The company has based prices on
zones, in which a ride within a certain zone is the same cost regardless of the
distance. The new model calculates a standard base price, plus a per-mile cost.
"What it will likely mean is prices will be lower shorter in and a little
bit higher farther out, but in the markets that we've looked at, we've been
very competitive with our other competitors, like Blacklane and UberBlack,"
she said.
The new model has launched in Washington, D.C.,
and Chicago and will launch in Los Angeles within the next quarter. By next
year, it will be rolled out in 20 of GroundLink's largest markets.