As ride-hailing apps push "shared ride options" that offer a lower price for users who allow other passengers to join the route, most agree that it's not a popular course for most corporate travelers, although some businesses are finding use cases for shared ride platforms.
When businesses first began to accept Airbnb as an option for lodging, they frequently drew the line in policies to forbid travelers to share the property with the host or other sets of guests. While sharing a ride with a stranger is not as potentially invasive as sharing sleeping quarters, it nonetheless raises similar issues around privacy, safety and comfort.
Consider the advice given by a corporate travel policy guide published by Citi, working with Acquis Consulting Group and Mastercard.
"Your travel policy should specify in which countries you can use companies like Uber and Lyft and the type of car you can ride in," the guide advised. "Generally, organizations require that employees take a private car through the economy option."
Speaking recently at the Mobility in Travel conference in New York, hosted by Mozio, some executives from ride-hailing suppliers said corporate travel still is not the target audience for shared rides. Su Zhou, head of partnerships for Chinese ground transportation supplier Heycars, said he's seen little corporate use in the space.
"People don't like being in a car with a stranger on their way to a destination, so they don't use that service," he said. "If I'm taking an Uber or Didi to work, I want that time to be by myself and relax."
Lyft head of corporate travel partnerships Caitlin Gomez said that her own company's head of procurement once mused as to why everyone didn't opt for the shared option, to which she informed him that she would never choose it herself.
"When I have to go to work, I'm not dressed in sweatpants and sneakers; I'm in a heels and skirt, and as a woman, I feel more comfortable by myself in that car," she said. "You never know what your employees are going to feel comfortable with. What makes one person feel comfortable makes my skin crawl."
As such, even the strictest procurement manager is unlikely ever to mandate shared rides as a cost-saving measure.
Still, shared rides are finding other ways into corporate programs, particularly when businesses can ensure only company employees ride together. Mike Vaccarino, platform partnerships lead for Via, a transportation network company that largely focuses on shared rides, said he's found ways to work in the corporate space. BASF, for example, has a large plant a few miles from a train station, and Via has worked with the company to create an on-demand service between the two locations, using vehicles wrapped in BASF branding and with drivers vetted per BASF's requirements.
Meanwhile, as travelers use shared ride options more frequently for leisure travel, they could become more comfortable in using them for business travel. Via, for example, introduced a private ride option in New York, but 98 percent of its rides remain pooled, Vaccarino said. As such, travel buyers may need to address them in their policies one way or another.
"The way business is moving, we're not going to make those choices for the traveler," Gomez said. "They're adults, and our job as suppliers is to give people the options they want."