Klaxit Launches Uber Feature For Stranded Customers

Klaxit, the French startup that connects drivers with riders commuting to work, has inked a partnership with Uber, recently launching a new feature.

According to reports, if a driver cancels a ride home from work, Klaxit will book an Uber ride for the customer. Unlike Uber, which is focused on the entire ride-sharing market, Klaxit is only focused on commuting to and from work. Carpooling can be difficult to manage just because people tend to all go to work at different times. Or, if your ride has to leave the office early, you could end up stranded.  Drivers who are looking to carpool only want to do so with those on their schedule, further complicating the situation. Klaxit aims to take the friction out of the process, handling 300,000 rides per day. The report noted Klaxit has partnered with 150 companies including BNP Paribas, Veolia, Vinci, and Sodexo.  “Subsidizing rides on Klaxit is 8 to 10 times cheaper than building a bus line,” co-founder and CEO Julien Honnart told reporters in an interview.

With the Uber feature, customers of Klaxit are requiring users to request a ride with two other drivers if the original one cancels. If both decline to give the customer a ride, Klaxit will book the Uber ride to the customer’s home. Klaxit pays Uber directly so the customer doesn’t have to pay Uber and wait to get reimbursed, noted the report. Customers also don’t need to have an Uber account, since Klaxit uses Uber for Business.  In September Uber changed its Uber for Business app for business customers, resulting in corporations paying more for the company’s ride-hailing services. According to a report in Fortune at the time, Uber for Business, which went live in 2014, enabled employees to bill rides to their company’s corporate accounts without incurring any additional fees. But now, Uber is adding a 10 percent fee to businesses that use the corporate travel feature, reported Fortune. A person close to the carsharing company told Fortune some companies have already been paying the added charge to access the premium version of Uber’s mobile app.