We shared an Uber with… Uber’s director

Shortly before 15:00, at the appointed time, we were outside ECO’s door. The aim: to try the new UberPool service which, from this Friday and throughout the Web Summit conference, will let passengers cut the cost of their journeys by sharing a car with strangers. At the agreed time, the black Volkswagen Golf pulled up. Inside were Filipa Corrêa Mendes, Uber’s marketing director, and Gonçalo Leite, one of the app’s longest-serving drivers in the city of Lisbon.

The idea is easy to grasp. In big cities such as London or New York, many journeys cross or run roughly parallel. So, in an attempt to reduce the number of cars on the roads, ride-sharing platforms were created, a phenomenon known as carpooling. It is something of this kind that Uber wants to test in a “smaller city” like Lisbon, in a pilot project running from 10am on Friday, 2 November, to midnight on Sunday the 13th, explains Filipa Corrêa Marques.