Uber expands service and opens new southeast office

Uber launches premium ride sharing Four months after it started operating in Calgary Uber launches a new high end fleet

Uber has added a new level of service to its Calgary ride-sharing operation and says it has seen steady growth since it launched late last year.

The car service company opened a new office on Monday, called the Greenlight Hub.

“Calgarians can now come to easily register and become drivers or ask for support,” said Ramit Kar, Uber’s Western Canada General Manager.

Uber now has six employees in Calgary to assist drivers and officials say the company is set to hire more.

“We’ll continue to hire more employees for this office,” said Kar. “We have over 1000 drivers, close to 1500 drivers that are using this as a great earning opportunity.”

“It’s allowed me to go to school and earn money on the side and keep me going,” said Robert, Uber driver.

The company added UberSELECT to its Calgary ride-sharing service on Monday afternoon for people who prefer a few more perks.

“It is a standard, ride-sharing model but now it’s an opportunity for drivers that might have a more luxury experience of a car to offer that to Calgarians. What we found is, this is great for business travellers or business users that want to have a little bit more of an upscale experience. It’s also great for people that want to impress a little bit so, if you’re going on a date or something like that you can request a BMW or a Tesla or a nice car to impress,” said Kar.

The premium service costs more than the standard service and officials say response time is typically less than five minutes.

“People love UberSELECT as an option. People might take uberX as their day-to-day option but if they are looking to have a little bit of a night on the town, they might take UberSELECT, or as just kind of a treat opportunity and so what we’ve seen in cities that have UberSELECT, is it’s taken off very well and we expect Calgary to do the same.”

Uber says 70,000 Calgarians have signed up for its ride-sharing service in the city so far and it expects that number to continue to grow.

For more information, click HERE.