Uber inaugurates Scheduled Rides in four Australian cities

Uber now lets commuters in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane to pre-book a ride up to 30 days in advance with the ride-hailing app’s Scheduled Ride feature.

The Uber app was updated to reflect the scheduled trip option at about 1 p.m. Thursday in Australia. With the new feature, passengers can book an Uber ride 15 minutes or a month in advance.

However, the new ride-hailing option is not yet fully available in those four cities. Uber’s scheduled trips are limited within the eastern suburbs and inner west in Sydney; the Central Business District, inner suburbs and Freemantle in Perth; the CBD and inner suburbs in Melbourne; and in Merthyr, New Farm, Newstead and Teneriffe in Brisbane. Uber vowed to add more areas to servie in the coming weeks.

To schedule a ride on Uber, riders need to select UberX in the app, choose their pickup spot and time and set their destination. Uber will notify the rider 24 hours and 30 minutes before the scheduled pickup time. The new ride-hailing feature, however, is not yet available for UberBlack and UberLux.

According to Uber, riders can cancel their pre-booked trips without penalty within five minutes after the UberX car was dispatched. Cancelling the trip beyond the five-minute period will force the rider to pay a $5 cancellation fee.

Riders also cannot avoid Uber’s surge pricing at times of high demand during the dispatch period.

Uber first launched its Scheduled Ride option in Seattle, Washington on June 9. The roll out extended to Florida, Nashville, Milwaukee and Madison in the United States. In Asia, Uber’s Scheduled Rides are limited to central business districts in the Philippines and in Indonesia.

Uber offers driverless cars in Pennsylvania

Back in the US, Uber started offering self-driving cars to its riders in Pittsburgh.

Anthony Levandowski, vice president of Uber’s Self-Driving Technology, assured passengers of the ride’s safety.

“If a Self-Driving Uber is available, we’ll send it along with a safety driver up front to make sure the ride goes smoothly. Otherwise it’s uberX as usual,” he said in a statement.

While pilot-testing the world’s first self-driven Uber cars may raise the questions on the safety of the technology, Levandowski said it is a “critical” step.

“We know that many drivers will have questions about this technology. It’s still very early: Self-Driving Ubers have a safety driver in the front seat because they require human intervention in many conditions, including bad weather,” he added.

Earlier, Uber partnered with Swedish automaker Volvo to manufacture driverless vehicles. (Read: Uber teams up with Volvo to build driverless vehicles, prototype expected by end 2016)