Uber taps new user base with ride, delivery option for teens

Uber is expanding its rider base with a new service that lets teenagers hail a trip and ride alone.

The teen rides program allows 13- to 17-year-olds to operate their own Uber account after parents add them to a family profile, the company announced on Wednesday. The San Francisco-based company, which had been piloting the program in the U.S. and Canada for more than a year, will launch the service next week in 14 cities including Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, New York and Phoenix. Teen accounts are currently unavailable in Seattle.

Parents will be able to track their teen’s trips in real time and contact drivers directly. The rides will come with extra safety measures, Uber said, including a PIN verification system and an audio recording option, which can be activated by passengers and drivers. The audio file is stored on an individual’s app and is encrypted so that it’s accessible by Uber only if a user opens an incident report.

Teen rides are restricted to “highly rated, experienced drivers,” Uber said. All drivers on Uber’s platform are required to pass a background check that includes driving records and a “comprehensive” criminal history report that surfaces offenses from the county to federal level, said Sachin Kansal, head of safety products, in an interview. Uber requires drivers to pass a background check on an annual basis and receives alerts that flag DMV and criminal record updates.

“It is all about helping you manage the craziness that encompasses family life in 2023,” said Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi. “It has incredible safety features embedded in it from the booking experience all the way to the end of the trip so that you as a parent can have peace of mind, which absolutely is something that’s priceless.” 

Uber has had a complicated history with unaccompanied minors. Early on, parents seized on Uber as a carpool alternative, ordering cars to shuttle progeny to soccer and other after-school events. Many teens set up their own accounts, even though technically Uber requires users to be 18 or older and drivers are allowed to ask for an ID to verify age. Crosstown rival Lyft doesn’t allow minors to ride without an adult. 

Uber’s teen program legitimizes the practice and presents a lucrative opportunity for Uber to tap a new pool of riders. The percentage of teen drivers in the U.S. has more or less plateaued at a far lower level than a few decades ago. In 2022, only 25.3% of 16-year-olds had a driver’s license, about the same as in 2018 and down from 47.8% in 1984, according to the latest statistics from the Federal Highway Administration. 

The business of ferrying children around town is a hard task that comes with more liability not many companies are willing to bear. A handful of companies, including HopSkipDrive and Zum, explicitly focus on getting kids to and from school. HopSkipDrive allows parents to arrange a ride for children as young as 6.

This isn’t Uber’s first time attempting to offer rides to unaccompanied minors. The company tried to roll out the offering in 2017 at a time when it was embroiled in series of scandals under former Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick, who left the company that same year. Uber has worked hard to repair its reckless image under Khosrowshahi, who imposed new safety measures and disclosures, including publishing Uber’s first safety report in 2019.

Uber’s teen service was one among a slate of new offerings the company announced at its annual product event in New York, including the ability to book rides via a phone call in the U.S. and bookable boats in Mykonos, Greece, over the summer. Teens will also be able to set up their own accounts on Uber Eats to pay for meals and deliveries.