Uber, Lyft shake up airport ride options | www.myajc.com

Winter Wheeler doesn’t drive, take a cab or have someone drop her off when she heads to the Atlanta airport for business trips. Instead, she uses a mobile app called Uber to hail a town car sedan.

“I don’t like taxis,” said Wheeler, 32, adding she also doesn’t like walking around in a cavernous airport parking garage at night looking for her car when she returns.

Uber and similar services use mobile technology to give customers a new, at-your-fingertips alternative to traditional cab and limo service. Some Uber users first hear about the service as a way to get a ride home from a bar or party, then turn to it for airport rides, too.

But the technology-enabled options are prompting protests among cab drivers, limousine operators and others who operate under an array of regulations and say the new entrants bring unfair competition.

Limo and cab operators lobbied the state legislature this winter to pass regulations governing Uber and a similar service, Lyft, but the effort led only to a study committee. City and airport officials also are weighing what they might change in the rules to include the new services, and how to uniformly enforce them.

With Uber, Wheeler can use her smartphone to see what town cars are nearby, along with an estimated wait time and fare quote, before requesting a pick-up.

It can be difficult to flag down a cab in Atlanta, and calling for one may require a lengthy wait. At the airport, a long line of cabs wait to pick up customers, but service levels are inconsistent — and some cabs don’t take credit cards.

Wheeler figures it’s worth paying a bit more — $45 from her Midtown home to Hartsfield-Jackson International via Uber, vs. about $35 by cab. She also likes using the service in other cities because she doesn’t have to know exactly where she is to get a pick-up — her phone’s GPS tells Uber where to send it.

via Uber, Lyft shake up airport ride options | www.myajc.com.