Uber Lyft: Car services target universities

• Uber%27s black car service is available in 40+ cities in 18 countries.

Updated: September 13, 2013, 10:00am

Need a ride to the grocery store 1.5 miles from campus? Maybe you don't drive, or live where public transit is abysmal. Or perhaps you do drive, but don't want to spend an arm or a leg on parking or gas.

Lyft and Uber have an answer — at the touch of a smartphone.

Students might be familiar with Zipcar, which launched ZipcarU — a nationwide initiative on college campuses — in 2010, but Lyft and Uber are two companies creating a transportation buzz these days.

Car-sharing services are making it easier to navigate cities such as Atlanta or Austin, car-reliant metro areas with large college populations where public transportation might not be the preferred or most efficient travel solution.

Growth also comes at a time when millennials are increasingly ditching the idea of owning a car.

Uber and Lyft are trying to grab a share of the 18-to-24 market and are launching initiatives to get their names on the lips — and smartphones — of college students.

Uber, which is perhaps the most well-known, amped up its outreach last month at colleges and universities across the nation — visiting campuses during welcome or orientation weeks — including MIT, Boston University, Tufts, Emory and Georgetown.

"Our city teams are working directly with campus communities in a number of locations to make sure that young people know how to get a safe, reliable ride," says Andrew Noyes, Uber spokesman.

Noyes didn't provide data on how many college students use Uber, but given new campus programs — including a Boston College partnership that provides special promo codes that get new riders free or discounted rides and a deal with Chegg that includes ride coupons and is expected to reach any U.S. campus where Chegg ships books and Uber offers service — students could soon make up a bigger chunk of Uber's overall users.

Its black-car service is not only available in 40+ cities in 18 countries, but also in most neighborhoods around the cities it serves.

In addition to its traditional car service, Uber has tried a number of promotional ideas. This summer, they held a global ice cream promotion, where users in 33 cities worldwide could summon an ice cream truck. It also held a weekend promotion with GE that allowed users to ride in DeLoreans.

Lyft is growing too.

Lyft works a little differently than Uber, but the concept of requesting a driver from your phone to pick you up and having the bill and tip automated from your linked credit card number is the same.

Lyft's launch in late August in Atlanta, St. Paul and Indianapolis prompted Uber to offer free rides in two of those cities.

In both Los Angeles and Boston, Lyft partnered with area universities and some of their Greek organizations and student groups to not only market themselves as a safe and reliable mode of transport, but to provide rides when needed for students traveling to certain off-campus events.

Even though both Uber and Lyft are expanding rapidly, they've been at the center of controversy and pressure from existing taxi industries in a number of cities.

Earlier this year, Los Angeles told both companies to shutter operations in that city. Both still operate there, though.

Despite the controversy, recent grad Jack Wickham, who just moved to Atlanta to start a new job, says Uber gives him service that is more pleasant and convenient than that of a traditional cab.

"The quick response time and in-app features make it a more attractive option to me," he says.

David Moreno, senior at the Illinois Institute of Technology, says he'd rather rely on public transit, especially since his school provides an unlimited pass for the duration of the school year (which is built into tuition costs).

He says that if he needed a cab, and if Lyft or Uber proved cheaper, he would consider taking it. "A college kid has to save money wherever he/she can."

The car sharing market has parlayed itself into an industry that will reach 26 million members by 2020.

For more information on how to use Uber or Lyft, visit their websites www.uber.com and www.lyft.me, and their Twitter pages: @UBER, @LYFT, where they often Tweet promotional codes good for a new user's first ride or download their apps and get your ride rolling.

Nenad Tadic is a senior at Emory University.