Uber experimenting with high-capacity vehicles in Mexico

Ride-sharing giant Uber is experimenting with "high-capacity vehicles" in Mexico City, as it looks into mass transportation solutions in dense urban environments, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an interview with tech magazine The Verge.

Company has strong operations in the Latin American country. In January it made a 30mn-peso (US$1.5mn) quarterly contribution to a Mexico City transportation fund, that it said was equal to 1.5% of every ride in the city during the last quarter of 2017.

Discussing mass transportation with the magazine, Khosrowshahi said "we're totally open to it. You're going to have to explore multiple modalities... As an example of that, in Mexico City we're experimenting with high-capacity vehicles. If you look at Lagos [Nigeria], high-capacity vehicles being a part of dense urban transport is something that has been around for a very long time. These commuter vans."

"When we talk about Uber being your point A-to-B platform, we do believe that buses and trains are going to play a part in that," he added.

The company has been experimenting in the US with different transportation models such as Express Pool, a version of its service that works basically like bus transportation, with users walking short distances (up to a couple of blocks) to and from pick-up and drop-off spots, instead of being picked up at their doors like Uber Pool or the regular car-hailing service.

A spokesperson for Uber Mexico declined to comment on the CEO's remarks.