Meet Marco McCottry, he’s Uber Austin’s general manager who is originally from Cleveland, Ohio. Uber Austin has over 10,000 drivers and the company continues to grow and improve. Not only is Uber a ride share application, but it also spends much of its time giving back to the community.
McCottry has been calling Austin his home ever since Uber first officially came to Austin. “So I’ve been here for a year. I started back in August of 2014, I moved down here for the job with my wife. We’re expecting our first child. Austin has been so embracing for us down here. I don’t think you need much more reason than the people, the weather, and the culture to be a fan of Austin. We absolutely love it.”
“We started here last year and I was employee number two in the office. Now we’re a team of over 30 here in Austin with full time employees. We obviously have a building now. We have this office, which opened last week [October 5th], and then we made a $400,000 investment on the east side in conjunction with the job industry right behind HEB.” Uber has a full time partner support center so their driver partners in all of Austin can get support and ask questions. “A lot of people in the community on the east side have a place that’s very close for them to come and get on board as a driver.”
Uber Austin stays active in helping the community. “Since we’ve been here over the course of last year, we’ve done a number of partnerships with non profits. We’ve worked with ASPCA and we were working with kittens last year. If you remember back in the fall where we delivered kittens and raised money and also had a number of kittens that were adopted.” Uber Austin has also worked with the No Kid Hungry program to raise awareness as well as provide meals to kids nationwide. In the springtime, they worked with Goodwill here in Austin to do a donation drive. “We worked with the Hays county food bank back in May during the flooding that was happening. All in all we raised about 2,000 pounds of food in just under three hours on a Saturday.” Most recently, Uber Austin has worked with Dress for Success here in Austin, which is a non-profit that provides career training, career advice as well as clothing and accessories for women who are interviewing for jobs as well as ongoing training. “With that event we raised over 1,000 different accessories and clothing items from over 50 businesses here in Austin in just under three hours.”
McCottry explains that the Uber application is broadly accessible. “There are a number of features within the application that supports the deaf or hard of hearing as well as the visually impaired. Our driver partners can accommodate folding wheelchairs and are expected to accommodate service animals as well. But what we’ve done in Austin as a result of the ordinance that’s in place is come up with a creative solution for those in need of a wheelchair accessible ride. If they’re in a fully mechanical wheelchair, we have a product called UberAccess here in Austin that is the same rates as UberX. Right now the average wait times are about 14 minutes. It’s by no means the silver bullet or a solution, but it’s very much a step in the right direction and I’m really excited about what we’re doing with that product here in Austin.”
The ride sharing application also allows drivers who are deaf or hard of hearing to be drivers as well. “Within our mobile application there’s actually a feature that makes it very seamless for somebody who’s deaf or hard of hearing to drive on the platform. We partnered with CSD here in Austin and had a deaf partner referral event. It was an event for over 100 deaf or hard of hearing people coming to sign up and drive for Uber. So the way the application works is when the driver receives a request, in place of the typical audible ping that a driver would get while they’re out there, the mobile application actually flashes and pulses so its very noticeable. On the rider side, if you’re actually making a request and you’re matched with the driver who’s deaf or hard of hearing, you’re prompted to input your destination in advance. So it makes for a seamless ride in and out of or for somebody riding with a deaf or hard of hearing partner and it’s been great.”
Uber is available in many different languages, including UberEspanol for those who speak Spanish. “Uber X is the same rate across the board whether its UberEspanol or UberX. You look at the rates of Spanish speaking citizents in Austin and in Texas, and a product like UberEspanol makes a lot of sense. We’re obviously always looking at a way to expand those options. But the app itself is available in almost every language imaginable and we’re in over 300 sub cities. As a driver you can set your iPhone or your smartphone to whatever native language is necessary. And then on top of that you have an application that makes it so you don’t really even need to speak to your driver. You enter your destination and once you get in your ride, the driver can hit navigate and know exactly where you need to go. It’s broadly accessible regardless of any language barriers out there.”
In no markets does Uber own any vehicles. However, in some older markets, Uber has partnered with certain limousine companies. All the drivers are driving their own vehicle. “All our partners are phenomenal. I’ve hopped in UberX where the service has been through the roof. And in terms of customer service, the cleanliness of the vehicle, the friendliness of the driver, and the story behind the driver is incredible. But if there is that reason where you feel you need a bigger vehicle or a luxury vehicle depending on the occasion, UberLux is that product. UberSelect is a mid tier option. But I’d say across the board our driver partners are pretty incredible. And you hear incredible stories across all the products.”
The application is constantly growing and improving with new features we can expect in the future. “Our mission is for transportation to be as reliable as running water. It’s everywhere for everyone. Transportation isn’t just necessarily people, we’re building this network and you’re seeing other things start to be delivered, like food. There’s UberEATS and Austin is one of the few cities in the U.S. right now to have that product. You’ll also see innovative products like UberPool. Austin is another city that has a product like that where rather than two Uber cars doing two trips, you can have one Uber car taking two different people heading the same path in the same location and the riders share their cost. So it’s even lower than the current UberX rates. But I think as Austin continues to embrace innovation, as long as we continue to have a favorable ordinance in place like we have right now, you’re going to see more and more cool products roll out here. If you look and see what we’re doing in some of the other markets, there’s even the delivery of things starting to happen outside of food. So I’m real excited for the future of Uber here in Austin.”
The ordinance here in Austin has allowed Uber to give their drivers new opportunities. “It’s been an incredible market for us, and we’ve seen incredible growth. Again, due to the ordinance that we have in place here, we’ve done over two and a half million trips since we’ve been in town. What you’re seeing is those 10,000 partners are taking advantage of an incredible earning opportunity. They’ve made over 27 million dollars on our platform. So in addition to really facilitating these trips and these safe rides to everyone, we’re creating this vast economic opportunity for people here in Austin to help make ends meet. For them to go on a vacation for the first time, and to just really improve peoples quality of life in terms of making additional income. On the ridership side, one more point I’ll touch on is the impact that we’ve seen in terms of offering safe rides to a broad number in the city. The reports show that DWI’s have been on a sharp decline since Uber’s been in town. We’ve done a lot of things on our own, a lot of initiatives. We’ve also partnered with organizations such as MADD as well as ATX Safer Streets.”
The ordinance that passed in Austin has been the model for over 25 states to adopt something similar. McCottry states, “Now a million Americans are living under ride sharing regulations that are based off of what Austin passed. So we’re confident that we can work with the city and find a solution to keep Austin under the same framework that we have because it’s been so innovative. So many other cities have looked to it as a model and Austin has always been a leader in terms of being an innovator.” With the current regulations that Uber has in place, McCottry is “very optimistic that we’ll have a very healthy and very bright future here in Austin.” “But we’re obviously concerned if there’s a shift away from the current ordinance which we’re operating under and there’s obviously been some proposals that are in the news that are working their way through the mobility committee and now going in front of City Council that would indeed make it very challenging for us to continue to operate.”
If you haven’t already, you can download the Uber application from the app store on your Smartphone. To learn more, visit: Uber Austin
Photography by John Pesina
