Weeels is an affordable and convenient way to call a livery cab and share a ride with other passengers -- all via your mobile phone.
Enter your destination and search for available rides. We’ll try to find you a shared ride — a car and a partner at a guaranteed rate — but we’ll always give you the option to take a solo ride. If we can’t immediately find you a share, we’ll give you the opportunity to wait up to twenty minutes to be matched. If you’re matched and choose a shared ride, we’ll tell you when and where to meet your car and partner.
If you share a ride, both you and your ride partner pay much less than if you ride alone. You also save gas, reducing pollution and traffic!
When you search for a ride, we look for other riders who are traveling a similar route. If we find a match, we'll present the match for your review. If you and your partner both decide to share, we'll provide a meet-up location and order you a car.
If we can’t find you a match, you’ll have three options: take a single ride, continue to search for a share for up to 20 minutes, or cancel.
After you accept the ride, you’ll have continued access to your partner’s picture and a map of your pick-up location. Your car will have a Weeels decal — look for our logo on the passenger door.
Most rides have an estimated 10-minute wait time. The car’s dispatcher will immediately alert you and your partner if the wait will be significantly longer. If the car doesn’t come, you can call the dispatcher directly through the application.
Once you’ve agreed to a shared ride, you’ve committed to show up on time. If you’re running a minute late, you can text your partner through the application. (Your ride partner will not have your phone number.)
In the off chance that your partner never shows up and doesn’t reply to in-app text messages, you will have the options of (a) taking the ride alone at the single ride price or (b) canceling the ride altogether, while flagging the no-show for us and other users.
After you tell us that you’ve successfully met your partner and car, you’re ready to go. The screen that displays the map and meet-up location will also have your fare. Keep this open to show your driver when you pay. Pay the driver when you arrive, then feel free to tell us how the ride went by pressing the "Submit Feedback" button!
Weeels does everything possible to ensure matching is safe. You have your own drop-off destination, so you never get out of the car at the same time as your partner. Your partner has no personal information about you and no way to contact you after the ride. If you search for a shared ride but don’t feel good about the person we’ve matched you with, you can always choose to cancel the search or ride alone. If you feel unsafe, don’t get into the cab.
Weeels makes it extremely difficult for anyone to misrepresent themselves in their profile. Weeels is not anonymous like an online network might be: every user’s account is linked to their individual iPhone or iPod. Everyone who shares a ride is asked to confirm that the person they rode with matched their profile. If someone isn’t honest, we find out quickly and respond.
Yes, multiple people can be a part of one ride party. When you share, though, your whole party will have to get out at one destination (our drivers can only make a total of two stops). If you’re with friends and search for a single ride, you can request multiple stops, but you'll have to pay an additional “multi-drop-off fee” that Weeels does not control. Ask your driver about unplanned drop-offs before you get into the car.
Your fare includes everything except tip and tolls. You will not have to pay a credit card fee. If you pay with credit card, you can add your tip to the credit card payment or tip with cash.
No, we’re calling you a livery or “black” cab. These are fully licensed, privately-owned cabs that service all of New York — especially useful where yellow cabs aren’t around. We only partner with livery companies that provide the best rides and the most competitive rates.
If you’re sharing, the driver will decide the best route to quickly get both passengers to their destinations. If you’re riding alone, you’re welcome to suggest a route.
Weeels works anywhere in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. We can’t guarantee that it will work in the Bronx or Staten Island. It doesn’t work outside the five boroughs, except to Newark Airport.
We’re always thinking of ways to promote more shared rides and to make the Weeels experience better and more efficient.
Right now, we’re developing an “along the way” algorithm so that we can match users whose destinations are along the same route, even if they’re not nearby. The two drop-offs will still be easy for the cab drivers, and we’ll give our users more opportunities to save money by increasing the number of successful matches.
We’re also working hard to bring Weeels to other mobile platforms and other cities, so more people can enjoy the benefits of easy, affordable, environmentally-friendly transit.
Finally, we’re developing a credit card interface so riders can pay their fares through the application, and a ride booking option that will enable users to request shared rides as long as a week in advance — making it easier to plan on using Weeels to (for example) get to the airport.
Have other ideas? We’d love to hear from you!
Weeels is launching in partnership with Eastern Car Service, a major livery company based in Brooklyn. Eastern is well-respected for its professionalism, efficiency, and affordability, and we’re excited to be working with them!
As Weeels grows, we plan to forge partnerships with other livery companies in the city. Then we can direct our users’ ride requests to whichever partner company can service the rides the fastest and at the best rate.
Weeels makes money by collecting a finder’s fee for connecting riders with each other and with liveries. This is a small percentage, and we negotiate it in advance with our partner liveries.
Most livery fares are unpredictable and can change depending on the day of the week, time of day, and (in the case of illegal street pick-ups) the whim of the driver.
Weeels guarantees consistent fares by pre-negotiating competitive rates with our partner companies — if you are traveling from your apartment in Prospect Heights to your office in the West Village, your fare will always be the same.
Weeels is structured as a for-profit, but a large portion of the company is owned by a non-profit, The Social Transit Research Lab (or StarLab). StarLab is devoted to coming up with innovative software solutions to promote more efficient transit practices and to empower individuals in their transit experiences.
Ask us at info@weeels.org.