Page 16 - REALCOMM EDGE-Fall 2017-FINAL

Business SOLUTIONS

A New Era in Transportation:

Q&A with Max Crowley, Strategic Initiatives, Uber for Business

hat is Uber for Business and how did it come adding new parking lots to scale with increasing occupancy can
about? be a highly inefficient process.
W Uber started seven years ago as a way to provide Enter, Uber. In San Francisco, which is one of the most expen-
transportation at a click of a button. For most people, their first sive cities in the world, a residential apartment complex called
experience with Uber is a magical one and it didn’t take long Park Merced offers tenants a $50 ride-sharing subsidy every
before we realized month if they forgo a parking spot. Innovative property managers
that Uber was a have seen amazing results by taking new approaches to solving
lot more than just problems that have been around for decades or longer.
a taxi alternative
used for special “As one of the larger multifamily developers
occasions. Uber in the U.S., we’re working with Uber for
has fundamentally Business to offer our residents alternative
changed the way
people move methods of transportation to meet their
around in cities in day-to-day needs. At The Wolff Company,
their day-to-day lives we envision a future where there’s less space
and created mobility allocated to parking and more space for
where it didn’t exist
before—but it didn’t things that improve the community our
stop there. residents live in. Uber can help us achieve
A few years back, this goal.”
we realized that we
could do more than —Keith Dodds, Vice President of Asset Management at
Max Crowley The Wolff Company
just help individu-
als get transportation, we could also help businesses and cities
achieve their goals. That’s why we launched Uber for Business—a The same goes for corporate real estate. Employers that are
platform that helps companies successfully scale Uber usage growing fast and can’t meet the demand of employee parking
by providing them with the billing, reporting and management are also working with us. Not only do they eliminate the parking
tools they need to be effective. issue, but HR also sees higher levels of employee productivity
and happiness so it’s a win-win for everyone. When people are no
What kind of customers does Uber for Business target? longer stuck behind the wheel in traffic every day, a lot changes.
It’s currently used by 65,000 organizations across the globe, which We have a vision for a new world with less space for parking,
includes both small businesses with less than a dozen employees and more space for things that matter (and things that drive
and Fortune 500 companies. Our initial focus was on business value for properties), like outdoor areas or additional buildings.
travel, but in the past year we’ve seen a huge interest from the The possibilities are endless.
commercial, corporate and residential real estate community. So it started with parking, are there any other benefits the real
estate industry can get from working with Uber?
What sparked this interest from the real estate industry? As everyone reading this will know, space in cities is always
It started with something that seems simple enough to the getting more competitive—not only for residential, but also for
average person: parking. In urban areas where land is valuable commercial and corporate real estate. If a building isn’t located in
and scarce, allocating space to parking is extremely costly and a city center or conveniently near public transit, it can be difficult

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