Google maps integration with Uber has been rolled out in India. The feature was first rolled out in the US last year in May and now seems to be active now in Delhi,Bangalore and Mumbai. It’s worth noting that Uber did not officially put out news about the integration on its blog, but we did see a tweet about the same in Uber’s Delhi account.
Gotta love the sweet @Uber + @googlemaps integration: pic.twitter.com/rTpGYmvzZL
— Uber Delhi (@Uber_Delhi) February 6, 2015
As part of the integration, when users search for a destination they will also get an option to book a ride with Uber which shows up in the public transportation pane. It shows an estimated pick up time, time to destination and fare. It shows estimates only on its Uber X service and not its low-cost service Uber Go and its high-end service Uber Black. Note you have to have the Uber application installed on your phone for the integration to work.
The feature makes sense considering that Uber is a Google Ventures-backed company and Google has invested $258 million. In November last year, Uber had said that the feature is currently live in over 30 cities across the world, although none of the Indian cities were included in the list at the time.
Google vs Uber
However, there have been some interesting developments and there are reports which point out that Google is developing a cab-hailing service using its driverless car project. Uber earlier this month signed an exclusive alliance with Carnegie Mellon University for the creation of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, near the CMU campus. The research centre will focus on primarily in the areas of mapping and vehicle safety and autonomy technology.
