Lyft to Start Adding Licensed Taxis to Rideshare Platform

Lyft is set to start rolling out a feature that will let riders opt in to be matched with a licensed taxi when that vehicle can get there faster than a rideshare one.

The company will launch this feature in St. Louis on May 5, Bloomberg reported Thursday (April 24), saying the rideshare company confirmed this plan after the feature was discovered within the code of its mobile app.

“We’re always exploring new ways to help riders get to the people and places they love,” the company said, per the report. “We’re excited to launch taxis onto our platform in St. Louis, which marks our first taxi integration in the U.S.”

Users who opt in to this feature may be picked up in a taxi when they request certain kinds of rides, and they will be able to pay, tip and submit a rating for the cab within the Lyft app, just as they can for a rideshare vehicle, according to the report.

Rival rideshare service Uber has long included taxis in its platform in select markets in the U.S. and overseas, the report said. Uber lets riders specify whether they want a taxi instead of a rideshare vehicle, while Lyft may dispatch either kind of vehicle to those who opt in.

Lyft said April 16 that it is expanding into Europe with its $197 million purchase of FreeNow, a Germany-based company offering a taxi app, from BMW and Mercedes-Benz Mobility.

The company said the acquisition will allow it to fuel growth in more than 150 European cities and is expected to almost double Lyft’s total addressable market to more than 300 billion personal vehicle trips per year.

In February Lyft reported that it saw a 15% year-over-year increase in fourth quarter bookings, bringing in $4.3 billion. The company said this increase was powered by a 15% increase in rides, totaling 218.5 million, and a 10% rise in active riders, reaching 24.7 million — the highest in Lyft’s history.

“We’re seeing great demand,” Lyft CEO David Risher said Feb. 11 during the company’s quarterly earnings call. “We’re super excited about what lies ahead.”