SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A new rideshare service has entered the Sacramento marketplace with company drivers and a fleet of vehicles comprised exclusively of Teslas.
The startup “Go360” held a launch ceremony in downtown Sacramento, Friday March 6. The service offers users a new take on the rideshare industry with specific vehicles and company-employed drivers who receive hourly pay and benefits, innovations created to comply with California Assembly Bill 5.
The company, part of the University of California, Berkeley’s SkyDeck program, chose Sacramento because of the city’s welcoming attitude to new ways of travel.
“Sacramento is the perfect launching point for new mobility companies,” Barry Broome, President and CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, said in a press release. “Mayor Darrell Steinberg is helping to make Sacramento the next innovation hub for new mobility ideas and we are excited for Go 360 to be part of the tech growth in our region.”
According to a company press release, Go360 is aimed at users who are traveling around the “dense, urban areas” of Sacramento, i.e. “The Grid." In fact, the service “blacklists” areas of high traffic, such as highways and on-ramps, “allowing the routing algorithm to leverage the free flow of inner city roads.”
Because the service operates within strict boundaries, the company claims that drivers are always close by and customers will only have to wait a maximum of five minutes. They also say it keeps trip time estimates accurate.
“By keeping vehicles in a certain geographic area, Go360 optimizes for filling cars, picking up and dropping off multiple passengers along dynamically-computed routes without incurring overhead. Our technology improves overall travel times while keeping costs affordable,” company CEO Sravan Puttagunta said in the release.
With a subscription, rides average $2.50 per trip with up to four trips per day. Other in-app perks include setting your own A/C preference and even creating a music playlist for your ride, according to a company promotion video.
Go360 has been beta testing in Sacramento since November 2019. If successful, the company plans to expand to other area cities like Davis, Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland.
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