Photo by Brittany Guerin| The Signal
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) riders can now use in-vehicle Wi-Fi to hail Uber for their next destination.
MARTA leaders announced in a media briefing on July 23 that new additions, including free Wi-Fi on all buses and a budding partnership with Uber, are coming, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC).
MARTA’s Communication’s Manager Alisa T. Jackson clarified that the free Wi-Fi and Uber-partnership are unrelated and will be paid for separately.
“Customers will have to pay their fare to ride MARTA and then they will have to pay the cost of their Uber ride,” she said.
The partnership will give MARTA users a discount if they ride both MARTA and Uber in one trip.
“For the first ride a MARTA customer takes connecting to Uber with this new promotion, there is a maximum $20 discount,” Jackson said. “After the initial discount, then customers will pay whatever the amount is for using Uber to get to their destination.”
The transit authority’s Chief Information Officer Sarah Hsi said the free Wi-Fi will be paid by funding from MARTA’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP).
MARTA’s CIP is an annually updated plan for construction, maintenance, and renovation of Atlanta public facilities and infrastructure, which shows the predicted financial amount to be spent on capital projects over the next five years, according to the Atlanta Government.
Hsi also said Wi-Fi will come from existing components on buses.
“Wi-Fi on buses for riders leverages the existing infrastructure that was put in last year for the [surveillance] cameras on vehicles initiative,” Hsi said.
That means MARTA is using available bandwidth and infrastructure from surveillance cameras to make it available for Wi-Fi, according to Jackson.
The Uber-partnership allows MARTA users to use Uber for last-mile connectivity, which means Uber will take users the rest of the way if MARTA’s route doesn’t cover it, according to Jackson.
Georgia State sophomore Isaac Dolan said the new Wi-Fi additions and the MARTA-Uber partnership won’t change his MARTA riding habits.
“I think it might expand the people that use MARTA by a small margin, but I believe that it won’t play that big of a role in adding to their numbers. It’ll be more of a perk for people that already use it,” Dolan said.
The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has also started a similar partnership with Uber this past spring, according to Jackson.
