We’re finally going to be able to book Ubers in advance

From 4pm today, the function will be available to Uber for business customers and it will be steadily rolled out for the rest of us Londoners over the next two weeks. Uber will hope that some of those people will be tempted over onto its platform as a result of the new feature.

London will be the first major European city to get the feature after the company trialled a “soft launch” in the United States earlier this year. So instead of tapping a button a few minutes before you need your ride, you can now tell us hours or days in advance when you need a auto and we’ll do it for you. This raises the possibility that the company will soon expand the feature to other countries and cities. Will you be using scheduled rides to book your Uber in advance?

London is the first European city to get the “Scheduled Rides” feature. Travellers will be able to schedule a lift from 15 minutes up until one month in advance.

Many people now use rivals such as Addison Lee, Gett and other private mini cab companies to book rides in advance when they don’t want to rely on an Uber being available at the time they want to travel.

The move will provide further competition for existing taxi services in the city and could potentially play a part in putting them out of business for good.

However, speculations suggest that the book-in-advance feature will most likely operate on surge-price policies.

For example, if you’re heading to the airport, you don’t necessarily want to wake up at 4am to see there’s a long wait for cars in your area, especially with the first driver who accepts the ride often cancelling on you. There are chances this may make customers reluctant to blindly book a ride one month in advance.