New ride-hailing apps will get kids to soccer and school

Image: bob al-greene / mashable

Welcome to Small Humans, an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’s 2018 and we have the entire internet to contend with.

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Last year a survey from a kid ride-sharing service found that nearly 40 percent of parents with kids between the ages of 6 and 17 spend more than 5 hours a week driving their kids to school and activities. With only 168 hours in a week, offloading that time to a car service can seem like a saving grace. 

So several companies have stepped up to shuttle your kids around for you. Despite Uber and Lyft’s popularity, they and similar ride-hailing apps don’t allow unaccompanied minors. So that leaves parents depending on carpools, favors from other parents, or buckling in for another soccer practice run. That’s where so-called kid-friendly car services offer another way to get kids where they need to go — without parents involved.

Just like Lyft and Uber are car services intended for adults, there are apps made with kids as the primary customer. These can work since the drivers meet state and local requirements for transporting young people. The companies require extensive background checks, fingerprinting, and clean driving records, along with other standards about driving habits and vehicle condition. 

Parents using the apps can track where and when kids got picked up in real-time and see when they make it to their destination. It’s like when a friend sends over their ride so you can track when they’ll finally meet up.

The kid-friendly ride-hailing scene is still fairly small and mostly found in a few major metro areas across the U.S. For those determined to find a Lyft-like service for your kids here are some of the apps available.

A bit less “on-demand” than Uber and Lyft, but the app lets a parent or caregiver schedule pick-ups for kids age six and up, whether it be from school or swim lessons. A CareDriver will pick up your kid and you get notified when you schedule who will be driving. Once the ride is in progress you can track the it and see where they’re headed. 

Similar to HSD, Zūm gives adults scheduling power for planned pick-ups with one-time or consistent rides. The minimum age is five. 

Earlier this month Zūm announced its expansion into the Los Angeles area. It also signed service agreements with more than 100 new school districts in the past year. Schools use the service as a bus alternative.

Another child pick-up service that lets parents schedule rides and track pick-ups, Kango has a monthly subscription fee on top of individual ride fares that parents pay through the app after a ride is complete. Rides are available for children two and older, and booster and car seats are available for no extra charge. 

Several cities have car services for kids that only operate in that location, like Bubbl in Dallas with off-duty police officers as drivers or Kid Car in New York. Then there’s the world of kid carpool services. It takes a village.

BYO Carseat

You can always ride with your kids in a Lyft or Uber, even if you’re traveling with youngsters who require a car seat, though you may have to bring it yourself.

Uber has a special forward-facing car seat option you can request in the app, but it’s only available in a handful of cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. It’s known as “Uber Car Seat” and adds a $10 surcharge to UberX rides.

Lyft also has a car seat mode for children over a year old, but only in New York City. For riders there you can select a “car seat” ride type in the app. It’s also an additional $10 for the seat, which is an IMMI Go forward-facing car seat.

You can bring your own car seat (or booster seat) for your kids to ride in. Uber said riders who have one can put them into cars they order, no extra charge, but your kids are still considered a separate passenger so if you’re in a shared ride your child is charged as a second person.

As you were probably expecting, there’s no easy (or cheap) solution.

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