Uber competitor Lyft introduces new fare-splitting feature for riders

Lyft, the “Carstached” ride-sharing startup, has just introduced a long-awaited feature to its official iOS app.

Lyft’s chief competitor, Uber, has offered fare-splitting since July last year. And now, Lyft has begun providing the option to its riders as well through its iPhone app. As it notes in a new blog post:

To start dividing and conquering, open the ride options menu and select ‘Split payment.’ Invite up to five friends from your Contacts list, then wait for them to accept the split in their app. It’s fast, secure, and super easy.

As indicated in the image above, a $0.25 fee is applied when Lyft’s fare-splitting feature is used.

In any case, the addition of the feature is a welcome one, as it enables riders to split charges using the Lyft app itself, instead of using a third-party peer-to-peer money transfer service such as that offered by Google Wallet, PayPal, or Venmo.