Virgin Trains launches new partnership with Uber to encourage people to leave their cars at home

Virgin Trains is today launching a new partnership with Uber to enable passengers to easily request a ride to the station and on arrival at their destination. This partnership with Uber is part of Virgin Trains’ ambition to provide customers with a smooth and seamless journey from door-to-door, encouraging more people to leave their own cars at home. From today, customers buying their train ticket on the Virgin Trains website will have the option to receive an SMS reminder with a link to book an Uber trip to the station and at the end of their Virgin Trains journey. The offer will only be valid for outbound journeys and not the return leg.  

There will be a two-week testing period and Virgin says that “This marks the beginning of broader plans to continue optimising passenger journeys and improving customer satisfaction before, during, and after they travel.”

Passengers who select the Uber option will be eligible for 50% off their first Uber journey up to a maximum value of £10. This will initially be available for customers travelling either from London Euston to Birmingham New Street or from Birmingham New Street to London Euston, with roll-out across other Virgin Trains stations on the West Coast in the coming months. Sarah Copley, Executive Director, Commercial at Virgin Trains,said: “We know that tackling the first and final mile is critical to opening up rail travel to new customers. Our exciting new partnership with Uber is the next step in making this end to end journey easy and seamless for customers.” Fred Jones, Head of Cities at Uber, commented: “In order to make it easy to leave your own car at home, we want door-to-door experiences to be as seamless and convenient as possible. This partnership with Virgin Train is an exciting first step towards offering customers an easy way to combine train and car travel at the touch of a button.”