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BENGALURU: Taxi-hailing app Uber will be rolling out UberPool in Bengaluru in the coming weeks, making it the first city in India chosen for its car-pooling pilot. With UberPool, riders can share a ride and split the cost with another person who happens to be requesting a ride along a similar route. Uber will notify users with the co-riders' first name. Riders can save up to 50% while adding only a few minutes of time per trip.

UberPool will launch soon in beta in select cities in India, starting with Bangalore, to gain insights from commuter adoption and usage. The service is currently present in San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Austin and Paris and assists commuters to get around their cities, reducing the number of cars on the road, congestion in cities and parking challenge.

Following the recent car-pooling initiative by the Bangalore Traffic Police to increase the utilization of cars on the road, Uber's carpooling service will make an attempt to make fewer cars on roads a reality. Bhavik Rathod, GM Bangalore, Uber said, "India is a top global priority for Uber along with China and UberPool. Today, we're thrilled to announce that we'll be bringing UberPool to India very soon."

"With UberPool we'll aim to achieve this vision, one we share with policy makers, to make Bangalore a city of the future -- one that looks a whole lot greener, cleaner, and more efficient thanks to fewer cars and more shared rides," he said.

In San Francisco, for instance, UberPool continues to be one of the most affordable and popular ways for riders to get around the city. Uber said that riders taking UberPool in San Francisco have also saved nearly 200,000 gallons of gas.

Uber that was launched in India less than two years ago, is available in 22 Indian cities -- more than in any other country outside the US. It has 1.65 lakh drivers on its platform.