Uber crosses continents with Istanbul water-taxi service

Uber Technologies Inc. is expanding its signature app-based taxi service to the world’s waterways, facilitating intercontinental travel.

The service, known as UberBOAT, is currently in use in Istanbul, Turkey – one of the world’s most traffic-congested cities – to ferry passengers between Asia and Europe via the city’s Bosphorus strait. Costs start at $19 per passenger, with a route from one popular Istanbul hotel to the coastline nearest the city’s airport running about $150.

Similar to Uber’s automotive transportation model, UberBOAT has a dedicated app that informs users near the Bosphorus of available taxis, according to Bloomberg Business. Contracted mariners then shuttle between seven and 10 passengers per craft to their destination via Beneteau motorboats.

The service was tested in the summer of 2014 in Baltimore, Boston, Amsterdam, Sydney and Muskoka, Canada, as well as Uber’s homebase of San Francisco, according to reports from Forbes.
 
Read more from Bloomberg Business.