Everything old is new again with rideshare company Lyft at San Diego Airport. The company is using San Diego for a pilot program in which Lyft users will be asked to go to a specially designated taxi line to meet up with a driver.
Rather than pairing with a driver while you're still in the terminal, Lyft is trying out the old-fashioned taxi line method to increase the efficiency of the system — and presumably decrease traffic when Lyft drivers sit idling waiting for confused passengers who are at the wrong door, curb, or terminal.
As Lyft announced in a blog post Monday, the new system will begin testing at San Diego Airport's Terminal 2 in mid-May. It works like this: Riders will log into the app and notify it that they need a Lyft from the airport, and they will be directed to a specific curbside line. There, riders will join a physical line, and when they are matched a driver, they simply give the driver a four-digit code that's been sent to them by the app. The code will then link up their account to the driver's queue, and the ride can begin.
Lyft tells Pacific San Diego in a statement that it chose San Diego as the test site for this pilot program because it was the airport's "CEO Kim Becker’s approach to innovation that allowed us to get this pilot off the ground."
There is of course a regular taxi stand at each of San Diego Airport's terminals, should you want to go the old-old-school route.