Uber offers free rides in Macomb as it takes on the taxi companies

Uber promotional photo of one of the company's drivers

Uber, the ride-sharing service that is outcompeting taxi companies across the nation, is aggressively establishing a big footprint in the Detroit area and across Michigan.
Uber's latest move to establish itself as an alternative to traditional public transportation is a pilot project to offer free rides to the courthouse for those called to jury duty in Macomb County Circuit Court.

Here's a portion of the story I wrote (a first-person account) about the Uber experience for Deadline Detroit:

Mike White, Michigan general manager for Uber, said the jury-duty program, the first of its kind in the nation, likely will be expanded beyond its initial 60 days once the company takes a closer look at the outcome and compiles statistics. Uber paid the drivers who gave free rides. 
“Right now, I’m really optimistic about extending it,” Smith said. “Overall … so far we’ve received really positive feedback. It just makes jury service less painful.”
But jury duty is only one of many unfamiliar or difficult destinations for short-distance travelers where Uber’s for-hire vehicles might take advantage of the Detroit area’s notoriously mediocre transit, particularly the bus service within the city and the taxi service in the outer suburbs.
The question: Can Uber, and a competing ride-sharing firm called Lyft, alter the small universe of publicly-used transportation in southeast Michigan?
The Macomb program coincides with Uber hitting a milestone 27 months after its Michigan debut, marking its 2 millionth ride, provided earlier this month.  The company serves six metropolitan areas in the state – Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint, Lansing, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids – and it has widened its ridership area in Metro Detroit, from Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River west to Detroit Metro Airport and Washtenaw County and north into the far reaches of Macomb and Oakland counties.

You can read more here.