Jasmine Song, special to wtop.com
WASHINGTON — Move over Lyft and Uber, a new car service has made its way to D.C.
London based Green Tomato Cars launched in March 2006 and picked the District to test its success in a U.S. market.
The company’s vice president and co-founder, Jonny Goldstone, says the minicab service offers something other car services in the area don’t.
“We’re an environmentally friendly sedan service,” Goldstone says. “Apart from the environment, we focus on excellent customer service, competitive, transparent pricing [and] we have fully licensed, insured vehicles and drivers.”
While other car services such as Uber and Lyft operate using a more simple model, Green Tomato hopes to bring better quality service and maintain sustainability.
“With Uber and Lyft…you don’t really know about the driver or the state of the vehicle that is coming for you,” Goldstone says. “With us, we own our vehicles so we know exactly how well they’ve been looked after, they’re all less than a year old and it means we also know exactly who’s driving them.”
Green tomato hopes to satisfy customers who want higher quality service but don’t want to pay for a limo.
Although Virginia does not permit Uber and Lyft to operate within the state, Green Tomato obtained operating licenses in both Virginia and Maryland.
“I think we’ll prove the model will be successful within the next three to six months,” Goldstone says. “We’re looking at quite an aggressive ramp-up here before we start looking at cities to follow on from D.C.”
Costs for the service vary depending on location of the rider and where they’re going. Trips to the airport in the region range from $50 to $70.
An app for Green Tomato can be downloaded for both Apple and Android devices.
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