Uber is taking a surprisingly low-tech turn, installing physical kiosks that let travelers request rides without opening the app or even owning a smartphone. The move effectively brings the ride-hailing giant back into the world of walk-up transportation, targeting people who have been left out of the app economy or stranded by dead batteries and spotty data connections.
By planting these machines in airports and other busy hubs, Uber is betting that a simple touchscreen and a credit card reader can solve some of the most frustrating pain points in modern travel. It is also quietly redrawing the line between traditional taxi stands and digital ride-hailing, one kiosk at a time.
Uber’s new kiosks: what they are and where they are appearing
Uber is rolling out kiosks that function as physical booking points, giving travelers a way to request rides without pulling out a phone at all. The company has described the machines as a way to help people who do not have the app, do not have mobile data, or simply prefer a more familiar, in-person style of ordering a car, a shift that turns a purely digital service into something you can walk up to and use like an ATM. Early deployments focus on airport terminals, where the chaos of arrivals, luggage, and jet lag makes a straightforward, on-the-spot ride option especially appealing.
The first wave of these kiosks is concentrated in major travel hubs, with Uber highlighting installations at LaGuardia in New York and tests at other international gateways. Reporting on the program notes that the machines are designed to let travelers book rides without a phone, a feature that is particularly useful for visitors who land without local service or a compatible device, and that the initiative was detailed by Author Melissa Hernandez De La Cruz Publis as part of a broader push to make the service more accessible.
LaGuardia and New York as the launchpad
New York’s LaGuardia Airport is the flagship site for Uber’s kiosk experiment, turning one of the country’s most heavily trafficked gateways into a test bed for phone-free ride hailing. The company has promoted the LaGuardia installation as its first-ever airport kiosk, a proof of concept that shows how a physical terminal can slot into the existing pickup zones and ride-hail staging areas without forcing travelers to navigate a new app or interface on their own devices.
Coverage of the rollout underscores that the rideshare giant plans to install physical kiosks at places like airports, starting with LaGuardia in New York, and that the machines are equipped with a credit card reader and a receipt printer so the experience feels familiar to anyone who has used a ticketing kiosk. Uber has also highlighted LaGuardia in social posts, describing how the first kiosk is now live at the Airport and positioning it as the start of a broader plan to revolutionize airport transportation, a message reinforced in a video that shows the Uber Airport terminal in action.
How the kiosk experience works for travelers
At the heart of the kiosk concept is a streamlined flow that mirrors the app without requiring any downloads or logins. A traveler walks up, selects a pickup point and destination on a touchscreen, chooses a vehicle type, and pays on the spot, with the machine handling the rest of the transaction. The interface is designed to be intuitive for people who may never have used Uber before, borrowing from the step-by-step logic of existing ride-hailing guides that walk users through entering locations, confirming fares, and waiting for a driver.
The process echoes the way traditional app users are told to Choose their vehicle type and confirm details, but it compresses those decisions into a single public screen instead of a private smartphone. In practice, that means Different riders can still pick between options like a standard car or a larger vehicle, and You get a printed receipt and on-screen confirmation instead of a push notification. The goal is to make the kiosk feel like a natural extension of the Uber experience, only anchored in hardware that anyone can approach.
Who benefits most from phone-free ride booking
The most obvious winners from Uber’s kiosk strategy are travelers who are not fully plugged into the smartphone ecosystem. International visitors who arrive without roaming, older passengers who are uncomfortable installing new apps, and people whose phones are lost, dead, or out of storage all gain a way to access a ride without navigating app stores or data plans. For them, a physical terminal in the arrivals hall can be the difference between a confusing hunt for a taxi and a predictable, card-based transaction that feels closer to buying a train ticket.
Reporting on the LaGuardia deployment notes that the kiosk offers a phone-free, app-free, data-plan-free way to request a ride, giving International travelers a low-tech path to an Uber that does not depend on local SIM cards or Wi-Fi. The company itself has framed the machines as a way to serve people who might otherwise be excluded from app-based services, and the design of the interface, with large buttons and clear prompts, reflects that accessibility focus.
Beyond LaGuardia: airports, hotels, and ports in Uber’s sights
Uber is not stopping at a single New York terminal. The company has outlined plans to seed kiosks across a wider network of high-traffic locations, effectively turning them into a new front door for its service wherever large numbers of people arrive without prearranged ground transportation. Airports are the first priority, but the strategy also extends to hotels, cruise ports, and other hubs where travelers often queue for taxis or shuttle buses and may be open to a more predictable, app-style ride.
In its announcement, Uber described how the ridesharing company plans to install kiosks at airports, hotels, ports and more in the coming months, and that this expansion was detailed on a Tuesday announcement that framed the kiosks as a way to let people order rides without the app. Parallel reporting on the broader rollout emphasizes that the rideshare giant plans to install physical kiosks at places like airports, starting with LaGuardia in New York, and that each machine includes a credit card reader and receipt printer to support walk-up payments, a detail reinforced in coverage that describes how New York is serving as the launch market for a much larger footprint.
Pearson Airport and the global test bed
Toronto’s Pearson Airport shows how quickly the kiosk idea is spreading beyond a single U.S. city. There, Uber is testing machines that let arriving passengers book a ride on the spot, without using their phones at all. The setup mirrors the LaGuardia model, with kiosks placed in visible areas of the terminal so travelers can walk up, enter their details, and secure a car without needing to download anything or worry about international roaming charges.
Local reporting notes that Pearson Airport is now testing out Uber kiosks that allow travelers to book their ride home right on the spot, without using their phones, and that Uber sees this as a way to capture demand from people who might otherwise default to a taxi queue. By positioning the kiosks as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, the app, Uber is effectively running a live experiment in how much latent demand exists among travelers who are willing to use the service but have never taken the step of installing it.
How kiosks fit into the wider ride-hailing ecosystem
Uber’s hardware push does not exist in a vacuum. Other mobility services have already experimented with phone-light or phone-free booking flows, particularly in contexts where riders may have limited digital access. On Oahu, for example, the holoholo Assist service lets people book non-emergency medical transportation online or via an app, but it also allows riders to request a trip without signing up, as long as they enter a mobile phone number so the driver can reach them. That hybrid approach, which blends web-based booking with minimal registration, shows how companies are trying to meet riders where they are rather than forcing everyone into a single app funnel.
The holoholo Assist model illustrates how You can book online or via the app, and that When you request a ride online, you do not need to sign up, you Just enter in a mobile phone number and trip details on the holoholo Assist site. Uber’s kiosks take that logic a step further by removing the need for any personal device at all, but the underlying principle is similar: reduce friction, simplify onboarding, and make it possible for someone with limited tech literacy or connectivity to still access a ride.
Lessons from other kiosk systems and digital booking tools
To understand where Uber’s kiosks might be headed, it helps to look at how other sectors have used similar machines to offload routine transactions. State motor vehicle departments, for instance, have spent years installing self-service terminals that let people renew registrations, print records, or update information without waiting in line for a clerk. Those systems have trained the public to expect that certain bureaucratic tasks can be handled quickly at a screen, as long as they bring the right documents and follow clear prompts.
Guidance from California’s DMV explains that for a Driver’s Record, people should Bring a driver’s license or identification card, and that for a Vehicle Record they need the license plate number and the last five digits of the vehicle identification number. That level of specificity, baked into the kiosk interface and signage, is what makes the experience predictable. Uber’s machines will need a similar clarity about what riders must provide, whether that is a credit card, a phone number for driver contact, or a confirmation code, if they are to become a trusted part of the travel routine rather than a confusing novelty.
What this means for app design and future ride booking
Even as Uber experiments with physical kiosks, the core logic of ride-hailing still lives in software that calculates fares, matches drivers, and estimates arrival times. Taxi and ride-booking platforms have spent years refining these flows so that users can schedule a ride instantly by entering pickup and drop-off locations, see a price, and watch a car approach on a map. The kiosk interface is essentially a new skin on top of that same engine, one that trades personal customization for public simplicity.
Industry descriptions of on-demand taxi platforms emphasize that Users may schedule a ride instantly by inputting their pick-up and drop-off locations, with the app calculating the ride fare and giving the driver an approximate time of arrival. Uber’s kiosks plug directly into that logic, only the screen is mounted in an airport terminal instead of in someone’s hand. Once a ride is booked, the back-end behaves much like any other trip, with the driver receiving details and the rider getting some form of confirmation, whether that is a printed ticket or a text message.
How confirmation and communication might work without an app
One of the biggest questions around phone-free booking is how riders receive updates about their car. In a traditional app flow, the software sends push notifications when a driver is assigned, when the car is approaching, and when it has arrived. Without that channel, kiosks have to rely on more old-fashioned methods, such as printed receipts with vehicle details, on-screen instructions to wait in a specific zone, or optional text messages to a basic mobile number that does not require data or a smartphone.
Other ride services offer a glimpse of how this might function. Ola, for example, explains that You will receive a booking confirmation on your App screen and that Ride details will be shared with you via push notification 10 minutes prior to the pickup time, a pattern described in its App Ride support guidance. Uber’s kiosks cannot lean on push alerts in the same way, so they will likely depend more heavily on printed instructions and clear signage at pickup zones, with optional SMS updates for those who can receive them, blending digital coordination with analog wayfinding.
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