Palo Alto Link

The service does what it says it does. Gives you a ride from Palo Alto to anywhere in Palo Alto during daytime hours. The driver was courteous and came within 7 minutes. App is modern and shows driver location when picking up. Note that they do not go door-to-door, but “corner to corner”, so I had to walk to the end of my street to pick up the ride and walk the half block to my final destination. not an issue for me, but may be for people with mobility limitations. cost about half as much as an Uber Wood. The driver said they also serve kids and teens. So this is a good option for kids needing to get across town that carry a smartphone. They also accept cash.

Easy and quick. I’ve never waited very long for a ride, and I find it to be reliable. I don’t mind a little walking, for such a reasonable fare. It’s also nice to know I can be picked up when I am ready, as opposed to trying to schedule everything based on a bus schedule.

This app is useless if you are commuting via Caltrain. Due to its "integration" feature it automatically plots all routes to include any bus stop within 0.5 miles of your pickup location, regardless of where you're final destination is. It doesn't bother to weigh the amount of time it's going to take you to walk to/from each of these bus stops versus a direct route by one of the actual vehicles picking you up and getting you to your destination directly. For example, I'm trying to catch a ride from the Palo Alto Caltrain to the Stanford Eye Institute on Embarcadero. No matter where I place the pickup location, it keeps trying to reroute me to ride the 280 bus instead of actually picking me up directly. In every instance, the bus doesn't even get you there directly. You'll have to walk an additional 15 minutes after it drops you off. tl;dr: don't bother using this app if you are a commuter