Uber Pool purportedly "allows you to share your ride and split the cost of your trip with another Uber rider headed in the same direction," and yet this seems like a rather inefficient routing method. The problem being solved is which route, when added to the existing combined (all riders in car) route of all surrounding drivers, plus the additional route section of getting the car to the rider, yields a total route that has the least time/distance/cost, or otherwise makes the riders the happiest.
While I can think of a number of different approaches here, none of them would be finding "another Uber rider headed in the same direction." What's going on here?