Rideshare Experiment #3
Last night my whole family abandoned me!
My wife was in Rhinebeck, #1 son Miami, #2 son, the OTHER Miami (Ohio), #3 son, the world's loudest Sweet 16 party. So, conditions were perfect for my next rideshare experiment.
Friday night is allegedly high demand time. I started at 7pm after dropping my son off. I chose Uber because I didn't want to end in in NYC or my son would have to call an Uber to get him home!
I'm not going to bother with the math. Suffice to say, again, I didn't make any money. 6 trips. Almost 3 hours of driving. $36.52 gross revs. In addition, I ended up 20+ miles from my home.
But I did uncover some interesting nuggets...
Number One, Uber is simply too cheap. It's confirmd. I have read about the complaints from drivers and seen the infamous Kalanick video shouting match. But it's true.
Number Two. I drove 51 miles with the meter on but just under 30 miles WITH passengers. So, the distance you must drive to pick someone up, in my case 40% of the drive distance, is dead money. And I'm not even including the 20 miles I had to travel to get home once I was off the clock. Yes, I tried the 'pick up someone on your way home' feature but again, crickets.
Number Three, surge zones tend to be clustered in urban areas. They show up on the app - this was the first time I saw them. 1.3X in and around Newark. Didn't really seem like enough of an uplift to venture that far east.
Number Five, Uber's navigation is not very good. Apparently you can use Waze but I wish I could simply use the BMW nav which, in my vehicle is heads up. I actually was forced to at one point because Uber refused to plot a route.
Number Five, people are really NICE. Even when the app got us waylaid on my way to Kean, folks were nice. Yeah, we get it. My Dad drives Uber the kid said...
But back to the economics, or the lack thereof. They don't work, at least not in a suburban environment. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you think you can make a living or even supplement a living, think again.
At this point, I'm not sure if there will be an experiment #4. I'm tempted to try driving in the Hoboken/JC area during a surge. Perhaps a large number of short, surge trips will tip the scales. But at what risk? Chances of an accident increase (albeit much like Raymond Babbit, I'm an excellent driver) as does the chances of getting caught in traffic or getting sent across the Hudson (although I am convinced folks have figured out Lyft is the app of choice for that).
Finally, on the positive side, I started a new screenplay with the protagonist being a driver. In fact, I was channeling him last night as I drove. What would Bobby do (that's his name), I thought.
I'm not sure exactly where the story is going but I think it's going to end badly...
My wife was in Rhinebeck, #1 son Miami, #2 son, the OTHER Miami (Ohio), #3 son, the world's loudest Sweet 16 party. So, conditions were perfect for my next rideshare experiment.
Friday night is allegedly high demand time. I started at 7pm after dropping my son off. I chose Uber because I didn't want to end in in NYC or my son would have to call an Uber to get him home!
I'm not going to bother with the math. Suffice to say, again, I didn't make any money. 6 trips. Almost 3 hours of driving. $36.52 gross revs. In addition, I ended up 20+ miles from my home.
But I did uncover some interesting nuggets...
Number One, Uber is simply too cheap. It's confirmd. I have read about the complaints from drivers and seen the infamous Kalanick video shouting match. But it's true.
Number Two. I drove 51 miles with the meter on but just under 30 miles WITH passengers. So, the distance you must drive to pick someone up, in my case 40% of the drive distance, is dead money. And I'm not even including the 20 miles I had to travel to get home once I was off the clock. Yes, I tried the 'pick up someone on your way home' feature but again, crickets.
Number Three, surge zones tend to be clustered in urban areas. They show up on the app - this was the first time I saw them. 1.3X in and around Newark. Didn't really seem like enough of an uplift to venture that far east.
Number Five, Uber's navigation is not very good. Apparently you can use Waze but I wish I could simply use the BMW nav which, in my vehicle is heads up. I actually was forced to at one point because Uber refused to plot a route.
Number Five, people are really NICE. Even when the app got us waylaid on my way to Kean, folks were nice. Yeah, we get it. My Dad drives Uber the kid said...
But back to the economics, or the lack thereof. They don't work, at least not in a suburban environment. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you think you can make a living or even supplement a living, think again.
At this point, I'm not sure if there will be an experiment #4. I'm tempted to try driving in the Hoboken/JC area during a surge. Perhaps a large number of short, surge trips will tip the scales. But at what risk? Chances of an accident increase (albeit much like Raymond Babbit, I'm an excellent driver) as does the chances of getting caught in traffic or getting sent across the Hudson (although I am convinced folks have figured out Lyft is the app of choice for that).
Finally, on the positive side, I started a new screenplay with the protagonist being a driver. In fact, I was channeling him last night as I drove. What would Bobby do (that's his name), I thought.
I'm not sure exactly where the story is going but I think it's going to end badly...
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