Payment/ride summary: July 18-24

Not a very busy week this week - well, except for the fact that I was too busy to post this earlier. So I guess busy, but not driving for Uber busy. :)

3.76 hours online, 8 trips, 4.9 stars total rating. 92% acceptance rate and 2 driver cancelations (because they keep sending me UberXL fares, dangit!). Those 4.9 stars brought me back down to 4.93 overall, so sad.

The most interesting thing I learned last week was that the PoolPass program that Uber is running in Boston (and possibly other cities, I'm too lazy to look it up. Internets are hard) does, in fact, still pay the driver regular fares, not the $0.01 fares that riders pay for their rides from the pass. I figured that had to be the case, but I had never had a rider I knew was using the pass until this week, when I took a pool rider from downtown out to Brookline. The fare (before toll - not sure how that works with the pass) was $12.06, netting me $10.29 (including the toll). The pool pass math definitely works out well if you use that trip as your basis, I've got to say. But you know my thoughts on UberPOOL.

UberPOOL - great for riders, not so much for drivers

With UberPOOL, riders with 1 or 2 passengers and a pre-determined destination can save money and eliminate ambiguity by paying a set fare, with the understanding that they may be matched with other riders along the way. Uber sells this to riders as a great way to save money, and sells it to drivers as a way to make more money by being more busy.

While it is certainly true that it can keep you active and on paying rides longer, a big problem with UberPOOL from a driver's perspective is those set fares. The actual fare calculation is opaque to both driver and rider - it's not at all clear what time and distance are being factored in. What this means is that if you hit traffic, or need to take a longer route due to traffic or construction, there's no adjustment. You're still getting paid based on the rider's pre-set fare.

Additionally, that "longer trips" logic doesn't quite work out, because when you're being diverted off the route the rider did pay for to go pick up another rider, you're not being paid for that - neither rider's fare includes it. Sure, it's possible you would have been off-fare entirely during that time and not being paid for that as well, but it's certain that you're taking longer to get the one (low) fare you are getting to their destination, and thus missing out on possible revenue.

Finally, the rate is just plain lower, whatever it is (see above about opaque fares) - Uber is again incentivized incorrectly - they make their flat reservation fee on every ride, plus their percentage, they're not paying a portion of vehicle upkeep, gas, etc, which is what the fare calculation is supposed to include.

Bottom line, I think UberPOOL is a pretty bum deal for drivers. If I could opt out of it, I might, though Uber is pushing it so hard with promotions like a PoolPass in Boston that I'd be a little bit afraid of missing out.

Payment/ride summary: July 11-17

Woot, pay day! I was online 14.82 hours last week, completed 44 trips, and got all 5 stars, supposedly. Total earnings were $279.70. That said, my rating actually went down and then up during the week - I have 5 4-star ratings now, instead of my old 4, which briefly brought me down to 4.93, but now I'm back up and higher at 4.95, yay!

Interesting conversation of the week award goes to the law student I had on an UberPOOL ride, who is planning to go into youth offender public defense - an extremely noble plan. He apparently helped with a bill that is/was before the Massachusetts Senate (having already passed the house) to allow youth records to be expunged at age 18, rather than the current 3 year waiting period to age 21 (I may be oversimplifying, this was a short conversation). I was horrified to hear that just being picked up by the police, even if you're never charged or even see the inside of a jail cell, can be on someone's record until three years AFTER they turn 18, and even then, expunging isn't automatic. During that time they'll potentially have to disclose that record and lose out on job opportunities, scholarships, etc. It's no wonder we have a youth crime problem when the system closes off legitimate routes for youth who may not have even done anything wrong.

Anyway, off my soapbox, that's it for this week. I should be getting approved for Lyft soon once my background check completes, and then I'll have more fun things to talk about! :)

Day 6, Night Driving Part 1 (Surge: Low)

A few weeks back, I was awake after a Red Sox night game and decided to give the late night / closing time hours a try. This is the last of my "details about all of the rides" posts (and it's out of sequence with more recent stuff), but it's got some exciting ones in it. Well, it'll probably be multiple posts, we'll see.

I picked up my first ride of the night on Huntington Ave in Boston, around 11:15pm, heading out to Somerville. This was a very nice surge, but overall a pretty quiet ride. Perhaps it was lulling me into a false sense of security...

Trip 1 earnings: $22.06

I headed back towards Boston because that seemed the likliest to have activity - no hits on the way there made me sad, but eventually I got a quick ride from Wally's Jazz Cafe to The Gallows - all in the South End, nothing exciting, again.

Trip 2 earnings: $3.75

But now it was after midnight, so the exciting started... my next ping was at Jacque's Cabaret - of course, I didn't realize that when I accepted it. But it became clear enough when I got there, from the crowd outside. And then in piled the ladies... four ladies in varying states of intoxication. They were heading over to the Cambridgeside area - okay, no problem.

Well, it was the longest 10.5 minute ride ever. :) Turns out they were a bachelorette party from New Jersey, and boy did they hit the stereotypical New Jersey accent/attitude/volume when drunk. The bride-to-be was probably the most drunk of them all, and kept addressing me as "TIMOTHY" (loudly, imagine the caps talking for real) the whole trip.

They spent much of the trip asking random questions, talking about all the ludicrous bachelorette things they were doing, inviting me back to their "afterparty" (with the more sober ones rebuking and basically retracting the invitation - don't worry Liz, I declined regardless of the number of offers :)), and discussing the show at Jacque's, and just what are drag queens, transvestites, etc. It was... entertaining. And noisy. But thankfully otherwise uneventful. A harmless example of drunken hilarity.

Trip 3 earnings: $6.11 (hardly enough for the earplugs I really needed!)

Trip 4 wasn't particularly noteworthy, a couple going from Kendall Square area to the Fenway.

Trip 4 earnings: $5.67

While I was trolling for my next trip, heading out towards Brookline because it seemed likely there'd be some college kids still going out or something (in retrospect I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense), at one point I opened up the Uber passenger app, to see how many other Ubers were around me... and literally every car I could see around me, on both sides of the road, appeared to be an Uber. Suffice to say that was my signal to turn around and get out of that hell of Ubers.

I eventually got a pick-up while still in Brookline, and they headed back where I'd started before, Kendall Square area. Again nothing exciting (aka I don't even remember any details now because I didn't write any down).

Trip 5 earnings: $7.31

I think that's enough for this post - the night wrapped up with a couple of UberPOOL trips, which can maybe fill their own post. At least, I need to pad my post count, right? ;)

100 trips! And a 5-star comment!

Went out for my usual evening tonight, waiting on a milestone - my 100th trip! I was at 99, so my first trip of the night was the ol' century. Woohoo! My very first trip was June 6th, so it took a bit over a month to hit 100 trips. Not too bad for doing it very part time.

Tonight was three different pool groupings, each with two sets of riders. Not a lot of money, $26.26 for a bit under two hours online.

Also exciting, I got my first 5-star comment! I've been pretty consistently managing the 5-star ratings - I'm currently at a 4.94 overall rating on 105 trips - 70 of which were rated, and 66 of those were 5-star. I haven't gotten a sub-5-star rating in a couple of weeks now. Tonight, though, I actually got a comment attached to a 5-star rating, which was a first! It was super exciting, too: "Thanks, Tim!" :) But it shows someone cared enough / was happy enough to type, rather than just hitting the stars. So thanks, rider!

Oh, and with all of that, my first pair of riders were quite talkative. We talked about a wide range of subjects, from Pokémon Go, to the political situation in Venezuela, to the state of the US justice system, in particular as it relates to underprivileged youth, to self-driving cars. Very interesting and totally the reason I started doing this!

Last couple of weeks' earnings

Uber issues pay statements on Mondays covering the previous Monday - Sunday period, so since I'm not doing detailed write-ups anymore (though I still owe you the post from my late night run, I know!) I'll at least try to get some interesting insights out of those for you. So, here's the last couple of weeks.

June 27 - July 3

18 trips
9 hours 32 minutes online
86% acceptance rate
0 driver cancelations
$226.70 total earnings (including $53.49 promotional/incentive credit for the outage on June 30th)
$1.25 tolls included in total earnings

July 4 - 10

24 trips
10 hours, 35 minutes online
83% acceptance rate
4 driver cancelations
$156.42 total earnings
$8.24 tolls included in total earnings

I think the driver cancelations here were largely UberXL trips that I had accidentally accepted. They may also account for my lower-than-I-would-expect acceptance rates. They had fixed my classification to stop me from getting UberXL requests, supposedly, but I'm getting them again now, so who really knows...

ZOMG Tips!

It finally happened. On my 89th trip as an Uber driver, I got my first tip! A couple of nights ago I took a couple down to Quincy, and we had a good chat on the way down, and at the end of the ride they handed me $2. Woohoo, a tip!

And then, the next day, I got another tip! Also $2, apparently when it "rains" it "pours"!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ungrateful for the tips. They're just not really something I expected - after all, as an Uber passenger, I've never really been one to tip. I've always bought Uber's line that it's part of the trip, or that they're fairly compensated. That said, I'm not so sure of that anymore. I haven't changed my behaviors as a rider, but I certainly do think about it more.

What do you think? Do you tip Uber drivers? What about Lyft, where they offer you a tipping option in the app (I'm told; I haven't ever actually ridden with Lyft)? Does that make a difference to you?

A terrible tale of misaligned incentives

After going out last evening again to a massively over-saturated Boston market, I did some thinking on the alignment of incentives in the driver/Uber/rider relationships. What I discovered is that, probably not unsurprisingly, they're really not very well aligned at all.

To think about this, let's consider the business model. Uber makes money from riders, and pays money to drivers. Uber is thus incentivized to maximize income from rides, through more rides, more expensive rides, or some combination thereof.

Riders in this ecosystem have three main motivations: fast, cheap, and safe. To meet the fast and cheap desires, Uber is incentivized to have more drivers available on the road - to increase the likelihood that there's a driver nearby when you make a request, and to avoid surge pricing (or just delays) when demand outstrips supply.

Drivers, as you might expect, want to maximize their earnings per unit time. To do this, we generally want to be giving rides as much as possible - any downtime is time we're not earning money.

And this is where the problem comes in - the drivers' and riders' motivations directly conflict, and Uber in the middle thus has to decide how to address it. Because if they put a ton of drivers on the road, over-saturating the market, riders are happy because it's easy to get rides, but drivers are sad because they each get fewer rides. If Uber puts fewer drivers on the road, demand surpasses supply, and wait times and/or prices go up. Drivers are happy because they're busy and possibly making extra money with surge pricing, but riders are unhappy and will switch to a competitor.

But wait, you say, Uber doesn't get to tell you when to drive, you told us that a long time ago! You're absolutely right, Uber can't dictate drivers' hours, that would make the relationship one of an employer, not a contractor, and that would make them very sad. However, they do have nearly infinite power to manipulate the supply of drivers.

You see, there's more than just rides and their fees when you're an Uber driver. Uber also uses a system of rewards and incentives to manipulate the supply system. In particular, in the past few weeks they have been running a "peak hours" promotion in Boston, where drivers receive an incentive payment depending on the number of rides they give during "peak hours", as defined by Uber. It turns out this is a brilliant tactic, because it causes a rush of drivers to the roads during these hours, providing an optimal rider experience, but because there are so many drivers on the road, it's very difficult for them to actually accrue the rides they need to qualify for the incentive. But we all keep trying anyway - what suckers!

At the end of the day, it's clear to me that Uber cares more about the riders than the drivers. After all, the riders are the ones paying - that makes them the customer. To Uber, I think drivers are essentially a limitless resource - if someone switches over to Lyft, or just stops driving entirely, it doesn't materially hurt them - after all, if demand is too high they'll just kick in surge pricing. If a rider leaves, though, that's actual potential money they're not going to make, and that's a problem. So it's clear where we drivers sit in the hierarchy - at the bottom.

Time to sign up for Lyft and see if they're any better. Somehow, I doubt it. :)

Blogfading...

I think I'm blogfading. I want to drive. I do drive. But I don't love writing about it. So much work. Does someone want to blog for me? :)

I think it was the Third of July (Surge: Low)

It finally happened, I drove a fellow Googler last night! Well, I guess it sort of happened before when I picked up an intern, but this one was different.

I picked up a couple along the Riverway in Boston, and we were heading to Somerville. We got off to a good start talking about the Red Sox - they had been to the game yesterday, as had I, and thankfully it was far better than the game on Saturday. As we headed along, the routing was a bit weird, and we were talking about different apps, Waze vs Google Maps in particular. I mentioned my hope that Google didn't do what they too often do and kill off Waze, and eventually my passenger mentioned something like "and I work at Google so I know about that". I then couldn't resist responding with "hey, me too!"

Then, of course, we started talking more about Google. But first there was a bit of a negotiation protocol, where the rider told me where in our Cambridge campus he worked, and I told him where I worked. I gave him a closer look in the rearview mirror and we decided that we hadn't run into each other (well, we probably have, but not knowingly, anyway). Despite the "negotiation" we still didn't talk about confidential stuff or anything, of course, but we did have some amusing discussions about internal culture stuff.

This wound up a 22 minute ride, 8.98 miles, $16.91 earned with a light surge.

As you can see from the title and date, yesterday was the 3rd of July. For those of you not from Boston, we have a huge Fourth of July concert and fireworks spectacular on the Esplanade every year (though almost every year they talk about whether or not they'll be able to find funding for the next year, and this year the chair of the organizing committee is stepping down too, so who knows). Tons of people from all around come to Boston for this event, and people were lining up early this morning of the Fourth to get in and claim their spots.

A slightly lesser-known fact, though, is that there's a dress rehearsal / preview concert on the 3rd every year. That's why we had to take a kind of crazy route for my Googler friend - they close Storrow Drive for both the preview and the real concert because it's used for the huge throngs of pedestrians. Makes getting around a bit crazy, but thankfully Waze was up to the task.

After dropping off the Googler in Somerville I got a couple of rides in the Cambridge area, and then was back to surge-hunting. A bit after 9pm the downtown area seemed to be surging, so I headed over there, despite the terror of traffic I expected due to the preview concert. It actually wasn't terrible, and when I flipped over to the rider app I didn't see a ton of Ubers flooding the streets, but I really didn't get much by way of ride requests. The only one I did get canceled on me when I was halfway through the loop I had to make to get back to them in the concert area. Fortunately, this was the first time I actually got paid the cancelation fee, so it wasn't a total loss.

I decided to move away from the insanity of the Esplanade since I wasn't getting riders, and chased more high surge into the Seaport District... but it also turned out to be a dud. I'm not sure if people are still upset about Uber's outage on Thursday, or it was just too nice of a night so folks were deciding to walk, especially when they saw the surge. It was a generally pretty quiet night in the end, but felt at least a bit better than the massive over-saturation on Saturday.

Total for the night: 3 trips (+1 cancelation), 14.26 miles of rides, $33.38 earnings (including the cancelation fee). I may go out for a bit this late morning/afternoon, not sure - it's another nice day, and traffic will be crazy, so I'm not sure how busy things will be, but I'll probably at least check out the scene.

Flooding the market (Surge: None)

I hit the road after breakfast this morning thinking that, even though it's nice weather, with all the tourists in town for the Fourth of July I should be able to at least get a decent number of trips. It turns out I was terribly, terribly wrong...

In 2.5 hours and about 38 miles of total driving, I did a total of 5 trips accounting for 12.34 of those miles and about 52 minutes of time, earning a whopping $27.20. Ugh. Demoralizing.

Worst of all, while driving I got both a text and an e-mail from Uber telling me they're doubling the referral bonus for referring new drivers in Boston this weekend. Great, like we really need more drivers on the road - we're already over-saturated!

So, I gave up and came home, back to playing video games I guess.

An UberX ride from the driver's perspective

My post about the Uber riding experience from a driver's perspective was pretty popular, so I've got another one for you in this vein - what it feels like to actually give a ride as an UberX driver!

Going online

The process starts by going online in the app, either from scratch, or automatically becoming online again after a drop-off. The Uber Partner app shows you a high-level overview of the area you're driving in in map form, with a heatmap coloring for surge pricing areas. I've found the surge indications to be a little less than perfect, in general, but they're at least something of a guide. I usually just cruise around, heading towards surges if I see any, or to areas that I suspect will have people around at the time of day I'm driving - bars/clubs at night, businesses in the early evening, etc.

The request

When a request comes in, you get a mini-map of the pick-up location in a circle, with a progress bar traveling around the circle. The progress bar is showing how long you have to accept before the trip is given to another driver. At the top of the screen it shows the type of trip (UberX, UberXL, or UberPOOL), and below the circle it shows the rider's rating and surge rate, if any.

The request coming in still gives me a little burst of higher heart rate - it's just exciting. And the pick-up is also sometimes the most stressful part of the trip for a driver. So it's a mixed blessing. But yay, time to make money soon!

Tap the request to accept, and you're on your way! Note that you're not getting paid at this point (or any of the time you were just driving around), so you want to be on trips as much as possible.

The pick-up

The app will now tell you your rider's first name (we don't get to see your picture - so I'm not quite sure why riders even have the option to set one in their profile) and the pick-up location. The "Navigate" button in the app will take you to your selected navigation app (Waze for me) with the pick-up location entered.

When I'm getting close to the pick-up, I'll generally switch from Waze back to the Uber app. The Uber app drops a pin with the user's actual entered pick-up location, which may differ slightly from the address it showed you / sent to your navigation app, so it's good to double-check. If you're lucky you can figure out the side of the street to pick up on - either from the building number or from the pin location.

This is one of the stressful parts of a ride for me - Uber makes a big deal about how much riders want a pickup right where they want it, not across the street, down the street, etc., and I know that myself as a rider as well. Street numbering is often hard to actually find, depending on the type of neighborhood, and people aren't great about putting their pins exactly where they actually want to be picked up. I know I've gained a much greater appreciation of this as a driver than I ever had as a rider.

Once you get sufficiently close to the pick-up, the Uber app will automatically notify the rider that you've arrived. There's also a button you can press to confirm your arrival if the pin location is bogus or doesn't trigger automatically for some reason - I've only ever had to use it once, though. At this point it's possible to access the rider's phone number to make a call or a text, but Uber strongly recommends you wait several minutes before contacting the rider. I generally wait 3-5 minutes, and actually have never gotten finished typing up a text message before the rider appears. :)

Speaking of text messages, Uber strongly recommends using them rather than phone calls, as riders prefer a ... less interactive ... experience. In other words, they don't want to have to talk to you. :) Of course you shouldn't text while driving, but if I'm safely pulled over waiting, and it has been a while, I will start composing a text message. As I said above, this usually guarantees the person will arrive before I finish, but that's cool.

With experience I've learned how to identify riders - generally they've got their heads on a swivel, much as I do in the car, and are looking down at their phone and back up at cars. I try to make eye contact with potential riders to help them identify me. I don't actually have my Uber "U" sticker installed in my car (I did get one in the mail after I started driving, though) because it's a bit garish for my taste, and I think Liz would kill me, but it's not required (after all, we're not employees!).

Once the rider starts heading my way, I usually make sure I've already remembered to unlock the doors, and then welcome them in when they arrive. If the position isn't dangerous, and especially if the rider has any luggage, I'll get out to help them into the car, but more often than not they're just jumping in so there's not really any time to get out and get the door.

When the rider gets in, I generally ask something like "can you confirm your name for me please?" to make sure I've got the right rider. As a rider I usually experience drivers saying "you're Tim?" or the like, but Uber actually recommends against that - the default answer is just going to be "yes" - after all, if you're in the wrong Uber, you might not have to pay for it! Sometimes I'll still greet people that way though, especially if it's in an area where there clearly aren't a ton of people waiting for Ubers, and thus lower risk of having picked up the wrong rider.

Once the rider has confirmed their name, it's time to start the trip (and start making money) by swiping the "Start trip" button in the app! That gives me the destination entered in the passenger's app, if any. If that was entered, I'll confirm it with the passenger verbally, and as long as it's good, off we go. If the passenger is confused by the destination, that's another good sign you might have picked up the wrong rider, so it's good to be extra sure in that case.

My experience has been that nearly everyone enters their destination in the app. Actually, I'm not sure anyone ever hasn't, yet. This is handy because it means there's no destination-typing-into-GPS needed, and you can get straight on the road - hit the "Navigate" button and again Uber Partner sends you to your navigation app.

During the trip

There are three major sub-types of passengers on an Uber trip - quiet, talking amongst themselves, and talking to you. The last two can combine, as well.

Quiet riders are just that - they basically just sit there, and futz around on their phones. These are most often single riders, though when Liz and I ride together often we fit this category - depends on how the day has been going.

When there are multiple riders, they'll often talk amongst themselves. This is the best experience from a people-watching perspective; it lets the driver get a window into their lives, and is of course a good source of stories for my blog here. The type of talking amongst themselves can vary significantly - sometimes it's relatively subdued, sometimes it's extremely animated, sometimes it's English, sometimes it's a foreign language. Sometimes it's crazy drunks. But they usually combine with the last type of rider...

Some riders are interested in talking to the driver. I don't usually do a lot to start a conversation - I'll welcome someone to the car and do the destination confirmation stuff, but beyond that I usually leave it up to them to start talking if they're so inclined. If they do talk to me, though, I try to make real conversation, rather than just shutting down answers. This may surprise some people who know me, because I generally don't love social situations with strangers. But I think it's easier because I don't really expect to ever see these people again.

One interesting thing about people who talk to drivers, is that a significant portion of them ask how long you've been driving. That's never a question I've thought to ask of an Uber driver, but I get it quite regularly - almost at least once every time I go out driving, in fact. The first few times I had this conversation felt really awkward, but I've got a decent patter down now, and I'm no longer afraid to say I just do it for a hobby, and if they inquire about what I do normally, I'm not afraid to say I'm an engineer who works for Google. I don't tend to throw that out there, though, until it comes up - it just seems too much like bragging in a way.

The drunks who are talking amongst themselves and also to you are definitely some of the most story-worthy passengers, but they're also the ones I'm usually happy to get rid of. They're fine in small doses, but a little much in high volume. And their volume is usually quite high. :)

The arrival and drop-off

Much like in the pick-up, when getting close to the destination according to Waze I will switch back to the Uber app. Its pin generally does a decent job showing which side of the street the rider's destination is on, so again I will try to get to the right side as much as possible. Often at this point if the rider is a local they will give some terminal directions, pointing out where they'd like to be dropped off, so I follow those if given, or prompt the rider to confirm they're okay with the spot I'm pulling up to.

One pet peeve of mine (and a violation of Uber's policies!) is drivers who don't end trips promptly - another reason I switch back to the Uber app a little early is to make sure I hit end trip as soon as the trip really ends. Ideally I swipe it while the rider is still in the car or on their way out the door, so if they're like me, they'll actually see me doing it. If the rider had luggage, I'll get out (after ending the trip!) to help them with it.

Once the rider is safely out, the app prompts for the rider rating. My policy is to always give riders 5 stars, unless they really did something wrong/heinous. I'm not one of those drivers who will dock you stars for not tipping (I have yet to get a tip in all my tips at the time of writing) or wearing too much perfume (I don't know if that's actually a thing, but who knows - usually I have that complaint about drivers). And even if you're kind of annoying, you're at worst going to get 4 stars - anything below that would have to mean you caused actual problems, and I don't even know what that would be, short of damaging the car (or puking in it). And then I'd be reporting it to get the appropriate fee assessed to you too.

On to the next ride

You'll automatically become online after ending a trip, and if you make it back to the Uber Partner main screen before getting another ride requests it'll show you the estimated fare for the trip you just completed. Sometimes there's some processing time for those, though.

Now it's back on the prowl - again, looking for surge zones or otherwise trying to find the next rider to pick up. Sometimes Uber will actually offer you the next ride while you're still on your way to the destination - this is distinct from UberPOOL (which I'll talk more about in another post) - it's a regular UberX type ride, with a pick-up near your destination. Basically if you're the closest driver, even taking the drop-off into account, you'll get offered the ride. This has only happened to me a couple of times, but it does happen. As a rider, don't worry, we will still drop you off first!