The Secrets Behind Lyft & Uber’s Fares
Do you bounce around from your Uber app to Lyft and Sidecar to see who can give you the best deal for a ride right now?
A couple of data geeks Johnathan and Matt wanted to see if they could build a tool to make it easier. And they’ve launched whatsthefare.com – a basic realtime calculator telling you which of the major ridesharing companies actually has the cheapest fare right now. (Sorry “Summon” – you weren’t included)
They’ve also created some incredibly details charts & graphics to show you the behind-the-scenes trends of the fares.
> Check realtime Rideshareing fares – whatsthefare.com
Lyft vs. Uber vs. Sidecar vs. TaxiRead all the gory details on methodology with lots of geeky charts and graphs. Here’s just the San Francisco charts.
Ridesharing Lessons & Trends | San Francisco
- The best ridesharing option is almost always cheaper than a taxi (97% of the time in SF) – unless its Surge pricing or Prime Time
- Sidecar beats the taxi price most often – 87% of the time (more than Uber or Lyft)
- Surge pricing on Uber and Lyft are most likely M-F at 8am and 6-7pm – major commute times
- Wednesdays are the least likely days to have surge pricing
- Saturdays typically have the highest surge pricing.
- Surge pricing is volatile throughout the weekends, but more steady midweek.
- Uber’s Surge pricing and Lyft’s “Prime Time” aren’t strongly correlated (which means you should definitely check different apps)
- Sidecare and UberX are cheapest about 33% of the time. Lyft is cheapest about 19% of the time.
- The most affordable option can change week to week due to “price cuts”
The system is still brand new (so it doesn’t take into account shared rides like UberPool, LyftLine or Sidecare Shared Rides) but it does currently give enormous insight as to how pricing works in San Francisco and other cities.
Graphic credit: Slashgear
