180 Days of Change

by John Ince on January 8, 2018 16 Comments

Grading Uber’s New CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, on His First 100 Days

It’s been a few months since the new Uber CEO, Dara Khsrowshahi took over from Travis Kalanick but has much changed? Today, senior RSG contributor John Ince shares his thoughts on how Uber’s new CEO is doing, for Uber and for drivers.

Recently I gave a ride to a person who works for Heidrick and Struggles, the headhunting firm that conducted the search for Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi. I asked my passenger obvious question – “Did DK realize what he was getting into?”

“Oh he knew. He knew exactly what he was getting into,” the passenger replied.

Indeed, running Uber in these tough times is a Herculean task. Given that it’s now been just over 120 days since DK assumed his new role, perhaps it’s now time to take stock of how he’s been doing. Let’s take a look at the nature of his influence and break it down into categories to try to get a better feel for how Uber’s new CEO has been doing on the job.

A $545 Tax Deduction Every Week?

Full-time rideshare drivers can put up to 1000 business miles a week on their car. Rack up your mileage deductions and track your business miles with QuickBooks Self-Employed.

[Read more…]

by Harry Campbell on December 18, 2017 51 Comments

Grading Uber on Their 180 Days of Change

Wow, has it really been six months since Uber launched the tipping option? In June of 2017, Uber made a huge splash with their big announcement that tipping was coming to the Uber app as part of their 180 Days of Change.

And while 2017 has been a ~~bad~~ terrible PR year for Uber, if you weren’t following the news, you probably wouldn’t have noticed one bit since the service is still reliable and Uber is actually doing more rides and revenue than ever these days. But there’s no doubt that all of Uber’s bad press caused a significant shift in the way they think about their relationship with drivers. The result is the 180 Days of Change – a campaign by Uber to ‘meaningfully improve’ the driver experience.

Whether you think the changes are meaningful or not, it should be obvious that a lot of work went into the program on Uber’s end, from listening to drivers and figuring out what needed to be fixed, to actually implementing it. But how noticeable were all the changes to the actual driver experience? Let’s take a look and see.

[Read more…]

by Harry Campbell on October 24, 2017 33 Comments

Uber Increasing Rates on Long Pickups and Wait Time

Accepting a request with a high ETA is always a gamble, since you never know if a passenger is going to be headed down the block for a minimum fare or to the airport for $50. And since drivers aren’t paid until they arrive and start the trip, a lot of savvy drivers know it’s usually not worth the time/money to drive 20 minutes to pick up a rider for an average fare. That may be changing though.

Today, Uber released Chapter 5 of their 180 Days of Change Program, focused again on earnings. Chapter 5 aims to address the problem of long pick-ups, cancellations on long pick-ups, low wait time rates and a better system for tolls.

One of my major criticisms of Uber’s 180 Days campaign is that they haven’t raised rates, but they have been making some smaller changes to help drivers earn more money, and this chapter definitely expands upon that feature set. So while it may not be as eye-catching as Chapter 1 where they announced a tipping option for drivers, it should still improve the overall experience. The real question though is how much of a difference will it make and how soon will drivers notice the impact?

You can catch up all the news around Uber’s 180 Days of Change program here.

[Read more…]

by John Ince on October 2, 2017 63 Comments

Is the Rideshare Experience Getting Better or Worse?

Over the past several years, veteran drivers have seen big changes to the Uber and Lyft platforms. While some of them have been positive, like tipping, others have more mixed reviews. Today, senior RSG contributor John Ince shares his insight into how the rideshare experience has changed for drivers.

Uber has been making a big deal of their 180 Days of Change lately, and how they’re making the driver experience better. Some of the changes are long overdue and clear improvements, but in the 3 years I’ve been driving, I’m just not yet convinced that Uber (or Lyft) are really improving things for drivers. So I decided to do an overall analysis of the experience in my three years – with an attempt to quantify the changes.

Here I’ve divided the rideshare experience into 10 subsets and score the three year changes on a scale of 1-10, plus or minus. Thus, the highest possible score is plus 100 and the lowest possible score is minus 100. The ultimate goal is to figure out whether things are getting better or worse for drivers.

What do you think? Is your rideshare driver experience getting better or worse?

[Read more…]

by Christian Perea on September 29, 2017 35 Comments

Uber Drops Destination Filters Back to 2 Trips Per Day

It’s official: Uber’s 6 Destination Filter options are history. Today, senior RSG contributor Christian Perea discusses what happened and why, and what this could mean for Lyft’s destination filter options.

Well that didn’t last long.

Recently, Uber rolled back the number of times we can use Destination Filter from 6 to 2 uses per day. The move comes after Uber featured an upgraded Destination Filter as part of Chapter 3 of their 180 Days of Change campaign. Before August, drivers had always been limited to 2 filters a day.

R.I.P.

Destination Filter has always been a popular feature among drivers because it allows us to control the direction that rides will take us. I liked the idea of having six instead of two because it would allow me to use it more often instead of on the rare occasion where a ride took me far away from the city or at the beginning/end of my shift. The extra four really makes it feel like you have a lot more control over your routes.

More importantly, in an era of lowest-fares-ever, it’s important to have that control over where you drive. So what went wrong?

[Read more…]