Am I the only one who thinks Uber prices are ridiculous compared to the yellow taxi ? I am fairly well to do, but am shocked by how no one flinches at the fare structure of Uber compared to yellow cab (which might be a tad bit more inconvenient in NYC but not that much to justify paying 2x-3x the price!). I feel I am really missing something here or maybe just underestimate the ability of people to spend vs. save.
If I spent $2000 on cab fare so far, I would probably freak out a bit.
In Boston UberX has wound up being about 75% of Taxis I had taken the same trips with every time I have used UberX. Then again I generally tip 20% in taxis so if I were a non-tipper the prices would be much more comparable.
Admittedly I am only using it between the hours of 12:00 AM and 2:00 AM to get home from bars.
The temperament of drivers has been a welcome change with uberX vs cab, I had a cab ride in Boston which was suspiciously high once (2x what previous identical trips had been), and I questioned how it was calculated and the response was 'It is not my job to know how it is calculated' to which I said 'Actually that is your job', that time I did not tip.
In my experience, UberX is way cheaper than a cab. From my place in the Mission District to 2nd/Mission is usually like $12-13 via UberX. Cab used to cost me like $17.
In LA we took an UberX from Venice to Downtown, it was ~$35, cab was ~$55.
Uber doesn't make it easy to know. Over the weekend I took an NYC taxi one way in my journey, it cost $26. I tried to get a fare estimate for an UberX for the way back and it said "$23 - $37". That's a huge window - and they're not telling me what affects it.
And we haven't even started on surge pricing. Uber sells itself as cheaper than a taxi, but in many ways (in NYC) it is not.
From all the replies it appears to me that
- in SF, either UberX is very cheap or normal taxis are ridiculous.
- At least in NYC, the pricing is still much higher. And the huge variance in the price adds another degree of uncertainty, where you could still end up paying huge amounts.
It would be nice for Uber to publish some comparative data in this regard. But I think that's not their main pitch.
They now have a fare calculator for NYC athttps://www.uber.com/cities/new-york. It is pretty broken as all my addresses end up getting mapped to Brooklyn or Queens for some reason.
But for the prices I saw, UberX is 30-50% higher than yellow cab. So my 2x-3x estimate is certainly out of date.
UberX is significantly (40%-50%?) more than a NYC yellow cab. Its basically $6 base for uberX (versus $2.50 for yellow cab), $.75/minute for in-traffic in uberX (versus $.50 for yellow cab). Also uber's threshold speed for traffic is much higher than NYC's (below 11mph = traffic for uber, vs below 6mph = traffic for yellow cab), which means that more often than not you are in this (more expensive) price tier. Its hard to average over 11mph if you are going cross town in Manhattan.
If I spent $2000 on cab fare so far, I would probably freak out a bit.