Nearly three years ago, Uber received significant backlash after it charged surge prices during a hostage situation in Sydney, Australia, leading the company to refund riders for those trips. A similar situation is playing out in London after the ride-hailing service charged customers caught up in a recent terror attack more for rides to safety. [More]
surge pricing
Family Takes $362 Uber Ride Home From Dallas Cowboys Game
By 11.10.16
It cost a family about $40 to ride in an UberXL vehicle from their suburban home to AT&T Stadioum, where the Dallas Cowboys play. That’s not bad at all, and they didn’t have to worry about parking. The problem came on their return trip, when the driver took a strange detour to the wrong side of their suburb, and the trip ended up costing $362.81. [More]
Uber Adds Surge Pricing To Food Delivery
By 10.27.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
For years, Uber has subscribed to a “surge” pricing model that increased the cost of a ride during peak times, like rush hours. Now, the ride-sharing company is taking that idea and bringing it to its UberEATS food delivery service in certain markets. [More]
Lyft Raised The Cap On ‘Prime Time’ Price Hikes, Forgot To Tell Customers
By 4.20.16
One of the key innovations of ride-hailing apps has been that their pricing is sensitive to demand: that is, prices go up as there are more customers demanding rides. Uber calls this surge pricing, whcih is such strong branding that people have started to call similar demand-sensitive pricing programs at other companies by the same term. Lyft calls it Prime Time, and did away with previously-announced caps on price hikes in February, but forgot to notify passengers. [More]
Universal Studios Hikes Ticket Prices Before Opening Of “Harry Potter” Attraction
By 3.23.16
A month after Universal Studios said it would implement a surge pricing structure for pre-order tickets that offers discounts for customers visiting on off-peak days. The Comcast-owned company essentially undid any goodwill it had created by instituting an across-the-board increase to ticket prices. [More]
Surge Pricing Comes To Universal Studios Hollywood Theme Park
By 2.2.16
“Hey kids, want to go to Universal Studios? No, not next weekend — that’s too expensive — but next Wednesday will be more affordable thanks to a new pricing model that varies the pre-order price for tickets depending on the predicted demand from consumers!” [More]
Uber May Be Shooting Itself In The Foot With Surge Pricing
By 10.29.15
While it might be more difficult to hail a taxi at rush hour in Midtown Manhattan, the base rate for your ride is no different than if you’d flagged down that cab two hours earlier. But if you try to summon an Uber driver, you might he hit with increased “surge” pricing. Uber says the higher cost is intended to lure drivers to these high-demand areas, but a new study claims that surge pricing may have the opposite effect. [More]
Uber Caps Surge Pricing During Juno Snowmageddon (Because It Sort Of Has To)
By 1.26.15
As those of us in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast prepare to slaughter a tauntaun and seek shelter from the snow in the warmth of its belly, the folks at Uber say they will put a maximum on surge pricing so as to avoid the backlash it has experienced in the past during emergencies, and because it promised it wouldn’t do this anymore. [More]
Uber Realizes Charging Surge Prices During Sydney Hostage Situation Isn’t A Great Idea, Offers Free Rides
By 12.15.14
As of Monday morning, there is a hostage situation in Sydney, Australia, where a suspect has been in a standoff with police since Sunday morning, holding a reported 13 or so people hostage inside a cafe in the city’s central business district. And while others in the area tried to flee from the scene as quickly as possible yesterday, Uber customers were finding $100 minimum charges and up to 4x surge prices to get a ride somewhere safer. [More]
Uber Imposes Surge Pricing After Train Fatality: Is That Profiting From Death?
By 10.16.14
When there is a lot of demand for rides, the car-summoning app Uber imposes “surge” pricing, multiplying the standard fare. This serves to entice more drivers out onto the roads, and also to make some people looking for rides say, “eh, I’ll walk instead.” In the past, the company had promised not to raise prices excessively during emergencies that create high demand for rides, but not all situations that create intense demand are “emergencies.” [More]
How A 12-Mile Car Ride Can Cost $357.08
By 12.18.13
One person’s “supply and demand” is another person’s “price gouging.” Uber, a smartphone app that matches up professional drivers who want to pick up strangers and people in need of rides, is a serious competitor for licensed taxis in many cities, but its business model has one feature that taxis generally don’t: surge pricing. [More]
