# Estimated Drive Time: How Lyft Data Analytics Failed Again



## Dropking (Aug 18, 2017)

Over the last four months, I've driven far more Lyft rides than ever before by a factor of *THREE TIMES!*

Why? Because the best feature (by far) of Lyft Platinum driver status is/was the ability to see your estimated trip destination drive time before accepting a ping. This literally life changing feature for drivers was only available for "Platinum" drivers, i.e. those who complete 600 rides over the prior three month period. I even drove 380 Lyft rides one month just to keep the feature!

By seeing estimated drive times, drivers were able to maintain control over their driving situation. If you wanted to remain in your local area because you needed to pick up your kids or be home for dinner, you only accepted short rides. If you wanted to get out of a city, or get to the city from the suburbs, you accepted longer rides. This became a life changing situation for drivers, leading to better self-esteem, getting home to our families on time, and far better feelings toward Lyft (the company) which has badly blown the advantage they once had over Uber in terms of driver relations.

This dynamic would have led to some interesting data analytics. By allowing drivers more control over what kinds of rides they choose to accept, it means *acceptance rates for those power drivers went down. *Unfortunately Lyft's data scientists and data analysts blew it again by apparently only focusing on this one variable, something reminiscent of how badly they screwed up the scheduled ride pickup feature. So they took away the feature this week!

Unimaginably, the data geniuses at Lyft *forgot to look at overall rides given by these drivers, time in driving mode by these drivers, and cancellation rates by these drivers. *All of these variables would be substantially favorable, but garbage in and garbage out always leads to terrible decision making in corporations. Unfortunately Lyft pays these supposedly skilled employees so much less than Uber does that they are just getting what they paid for and they have massively screwed things up again.

So what's going to happen now that Lyft has ditched the estimated drive time feature? Acceptance rates will go up, but only because drivers will be spending less time attending to Lyft and more time attending to Uber or not driving. My own strategy will be starting my morning with a Lyft scheduled ride, and then switching over to Uber until it's time to go home. Uber pays a little better in San Francisco anyway, something I was willing to sacrifice for more peace of mind with Lyft.

So I'll pursue Uber's consecutive streaks in the morning and their power driver bonuses, and only use Lyft destination filters later in the day to get home. Just like before! And, my Lyft cancellation rate will go up in destination mode because I won't have the time or patience when Lyft matches me with a pax going in the wrong direction. So when I park under the Bay Bridge in destination mode to go over that bridge, I can't be taking passengers into the Mission District. Just like before.

Sadly, Lyft has sent their power drivers back to Uber because they cannot read their own data.


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## Hagong (Jan 17, 2017)

Wasn’t the feature only on trial until 8/20?


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## GlenGreezy (Sep 21, 2015)

As soon as I can access Uber instant pay again I'm going to drive more for them than I do now. Estimated ride time was THE BEST FEATURE that didn't increase pay. It at least gave me control over my day. Now... It's gone.


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## Dropking (Aug 18, 2017)

Hagong said:


> Wasn't the feature only on trial until 8/20?


The feature was "in beta" (not a trial) until 8/26. After software beta periods, features move to production with big fixes that are found during beta. This one didn't.



GlenGreezy said:


> As soon as I can access Uber instant pay again I'm going to drive more for them than I do now. Estimated ride time was THE BEST FEATURE that didn't increase pay. It at least gave me control over my day. Now... It's gone.


I hear you brother.


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## Lyfted13 (Jul 26, 2017)

When they first announced this, they never said anything about it being temporary. I am not 100% sure, but I can’t think of any other platinum rewards that were only on a “trial” basis and then removed (besides prime time percentage boxes with numbers, but I don’t think that was a platinum thing). They used to show the actual destination with the incoming ping, but ended that, claiming that drivers not knowing the destination results in more completed rides. I think that it backfired on them and now they had to act like it was just on a trial basis. They said they had to end it to get driver feedback, but you can obviously receive feedback while it is still active. It wasn’t like it was buggy or anything, it worked perfectly fine for all drivers....don’t think it worked as good for the company though lol


I sure do miss it though


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

This was the biggest benefit of driving for Lyft. Taking it away will cost them more rides from experienced drivers. What's sad is they have so many drivers that they don't care.



Dropking said:


> So they took away the feature this week!


And then they lied about it. See screenshot.

First they told me it was only a limited time thing. Then they said it was only available to select drivers. Bullshit! The fact that they ditched it with no warning or announcement pissed me off as well.



Lyfted13 said:


> it worked perfectly fine for all drivers..


Almost perfect. They always lied about the drive time, inflated it by 25-33%. And if they had any other messages to convey, the other message overrode the drive time.


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## Hitchhiker (Mar 6, 2018)

I'm a platinum driver & liked the estimated drive time feature. Trying to reach the weekly ride challenge bonus, it's imperative to deny these long estimated rides until reaching bonus first. 

But it only worked for approx half of your rides, as it only worked for Lyft rides & not shared rides.


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## GlenGreezy (Sep 21, 2015)

Mista T said:


> And then they lied about it. See screenshot.


It was ONLY FOR PLATINUM DRIVERS. But none of the other platinum perks are "beta". 
None were ever listed as temporary.

They are lying trying to cover up the reason they are taking it away. And that's TRASH behavior.

They talk a lot about being pro driver but take stuff we like away. That's a contradiction


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## Andre Benjamin 6000 (Nov 11, 2016)

Par for the course with Lyft. I don't even get mad anymore. Lyft doesn't give a f*** about what benefits us because they always take it away. When I started, you could get the PDB just by being online for 50 minutes & keeping your acceptance high with no stupid ride requirements. Taken away! Then, they allowed us to see the destination before arrival. Taken away! Use DF at the airport....Taken away! Estimated ride length....Taken away! See the pattern? I knew this was temporary. I was going balls to wall everyday taking as many long hauls as I could. I've been @ this for 3 1/2 years & this is normal behavior from Lyft.

This is why it's good to have multiple tricks in your ride-sharing bag. When they pull the rug from under you, as they always do, you'll still land on your feet & shrug off this childish/controlling bullsh*t they pull. My .02.


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## Uberspaceshipdriver (Aug 17, 2018)

They try really hard to keep everyone at high acceptance, this was a stone in their way.

It's about rigging a system, you need to assume most of the elements involved will not be unpredictable in order for your rig to work as intended, acceptance is unpredictable.

The thing they need to ask themselves is this:

What's more important, acceptance or increasing rides?

I mean, eventually anyone not accepting shit at plat lvl will have to accept anything to stay plat.


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## Lyfted13 (Jul 26, 2017)

Mista T said:


> Almost perfect. They always lied about the drive time, inflated it by 25-33%. And if they had any other messages to convey, the other message overrode the drive time.


Yea, but that is just normal Lyft behavior. It's a formula:
When picking up, add an extra 1.5 minutes for every 3 they say, and for ride duration subtract 3 for every 10 mins. Use that formula for a more accurate number lol

...and I am not holding my breath, waiting for it to be permanent. I will believe it when I see it


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## RideShareJUNKIE (Jun 23, 2017)

This is a key feature of their unsustainable business model. Lure new drivers, game drivers, exhaust drives, lose drivers and repeat cycle. Each cycle takes 6 months, just come up with 2 features per year to use as bait. phase out a feature=phase out a bunch of drivers. Distract with new feature, and repeat it.


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## lubi571 (Nov 26, 2015)

OP how do you know so much about the data? Did you respond to the survey they sent out? Did you allow them to contact you after you completed the survey? It looks to me that your input would have been valuable to them and the drivers.


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

Uberspaceshipdriver said:


> The thing they need to ask themselves is this:
> 
> What's more important, acceptance or increasing rides?


Agreed.

Before the drive time stuff I would only accept rides that were 4-5 mins out or less.

When the drive time showed I would make exceptions, I would travel 7 or 8 mins to pick up a ride going 20+ minutes.

Now that it's gone again I am back to ignoring anything over 4 minutes.


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## GlenGreezy (Sep 21, 2015)

I picked up a ride the other day that was 15 minutes away and it was an hour long ride. 

I made $140 in 2hrs and 2 minutes. 

If I didn't know it was a long ride..... That lady would still be waiting. Cmshe said she couldn't get a ride for a WHILE. People kept cancelling on her after pulling up to SummerSlam.


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

GlenGreezy said:


> I picked up a ride the other day that was 15 minutes away and it was an hour long ride.
> 
> I made $140 in 2hrs and 2 minutes.
> 
> If I didn't know it was a long ride..... That lady would still be waiting. Cmshe said she couldn't get a ride for a WHILE. People kept cancelling on her after pulling up to SummerSlam.


Exactly! If you hadn't known, you wouldn't have picked her up.

Of course the opposite is true as well, who in their right mind will drive 15 mins for free to give a 5 minute ride? Only people who care about AR or a streak bonus.


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## GlenGreezy (Sep 21, 2015)

Mista T said:


> Exactly! If you hadn't known, you wouldn't have picked her up.
> 
> Of course the opposite is true as well, who in their right mind will drive 15 mins for free to give a 5 minute ride? Only people who care about AR or a streak bonus.


Ain't enough streak bonus for that.


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## Y0d4 (Feb 6, 2018)

GlenGreezy said:


> I picked up a ride the other day that was 15 minutes away and it was an hour long ride.
> 
> I made $140 in 2hrs and 2 minutes.
> 
> If I didn't know it was a long ride..... That lady would still be waiting. Cmshe said she couldn't get a ride for a WHILE. People kept cancelling on her after pulling up to SummerSlam.


I hear what you are saying but it would have told you 45min+ I definitely took more farther pick ups knowing it wasn't a min fare ride as of now I don't care about retaining platinum


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## nj2bos (Mar 18, 2018)

Removing Estimated Ride Time was stupid IMO. I was actually trying to pump out more Lyft rides to achieve Plat status solely for this feature. Looks like that game is over.

Removing it entirely was dumb. If their goal of removing ERT is to increase acceptance rate across the board, have ERT require an AR of its own.. 70% AR to maintain ERT with Platinum status. Sadly they removed it probably just because there is little incentive to offer it anymore-- it attracted drivers FROM Uber and TO Lyft. But with Uber's new pathetic surge, drivers are flocking to Lyft for the multiplier surge so they see no need to offer ERT as a draw anymore.


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## Mista T (Aug 16, 2017)

nj2bos said:


> Removing Estimated Ride Time was stupid IMO. I was actually trying to pump out more Lyft rides to achieve Plat status solely for this feature. Looks like that game is over.
> 
> Removing it entirely was dumb. If their goal of removing ERT is to increase acceptance rate across the board, have ERT require an AR of its own.. 70% AR to maintain ERT with Platinum status. Sadly they removed it probably just because there is little incentive to offer it anymore-- it attracted drivers FROM Uber and TO Lyft. But with Uber's new pathetic surge, drivers are flocking to Lyft for the multiplier surge so they see no need to offer ERT as a draw anymore.


Thats a catch 22. If you need a high AR to get ERT, then what would be the point of having ERT? You are gonna take the rides anyway, to keep the AR up.


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## nj2bos (Mar 18, 2018)

Mista T said:


> Thats a catch 22. If you need a high AR to get ERT, then what would be the point of having ERT? You are gonna take the rides anyway, to keep the AR up.


True I guess that was a stupid idea on my part. I say Lyft just puts it back and carry on.


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