# How does surge work?



## SideHustle UberAnnie (Jul 5, 2018)

I'm one of the ants. I pick up the crumbs. I only work weekends - daytime. I drive a Kia Soul so I can only take Uber X. I was excited to see that I lucked into a surge area yesterday after dropping off a passenger. I immediately pulled over to wait. And wait. And wait. I sat alone for 15 minutes in the middle of a surge (no other ants around) and watched the surge get smaller and disappear. Then I got a ping from LYFT.

Is it really a surge if no one is requesting a ride?














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## 1.5xorbust (Nov 22, 2017)

Surge is tricky. Sometimes it’s real but most times it’s not.


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## 404NofFound (Jun 13, 2018)

SideHustle UberAnnie said:


> Is it really a surge if no one is requesting a ride?


That sounds like the tree falling in the woods thing!


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## Tokichop (Apr 9, 2018)

It's supposedly based on supply & demand. Demand doesn't mean they're requesting, if 10 people open the passenger app all at once, that would be a surge. All those peeps will see the surged price and most likely not gonna request. Sometimes the problem is that if they don't manually close the app, it'll still run in the background and the surge continues. Each person's phone automatically closes the app at different time causing surge to die down, then random people got back in a check making it fluctuate again... 
To conclude, don't worry about that surge anymore since it'll be replace by the new dollar amount surge system soon.. Weekend surges pretty much cover your entire city like this:


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## 404NofFound (Jun 13, 2018)

Tokichop said:


> It's supposedly based on supply & demand. Demand doesn't mean they're requesting, if 10 people open the passenger app all at once, that would be a surge. All those peeps will see the surged price and most likely not gonna request. Sometimes the problem is that if they don't manually close the app, it'll still run in the background and the surge continues. Each person's phone automatically closes the app at different time causing surge to die down, then random people got back in a check making it fluctuate again...
> To conclude, don't worry about that surge anymore since it'll be replace by the new dollar amount surge system soon.. Weekend surges pretty much cover your entire city like this:
> 
> View attachment 253383


Wow, now Im thinking that 10 drivers with the rider app open could trigger a surge!


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## BlueManOC (Jun 21, 2018)

That’s how


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## nj2bos (Mar 18, 2018)

If you still have multiplier surge (which from your screenshot it looks like you do), this is quite normal. Passengers know that surges are short-lived, and will wait them out to get a cheaper ride. Reduced pings during surge is just a result of this.

One exception is after a major sports game with 50,000 people or so looking for rides simultaneously. Not all 50,000 people will wait, so typically surge continues to rise and rise and pax will actually pay it. On a typical day, however, surges are short lived and large surges are usually one-offs from things like shift change at major city hospitals, people going to the airport early in the morning, etc.. Pax are getting smart.


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