# Toronto Trip calculations Saturday 02/28/15 - The quest to lose money



## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

Well I decided to do a little driving instead of a day time weekend or what Uber considers busy by their standards. So I chose the 6AM-12PM shift to work as a driver. Based on the Uber information it's not worth it and I may as well sleep in.

*WHEN TO DRIVE?*
*On the weekend*









Funny thing there were next to no cars out when I headed out and No UberX available in lots of areas of the city. I decided to start Mid Town in the city as there were the odd driver here and there and spaced out. While keeping away from the core as they were already showing a surge in the area. (I know crazy to think I was avoiding surges)

Most of the rides consisted of many pickups being 7 min or more away with one 20 min away. (It canceled on me as I wasn't even a quarter of the way there and got a $5 cancel fee. Then a ping 10 seconds later no further than 20 feet away. (Lucky grab for sure).

I also had a 15 min call to someone that pulled me out of what would have been a dead zone as I was sitting for almost 45 min enjoying my McDonalds breakfast in the car. When I showed up it was a woman with a small infant no Car seat. I refused the ride and canceled the call as "Other". (Didn't get the cancel fee ).

Picked up another fare shortly after that that was in a 1.7x surge price so at least the call pulled me out of the dead zone.

Surge was on in the core most of the morning between 1.2x to 1.6x at a constant pace. But I was not there to chase. Just follow my same formula as Run-Pick up-Drop off-Wait Wasn't going to play with that formula.

All great PAX all in great moods.

So lets run the math to see what happens.

Time driven 6AM - 12PM (6 Hours)
Total KM driven = 153
Paid KM while driving = 109.76
Total Rides = 8 + (1 cancel fee)
End of day rating = 5.0

More paid to dead by almost 2 to 1

True cost per KM based on my vehicle $0.32 per km operating cost

Gross Pay for period = $160.99 or $26.83 per hour gross (No guarantee at this time anymore )
Net Pay for Period = $122.39 or $20.39 per hour Net

Cost of driving for the night $48.96

Gross - Cost = $112.03 or $18.67 gross per hour after expenses
Net - Cost = $73.43 = $12.23 per hour clear in pocket

So far that's my worst numbers cleared to date. This is most likely due to the long distance drives and not maximizing on the surges. But to be honest this would have been less of an expense on my car as most were highway runs.

So as some have questioned the numbers I am enclosing screen shots of the Trip report and the statement. If you see an issue please constructively let me know. And if you have questions regards to particulars on a trip I'm happy to share.

Trip log










Pay statement for reference.










Not sure how I should validate my total km driven as some don't believe the figure as accurate. (I assure you it is). But if you got an idea let me know.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

*Seems to be a fair assessment. *

The low dead miles are keeping you in play. Part of the issues of being a full timer is that the dead miles can be a lot higher during off times if you are hunting for fares, which tend to bring the dead mile numbers up overall to the usual 1/1. My dead miles are usually lower on Fri-Sun.

And you are being more than fair on your costs to drive. Moreso than most here. So hat tip for that.

I think you might easily recognize the issues in most of the U.S. if you scratched 30% off your mileage rate and would readily understand that it's a no money deal to the drivers of UberX std. if they are using a half assed decent ride to do the gig.

It remains a risky gig for $12 an hour with insurance issues and all. Plus the hours suck major ass.


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

scrurbscrud said:


> *Seems to be a fair assessment. *
> 
> The low dead miles are keeping you in play. Part of the issues of being a full timer is that the dead miles can be a lot higher during off times if you are hunting for fares, which tend to bring the dead mile numbers up overall to the usual 1/1. My dead miles are usually lower on Fri-Sun.
> 
> ...


I agree with you on that. It was risky even at $15 per hour. And I do get the trolling for fares if you are trying to make a living. Since I don't make a living I was happy to sit in that dead zone the entire time to get the numbers. And no ping was or would be refused. The idea was to try and loose money.

But my next run will be to add trolling and chasing surges for the hell of it. Load up on the miles like someone who was a newbie would on their first day. Then report back to see what chasing does to your hourly.

Thanks for looking over the numbers.


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## Goober (Oct 16, 2014)

This was a great post....a good example how newbies should look at their actually earnings. Too often seeing Gross confused with Net or Net not considering operating costs.


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## Uber SUCKS for drivers! (Jan 1, 2015)

Actionjax said:


> I agree with you on that. It was risky even at $15 per hour. And I do get the trolling for fares if you are trying to make a living. Since I don't make a living I was happy to sit in that dead zone the entire time to get the numbers. And no ping was or would be refused. The idea was to try and loose money.
> 
> But my next run will be to add trolling and chasing surges for the hell of it. Load up on the miles like someone who was a newbie would on their first day. Then report back to see what chasing does to your hourly.
> 
> Thanks for looking over the numbers.


Again, you may be in the last profitable market in North America. Hats off & enjoy it while it lasts! It sucks for the rest of us!


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Actionjax said:


> I agree with you on that. It was risky even at $15 per hour. And I do get the trolling for fares if you are trying to make a living. Since I don't make a living I was happy to sit in that dead zone the entire time to get the numbers. And no ping was or would be refused. The idea was to try and loose money.
> 
> But my next run will be to add trolling and chasing surges for the hell of it. Load up on the miles like someone who was a newbie would on their first day. Then report back to see what chasing does to your hourly.
> 
> Thanks for looking over the numbers.


I would suspect that if you jumped into the fray where no one wants to drive, BUT where all the action is, AND you drove from 4p.m. til 4a.m. on a Sat. nite you could probably do pretty well.

Get it while it's still semi-hot. Get a serious night in and see what you can do or are capable of earning. You might find it quite enlightening. I'd be interested to hear if you could do it and what the results would be there.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Uber SUCKS for drivers! said:


> Again, you may be in the last profitable market in North America. Hats off & enjoy it while it lasts! It sucks for the rest of us!


Actually at $1.28 a mile *and using actual LEGIT costs to drive* I'm impressed. Keeping the dead miles low is the secret sauce for him. The $2.75 drop fee and $.25 per min. aren't hurting his cause either.


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

scrurbscrud said:


> I would suspect that if you jumped into the fray where no one wants to drive, BUT where all the action is, AND you drove from 4p.m. til 4a.m. on a Sat. nite you could probably do pretty well.
> 
> Get it while it's still semi-hot. Get a serious night in and see what you can do or are capable of earning. You might find it quite enlightening. I'd be interested to hear if you could do it and what the results would be there.


I tell you what, I will do that next week just for you. Give me some of the ways you want me to drive it and I will do it. Here is a heat map of Toronto on the weekend. If you want me to stay in the heat areas always driving back, chase surges, give me some rules to go by.

I don't mind doing a little leg work in the efforts of showing what works and what may not for everyone else. Just more data for me.

*WHERE TO DRIVE?*









And the traditional week busy slow times from last week.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Actionjax said:


> I agree with you on that. It was risky even at $15 per hour. And I do get the trolling for fares if you are trying to make a living. Since I don't make a living I was happy to sit in that dead zone the entire time to get the numbers. And no ping was or would be refused. The idea was to try and loose money.
> 
> But my next run will be to add trolling and chasing surges for the hell of it. Load up on the miles like someone who was a newbie would on their first day. Then report back to see what chasing does to your hourly.
> 
> Thanks for looking over the numbers.


when I started doing this that's pretty much exactly what I did I figured the first two or three weeks would be a business expense and if I lost money I lost money I had a lot of dead miles those first couple of weeks and I experimented with different things and now I feel like I'm mostly know what I need to do I'm only been doing this about 6 weeks so I'm still learning a lot I just don't understand why everybody doesn't get that way when they start by the way sorry for the voice recognition and no punctuation I'm sitting at a red light


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## Goober (Oct 16, 2014)

Surge should only be "chased" at greater than 2X...and if less than 10 minutes away, the app should be turned off until inside of the surge..


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Just dive into the heart of the RED ZONE, work a 12 hour stint from 4pm to 4am. Try as hard as you can to turn 30+ fares and see where the dust settles. You will have fun, guaranteed! That is how most full timers will run. And they will do it on both Fri and Sat. nites. My max fares in a (longer) shift doing this method was about 42 or 43 when Uber was hopping. The money wasn't bad either. Exhausting, yes. But oddly fun.


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

scrurbscrud said:


> Just dive into the heart of the RED ZONE, work a 12 hour stint from 4pm to 4am. Try as hard as you can to turn 30+ fares and see where the dust settles. You will have fun, guaranteed! That is how most full timers will run. And they will do it on both Fri and Sat. nites. My max fares in a (longer) shift doing this method was about 42 or 43 when Uber was hopping. The money wasn't bad either. Exhausting, yes. But oddly fun.


You got it. Will do it this coming Saturday. Will see if I can hold out till 4am.


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## scrurbscrud (Sep 11, 2014)

Actionjax said:


> You got it. Will do it this coming Saturday. Will see if I can hold out till 4am.


Just make sure you are fully rested and are UP for the task. Frequent caffeination is suggested in mid to 2/3 time range...

Game face ON! Uber app off promptly at 4:01 a.m.


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## Noobler (Feb 12, 2015)

Actionjax, you are like the mad scientist of the Uber world in Toronto haha. 

Thnxs for the information. Im guessing you were around yonge/sheppard area when you said starting midtown.


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## UberHammer (Dec 5, 2014)

I wonder if you are able to pull in the dead to total mile ratio you do because the heaviest demand is next to the lake. I could pull in a much better ratio if everything south of 1-70 in Columbus didn't exist.


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

UberHammer said:


> I wonder if you are able to pull in the dead to total mile ratio you do because the heaviest demand is next to the lake. I could pull in a much better ratio if everything south of 1-70 in Columbus didn't exist.


I think I have done well lately due to very long rides north of the city. Again I do the same thing over and over. Drop and stop always. Can't explain why the results are what they are. Even lately I'm fining the riders further out than normal. But when you are in the outskirts you have mostly long rides across the city via highway.


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## Goober (Oct 16, 2014)

scrurbscrud said:


> Just dive into the heart of the RED ZONE, work a 12 hour stint from 4pm to 4am. Try as hard as you can to turn 30+ fares and see where the dust settles. You will have fun, guaranteed! That is how most full timers will run. And they will do it on both Fri and Sat. nites. My max fares in a (longer) shift doing this method was about 42 or 43 when Uber was hopping. The money wasn't bad either. Exhausting, yes. But oddly fun.


I usually do those shifts...it's more than half of a normal person's workweek. And yeah, totally exhausting, not always fun, but fun for the most part.

A-Jax you can do 3P-3A but the 3-4A hour is a good one as drivers hang up their hats and long rides which waited out surges take place.


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

Ya the only thing with this weekend is the clocks are going forward 1 Hour. Times will be the same but the hour will play into bar closing hours. All Bars close here at 2AM. So that means 3AM will be the new time. Still going to keep to the real hours. Just won't be home till 5AM.

Did I tell you yet you guys suck.


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## Noobler (Feb 12, 2015)

So Actionjax you doing this on the weekend coming up


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

Noobler said:


> So Actionjax you doing this on the weekend coming up


I sure am. Are you?


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## sfbayoldguy (Nov 7, 2014)

So you made 12.23$ an hour while min wage is 11.00$ an hour?


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## Uberdawg (Oct 23, 2014)

The thing I have found driving these off hours is the distance to pings. One Sunday, I was the only driver I could see on the app most of the morning and every ping was 10-15 minutes away. The amount of time spent on each ride and the dead miles pretty much ate up any advantage I had by being the only one out there. It was ping after ping but I rarely do it anymore because of driving it takes to turn a buck.


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## Noobler (Feb 12, 2015)

I'm gunna be on the whole saturday, mainly in the north end of the city. I find it to give better rides, and consistant enough to give me pings within a few minutes. 12-14hours is what I will probably be putting in.

This morning (friday morning) was crazy... almost the whole of toronto was surging in almost every zone between 8:30 - 10am. Brampton had a 2.9 surge, most places 1.4 to 1.7, with downtown core at 2.1. Uber is defintely gaining in popularity here in the Tdot.


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

sfbayoldguy said:


> So you made 12.23$ an hour while min wage is 11.00$ an hour?


For that shift yes. Keep in mind that's clear. Most earners on minimum wage pay taxes on the $11 per hour and can't claim expenses. While we are supposed to pay tax on that with the expenses claimed you shouldn't need to pay tax.


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## Actionjax (Oct 6, 2014)

Noobler said:


> I'm gunna be on the whole saturday, mainly in the north end of the city. I find it to give better rides, and consistant enough to give me pings within a few minutes. 12-14hours is what I will probably be putting in.
> 
> This morning (friday morning) was crazy... almost the whole of toronto was surging in almost every zone between 8:30 - 10am. Brampton had a 2.9 surge, most places 1.4 to 1.7, with downtown core at 2.1. Uber is defintely gaining in popularity here in the Tdot.


Ya I did 2 rides into work and surge was on. Got 1 on surge one off. Mornings in the city surge has always been on lately. City west end Is always the biggest wit all the condos out there.


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