# Scheduled Rides



## Jon H. SFBay (Oct 29, 2015)

Anyone try this yet?

Scheduled Rides Are Right on Time

The verdict's in: Passengers will take longer trips, especially to the airport, if they can request them in advance. That's why we're now offering _scheduled_ rides with San Francisco passengers.










*Earn more on scheduled rides.* Passengers can schedule original Lyft rides only, so you'll see more of those requests. They'll also pay higher cancellation fees.

*Pick up passengers the same way.* Lyft only sends you the request when it's time to head to the pickup location. Simply accept and go, just like any other ride.

*Stick to the requested time.* If you get there early, tap to arrive. We'll alert the passenger while you park in a safe, legal spot. You'll start getting paid once they arrive or at the scheduled time, whichever comes first - and if they run late, you're paid for time spent waiting.


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## PaulKemp (Jul 19, 2016)

Just got the email as well. Will give it a go tonight, I guess. I wish they would have provided more information on things like how they affect acceptance ratings, running a couple minutes late, etc...


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

When I was an official of a cab company here, we had a policy of time calls (scheduled rides) for an airport, bus depot or train station (not METRO), ONLY. If we allowed any time call, we would have been unable to honour any of them. People here like to schedule transportation. I do not know about the San Francisco market, but here, most of the time calls will be a waste of the driver's time. You will wait ten minutes, or more, for a mediocre trip.

We had one taxi application here, My Taxi (which is still in Germany, Spain and parts of Asia, but no longer here) which offered time calls. It used to post them as soon as it received them and drivers could claim them. Once claimed, you were committed. I tried what My Taxi called "pre-books" three times. All three times they were mediocre trips. One was mediocre with an acceptable tip. One was mediocre with a lousy tip. The last was mediocre, the customer was not ready at the scheduled time and argued with me about the waiting time and, of course, did not tip. That was Strike Three. No more pre-books.

My cab company used to receive all sorts of requests for time-calls on New Year's Eve, Inauguration Time and any other time that there was a major event in town. We had to turn them away, because we would not have been able to honour them. I see the same thing's happening with the time calls in this market. It might work elsewhere, but it will break down rapidly, here. I will not accept them unless I know that they are airports or that they are due in less than three minutes.


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## luvgurl22 (Jul 5, 2016)

Jon H. SFBay said:


> Anyone try this yet?
> 
> Scheduled Rides Are Right on Time
> 
> ...


I only like the $10 cancellation fee aspect.I doubt any of these stingy pax will be cancelling though


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

At least it isn't UZURV.


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## PaulKemp (Jul 19, 2016)

Got zero opportunities to test drive the feature driving from 11pm to 4am in SF. Granted, that isn't ideal airport delivery time (which I assume will cover the bulk) , but I wasn't prompted to accept any early morning pick ups either. 

I'm very curious how they'll distribute these... Near home address? Areas/times frequented? It seems like a decent time filler, way to potentially start/end a shift idea wise, but I'm lost as far as how deployment will look. 

Anyone pick one up yet?


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

PaulKemp said:


> SF. that isn't ideal airport delivery time (which I assume will cover the bulk)


Perhaps in SF, the bulk of the "scheduled rides" will be airport trips, but not here. Here, mostly, it will be garbage to mediocre trips. Drivers will think, at first, that it will be airports, and rightly so, mind you. After they get burned a few times, they will not accept them until about three minutes before due.

Still given how some of these users are, I can imagine two horrid scenarios.

1. You pull up there, the customer is not ready at the appointed time, comes out fifteen minutes late and expects you to blow every red light and speed, the nastycams be damned.

2. It is 0822, the pick up is due at 0830, the customer calls you and asks, in an agitated voice, where you are. "Sir, it is 0822, the pick up is due at 0830. At least give me a chance to get there." You get there at 0828, he gets in, you take him to his destination, he one-stars you and puts a comment that you were late and he was outside waiting for you. Lyft refuses to remove the rating or the comment.


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## PaulKemp (Jul 19, 2016)

Fair points. I was making an assumption based on how I would utilize the service, but I could certainly see it turning into the preferred method for the world's biggest control freaks and assholes. 

Still, morbid curiosity has me intrigued.


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

Guys, you're failing to understand what this is....

Lyft only calls on a driver a few minutes before the scheduled time. You accept the ping just like any other and drive immediately to the rider. The only difference is that, if the driver gets there before the scheduled pickup time, he's got to wait until that time. I can't imagine it would be more than a couple of minutes. Lyft will probably enforce that by making a driver wait 5 minutes past the scheduled time, not the arrival time, to cancel the ride.

It's not like Lyft notifies you the night before that you're going to be picking up someone tomorrow at 7:30 am or something.

The only problem is... what if there aren't any drivers in the area willing to take the ride at that time? Well, in SF there will be plenty. But I can't imagine this would work as well in some non-urban area.

But no, it'll be exactly like any other trip, it's just that you'll only be able to start your countdown timer after the scheduled time has passed.

If the scheduled time is 7:30 am, the Lyft system will start looking for local online drivers a certain number of minutes beforehand. If there are lots of drivers, it'll likely ping one at 7:20 am or something. If drivers are farther away, it'll likely ping one at 7:15 am. You get what I'm saying.

The good thing is you're guaranteed it's not a Line. The bad thing depends on how far in advance Lyft pings you to be there. If you're constantly arriving at scheduled rides 5-10 minutes before the scheduled time, then you're sitting there unpaid and getting pissed off. That is, if you can even find a parking spot.

It's a tough balancing act for Lyft. Ping drivers too late and they'll likely be late and customers will be pissed. Ping drivers too early and you'll have a bunch of pissed off drivers sitting in their cars (or getting parking tickets, or circling endlessly around the block).


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## PaulKemp (Jul 19, 2016)

Flarpy said:


> Guys, you're failing to understand what this is....
> 
> Lyft only calls on a driver a few minutes before the scheduled time. You accept the ping just like any other and drive immediately to the rider. The only difference is that, if the driver gets there before the scheduled pickup time, he's got to wait until that time. I can't imagine it would be more than a couple of minutes. Lyft will probably enforce that by making a driver wait 5 minutes past the scheduled time, not the arrival time, to cancel the ride.
> 
> ...


Right on. That makes complete sense for SF where coverage pretty much exists 24 hours a day.

As to your follow up, that's why I was hung up as I assumed they wouldn't debut the option without an all-encompassing solution.


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

Is this voluntary? Do the riders choose a driver? How are they assigned? First come, first served like on a job board?


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

JimS said:


> Is this voluntary? Do the riders choose a driver? How are they assigned? First come, first served like on a job board?


OMG you still don't understand.

Anyway, I hope the Lyft system is sophisticated enough to automatically calibrate ping times to get drivers to riders within one minute, either way, of the scheduled time. Assuming the driver isn't a complete moron who makes a half-dozen wrong turns, of course. I have a feeling at the early stages it will cautiously ping drivers early so as not to run the risk of pissing off customers who are "early adopters" of scheduling. But after a few weeks, if Lyft programmers have any intelligence at all, the system should be able to auto-calibrate down to the minute (and perhaps store information about each driver's ability to hit the scheduled mark as well).


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

Flarpy said:


> Guys, you're failing to understand what this is....
> 
> *1. *Lyft only calls on a driver a few minutes before the scheduled time. You accept the ping just like any other and drive immediately to the rider. The only difference is that, if the driver gets there before the scheduled pickup time, he's got to wait until that time. I can't imagine it would be more than a couple of minutes.
> 
> ...





Flarpy said:


> *5. *Anyway, I hope the Lyft system is sophisticated enough to automatically calibrate ping times to get drivers to riders within one minute, either way, of the scheduled time.
> 
> *6. *But after a few weeks, if Lyft programmers have any intelligence at all, the system should be able to auto-calibrate down to the minute (and perhaps store information about each driver's ability to hit the scheduled mark as well).


You are making statements without experience based on speculation and what might "make sense". For now, I will pass over that we are dealing with Lyft which precludes making any sense. Instead, I will make my statements from experience.

The cab companies that use a satellite/computer/GPS based digital call assignment systems have this feature already. My Taxi, which is from Germany, is a smart-telephone based application for taxicabs that has this feature and has had it since its inception. The one thing that My Taxi does that the Lyft will not do is put up the trip as soon as it is received for drivers to claim. Thus, I will pass over that to proceed to what My Taxi does if no one claims the trip.

My Taxi will try to assign the trip thirty minutes before it is due, if no one has claimed it. As most of these types of calls here are mediocre to garbage trips, it resulted in many disgruntled drivers. It got to the point that My Taxi had a hard time covering those trips as drivers rejected them unless they were within five minutes of due time. Once a driver did let expire a ping, the application does not offer it to him, again. As a result, you had nothing but unhappy customers and unhappy drivers.

1. If my experience with My Taxi is at all instructive, your being unable to "imagine that it would be more than a couple of minutes" is mistaken. Lyft will care only that the request is covered. Lyft already has demonstrated that it does not care if its drivers earn money. To be sure, the customer pays the bills, thus his satisfaction is paramount. Further, the customer does not care if the driver earns a profit. The customer cares only that his ride shows up and takes him where he is going. The result is going to be that drivers will decline the pings unless they are due within five minutes.

2. My Taxi had a thirty minute lead programmed into it. Lyft will program whatever time that it decides to program and will listen to nobody about changing it.

3. The real result will be that drivers will decline the advance bookings because they will be sitting there waiting for a trip that is at best, mediocre. Then Lyft will have some unhappy users.

4. That is exactly the problem. To be sure, Lyft could program something into the application to vary the pinging time to match available cars with users. The problem will be that it will default to a time far in advance if the number of vehicles to the number of requests is out of alignment. It will err in favour of the customer and will make the driver unhappy.

5. No one will pay for a system that sophisticated. No one ever has used one that sophisticated.

6. Lyft is not going to pay for it, assuming that it can be done. I, as you, would assume that it can be done, but I do wonder if the TNCs will pay for it to be done.

My experience with this on a digital GPS/computer/satellite based request assignment has not been good. Rarely do you get it to the point where both driver and user are happy. The only way to do time calls is with real dispatch (READ: voice dispatch). No TNC is going to pay for that. Most cab companies have gotten away from it.


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

We'll see how it shakes down but...

"Pick up passengers the same way. Lyft only sends you the request when it's time to head to the pickup location. Simply accept and go, just like any other ride. "

...is enough info to be able to speculate on how their computers will assign rides. It will be nothing like the old way taxi services did.


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## the rebel (Jun 12, 2016)

I actually got one of these about 2 weeks ago with Lyft in Denver, since I had just started with Lyft I did not realize that this abnormal. The way it worked was that you get a normal looking ping. You accept and on your navigation screen it shows a scheduled pickup time just under the address and minute counter. Once you arrive it says that the pickup time is scheduled for ? and you arrived 4 minutes early, you must wait until the scheduled pickup time to start the counter. For some reason I think the counter was the typical 5 minutes, when the customer did not show and did not answer her phone I canceled and left. About 5 minutes later I got the phone call about how it is all my fault and they scheduled for a different time of course, but from our end it was basically a typical call only with a few wasted minutes.


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

Flarpy said:


> Lyft only sends you the request when it's time to head to the pickup location "
> 
> It will be nothing like the old way taxi services did.


Allright, but how does Lyft define when "it's time to head to the pickup location"?

The "old way" that the taxi services did it was voice dispatch (READ: REAL dispatch). My Taxi is a smart-telephone application by which the user summons a taxi. A smart-telephone application is the "new way".



the rebel said:


> The way it worked was that you get a normal looking ping. You accept and on your navigation screen it shows a scheduled pickup time just under the address and minute counter.


This is TRULY bad news. You do not know that it is a time call until you accept it, -eh? I guess that Lyft will be de-activating me for cancellations. I am not going to chase a time call nor am I going to sit for any more than five minutes for a garbage to mediocre trip. Lyft pays little enough as it is. I do not need to have Lyft waste even more of my time.


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## CatchyMusicLover (Sep 18, 2015)

Well do you know the destination once you get there or only one scheduled pickup time hits?
ALso, didn't they claim drivers would be compensated a bit more for them?


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## luvgurl22 (Jul 5, 2016)

Another Uber Driver said:


> You are making statements without experience based on speculation and what might "make sense". For now, I will pass over that we are dealing with Lyft which precludes making any sense. Instead, I will make my statements from experience.
> 
> The cab companies that use a satellite/computer/GPS based digital call assignment systems have this feature already. My Taxi, which is from Germany, is a smart-telephone based application for taxicabs that has this feature and has had it since its inception. The one thing that My Taxi does that the Lyft will not do is put up the trip as soon as it is received for drivers to claim. Thus, I will pass over that to proceed to what My Taxi does if no one claims the trip.
> 
> ...


I was thinking the same thing.At this point NO ONE knows how this will pan out.Lets just wait and see.


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

Still better than 3rd party.... Basically is a feature for riders, nothing extra or special for drivers.


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## the rebel (Jun 12, 2016)

CatchyMusicLover said:


> Well do you know the destination once you get there or only one scheduled pickup time hits?
> ALso, didn't they claim drivers would be compensated a bit more for them?


As I said I had just started and did not know how to check the destination until I got there, so I do not know if the destination was on there prior to me arriving but it was on there once I arrived. I got the regular cancellation fee.


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

Uber and Lyft don't tell you the destination of the rider until you pick them up. This is to avoid discrimination of long trips vs short trips.


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## CatchyMusicLover (Sep 18, 2015)

You can see when you arrive on Lyft before the actual 'pickup' (which was just added recently)


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## AllenChicago (Nov 19, 2015)

Jon H. SFBay said:


> Anyone try this yet?
> 
> *Earn more on scheduled rides.* *Passengers can schedule original Lyft rides only*, so you'll see more of those requests. They'll also pay higher cancellation fees.
> .


Passengers CAN schedule original Lyft Rides? (Not good)
or
Passengers CAN ONLY schedule original Lyft Rides? (Great!)


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

CatchyMusicLover said:


> You can see when you arrive on Lyft before the actual 'pickup' (which was just added recently)


Interesting. Doesn't work here in Savannah yet. Must be a regional feature.


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## CatchyMusicLover (Sep 18, 2015)

You have to press the little square in the corner to see it. This is a recent change that happened along with adding the picup button (and before that, another change from being able to see destination as soon as you accepted with said button)


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## AllenChicago (Nov 19, 2015)

Friday, September 30, 2016

Today, the "Scheduled Rides" feature debuted in the Chicago market.

Here's the description for the *passenger*: https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/213584118-Can-I-Schedule-a-Ride-in-Advance-

Here's the description for the *driver*: http://thehub.lyft.com/blog/scheduledrides?rq=scheduled

We take a lot of passengers to one of the airports here in Chicago. It will be interesting to see how this new feature works out, or if it is even utilized.


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## kinicky21 (Sep 17, 2016)

Had one this morning. Ping came in at 1050 ETA was 7 minutes. Got there at 1057 and hit arrived. Was then able to see destination which was the airport. Guy came out at 1100 and then confirmed pickup and left. Didn't notice any difference from an ordinary ride other then the words scheduled pick up. Guy was a past Lyft driver and said he was able to schedule the ride last night. Was trying to look to see where the scheduled time was at but I don't think I was able to see it. Must have been there because it doesn't make much sense of having a scheduled ride without showing you the time. Of course he didn't tip...


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## kinicky21 (Sep 17, 2016)

Correction it was sent to me at 1047 with a 7 minute ETA. Looking back in history it doesn't show when the ride was scheduled for either.


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## The Ombudsman (Nov 2, 2016)

Woo bumping slightly old thread 

I've gotten a couple of these rides near/in Boulder, CO this week. Quizzed the pax a bit.

Both of mine had 15min travel times to the pickup. Based on the time the ping hit vs. what the pax had plugged in when scheduling, I'm guessing that Lyft's system is erring on the side of caution and throwing the ping out pretty early, but not necessarily to the closest driver, in order to lock a driver in with an ETA to the pickup pretty close to the requested time. 

With only two examples, I can't tell yet if that is indeed how it's working. If I get a scheduled pickup in a usually driver-dense area during more normal hours, and it's a 15 min drive to get there... that'll more reinforce that theory. And if I'm correct on that, it's kinda shitty that we're being sent pings with longer pickup drives without any payout adjustment.


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## Trump Economics (Jul 29, 2015)

Jon H. SFBay said:


> Anyone try this yet?
> 
> Scheduled Rides Are Right on Time
> 
> ...


Earn More. I stopped reading right there. Lyft's a big pile of poo.


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