# Lyft Line Woes



## Markeezee (May 1, 2017)

I had a late start today due to running errands and taking care of other personal matters, and after tonight, I wish that I just stayed in for the night all thanks to the inefficiency of Lyft Line

So I started driving out to my stumping ground at Cerritos, CA. It must be the cloudy and cold weather that must have kept people from going out tonight but I waited a good 30-minutes to get a ping, longer than what I'm normally accustomed to. Seeing that it's already late in the night, I decided to take the Lyft Line ping from a girl coming out of work from Weinerschnitzel (didn't want to go home empty handed). As we were in transit to her destination, I got a ping that indicated that I had another passenger added. I followed the prompt, tapped on the details, and automatically, as I expected, the Lyft app toggled back to my GPS app and expected that we were in transit to pick up the other passenger.

It turns out that it was my passenger's first time utilizing Lyft because she asked me if we were going to pick up another passenger. I confirmed. She then said that she always used Uber and was in a rush to get home but I guess no one wanted to pick her up and she resorted to using Lyft. [_Full disclosure: I exclusively drive Lyft simply for the part time gig. Managing two rideshare would probably prove taxing to an individual base on what I read around these forums_). From what I can extrapolate from her responses and implicit verbal cues, she intended to utilize regular Lyft but was ignorant and perhaps in a hurry to distinguish between Regular Lyft and Lyft Line. I asked her, "Do you normally take Uber?". And then she said, "Yeah, I just had to take Lyft this one time and it said if I wanted 2 seats, but I'm like I only need 1". So I figured she's new to the interface of Lyft, and we moved on with our destination expecting to pick up the other passenger.

As we neared the destination, the girl told me, "Oh it's the house with the white fence", as I stopped to dropped her off, I knew something was off and then to my shock I realized that the Lyft app and my GPS app didn't seem to register and/or lagged that it didn't place us in transit to pick up the other passenger. The other passenger was 2-miles back the opposite direction! The waybill is as follows: Pick up "A" then pick up "B". Drop off "A" and then pick up "B". I tapped the Lyft app initially as prompted like I normally do when doing Lyft Line assuming that it will direct the GPS app to the next passenger in queue (like it should). Instead, the GPS app did not register it and instead went: Pick up "A" and then drop off "A". After I toggled back to the Lyft app and pressed the arrow on the upper-right hand side, only then did the GPS app directed me back to passenger "B's" location!

So in essence, I doubled back to pick up passenger "B" and I couldn't complete the waybill because it's stuck in the "A" --> "B" --> "A" --> "B" sequence. Only after having arrived at "B's" location did I manage to "Tap to Drop Off 'A'" even though I already dropped "A" a long time ago, the matter now was to simply drop off "B". In short, I had to duly apologize to passenger "B" and explain to her what happened with the app technical issue and the inconvenience it had caused, delaying her ride longer than it needed to be.

This issue happened to me before in which a passenger I picked up from Hawaiian Gardens going to Long Beach added another destination stop. Instead of taking me to his destination stop, the GPS app brought me DIRECTLY to his final destination (Lyft app acknowledges the destination route but GPS apo didnt). I e-mailed Lyft about this app technical issue and conceded a glitch between the Lyft app and the GPS app registering/communicating with one another. In this particular case, passenger "A" and I were already in transit to her destination when passenger "B" put in a Lyft request, however, passenger "B" was in the opposite direction of our transit. Lyft's waybill was pick up "A" and then "B" but we were already a mile off from "B's" location so I guess the GPS stuck with the original location not compensating for the additional Lyft request even though in the Lyft interface we were suppose to pick up "B". In short, it was a logistical cluster****. One may argue that it is incumbent upon me to ensure that I perhaps could have force quit the GPS app and then toggled to the Lyft app, tap on the arrow so that the GPS app could have corrected itself.

In hindsight this may have been the correct course of action but at the end of the day, this is Lyft's platform and it is their duty to dispatch accordingly and ensure that their Lyft Line routing of passengers is efficient and on-point as they (Lyft) intended it. I just do what the app tells me: to get passengers from point A to point B and whatever other destinations or pickups are in between. All these little minutae happen in split seconds while driving and making quick decisions on the road while in motion. Having to worry whether the app is working accordingly or if I am en route as dictated in the waybill should already be expedited on Lyft's back end.

This is my first Lyft Line that has gone awry, after having completed exceptional ones with no issues with passengers aboard as they shared one ride. And rest assured that I have written a lengthy e-mail with screen shots and all to Lyft support regarding my frustration with their logistical mess for this particular Lyft Line. Outside of my frustration comes enlightenment which pretty much has been complained or addressed upon numerous times in certain threads here in Uber People, which is _Lyft Line (and/or UberPool) is just a ****ing waste of time, inefficient and only places drivers in the wrong *****ing-end of passengers grievances due to the logistical mess it creates.
_
In my case, it is a matter of game-theory as to whether passenger "B" may have rated me a 1* and/or complain to Lyft due to being inconvenienced for having to wait longer for a ride which was entirely out of my control despite apologizing sincerely. These kind of Lyft Line mishaps only foments an attitude of distrust and apathy amongst drivers and passengers--you don't know which ones will rate you low or complain to Lyft due to having inconvenienced them for having to stop and wait for another passenger(s) seeing that they have their own priorities in mind. Sad to say that, I , myself had to be pre-emptive and decided to rate both passenger "A" and "B" low simply due to the fact that I couldn't chance rating them a 4* knowing that one (or both) would rate me a 1* out of principle even though both passengers seemed amicable and understanding. Again Lyft Line breeds these kind of mentality regardless of people's natural disposition.

Trump Economics who is a well-known member in these forums, I believe, has a firm disdain for Lyft Line and openly advocates for rating 1* to those passengers in order to break down and/or game the system, knowing full well Lyft is out here essentially playing games with all of us. After tonight's fiasco, I'm pretty much in the fence with him on this and perhaps, I should deeply consider employing tactics that he exerts in his profile page information simply because I've witnessed first-hand the detriment, inefficiency, and frustration Lyft Line (and/or UberPool) only seems to create. It's just beginning to come to that point that if Lyft is not going to work with us for change then I guess I need to change how I do things in the Lyft platform.


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## MiddleClassedOut (Jun 11, 2015)

I 3-star every Lyft Line passenger unless I REALLY like them. Really cuts down on the rides, but I've been doing this a while. Hopefully they won't get picked up by others.

In my market you lose the pick-up fee, that really hurts on surge rides.

Line passengers are a demographic unto themselves, cheapskates with time to kill. There is one exception: I've had a few who take Line and then tip the difference because they know the tip goes 100% to the driver. But you don't know who they are in advance.


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## Fritz Duval (Feb 4, 2017)

1st mistake, u took on a Line, 2nd mistake, refer back to 1st mistake. Maybe u should write a book in the future. Good greif. Lyft App sucks, pray it works normal on a simple Lyft request, how dare you assume for it to work on Line. Lol!


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## Snowblind (Apr 14, 2017)

As soon as the Lyft Line request comes up, I kill the App.
Still have 100% acceptance.


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## Greenie (Jan 26, 2016)

Omg why do these cheap a$$ **** keep ordering lines in DT where it's guaranteed they'll get maximum match then b***h about the long ride.


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## Markeezee (May 1, 2017)

I've taken some Lyft Lines before that worked out well. But I've intuit that the law of average would catch up to me eventually and will get "that one Line" which will make me change my attitude about it as many have exerted their unsavory experiences that people have had with Line or UberPool in these forums. I tend to give myself the benefit of the doubt about Line and contine my satisfactory Line streak until of course I lucked out last night. I pretty much promised myself that I'll put a stop loss once that bad experiences happen, so in essence, when a Line request comes up I'll either:

1) Ignore the request and wait for a regular Lyft at the detriment of my acceptance rate (pretty much not take Line at all)

2) As SnowBlind suggests, force quitting the app (perhaps, I'll get a nasty gram from Lyft for doing so)

3) If passengers are thin in my area and need the earnings, accept the Line and hit "sign off after last ride" option so I won't get additional passengers, and as MiddleClassedOut suggests, 3* (or lower) so that I won't be paired with the individual(s) again. [Take the money and pretty much don't see the person again]

Learned my lesson on this one. On a positive note, Lyft e-mailed me back and reimbursed/adjusted my fare for that failed Line ride to factor in the miles I doubled back to pick up passenger "B", pretty much an explicit admission on Lyft's part that their Line feature is inefficient.


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## Jagent (Jan 29, 2017)

Markeezee said:


> [_Full disclosure: I exclusively drive Lyft simply for the part time gig. Managing two rideshare would probably prove taxing to an individual base on what I read around these forums_).


Managing Uber and Lyft at the same time is really easy. Just load up both apps, go online and wait. As soon as you accept a request on one, switch to the other and go offline. It's simple and you can pretty much double your business.


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## Coolrider101nk (Jun 21, 2016)

Full disclosure. ... I quit reading after the 3rd subject change left me with no clue if I was reading a Steven King novel or a journal entry from an asylum.


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## Certain Judgment (Dec 2, 2016)

I'm really glad we don't have the cheaper Cheapskate option here in Milwaukee...yet...


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## SurgeSurferSD (Nov 15, 2016)

Rule #1 of Drive Club: Stop accepting PooLines


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## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Only ever had issues with UberPool

Actually kinda like Line on PT%, because it is usually a hint that the paxhole's price sensitivity threshold got tripped...and that often means a fairly decent ride


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