# Is there a limit to how many rides Lyft Line chains together?



## DaveM88 (May 18, 2016)

Hey everyone, new here. I just joined Lyft and drove for the first time Friday night (Boston area). Purposely took it slow at first by sticking around "easier" areas that weren't as busy so I could get used to the app, and then started getting closer to the city. Near the end of the night I got my first Line request. I know from reading through topics on here that some of you hate line requests but I didn't mind so I accepted it (plus, for my first night, I was more interested in gaining experience than maximizing my income). Ended up being a ride from Woburn to Needham Heights and despite thinking that area wouldn't really be busy at midnight I actually got two more pings with fairly short rides following that (0ddly, the last ride added to my queue was *not* a line ride although it was automatically added, is that normal?).

My question is, is there a limit to how many rides will get chained together after accepting a line request? The issue I ended up having was that I _really _had to use the bathroom but was stuck with two more rides before I got the chance to close out driver mode. I honestly don't mind line requests (perhaps that will change as I do this more), but if there is a potential of being caught in a long chain of ride requests it would definitely have an affect on when I would accept one. I wouldn't want to get stuck picking up too many more people if I needed to start heading home or if I knew I needed a break soon for food/bathroom/fatigue/other.


----------



## macchiato (Sep 29, 2015)

The maximum I've had was 3 separate pickups on two different occasions. 

One of them was all 3 got picked up then dropped off. 

Other was pickup A, pickup B, drop off B, pickup C, dropoff A, dropoff C. 

If you need to go offline, hit the steering wheel button on top to signify that this is your last ride during a Line run. You may get paired with another Line request but not another queue.


----------



## DaveM88 (May 18, 2016)

Thanks. That's good to know. I didn't think the steering wheel button would even work while a ride was active.

My ride queue was basically one after the other, pickup A, dropoff A, pickup B, dropoff B, pickup C (which weirdly wasn't a line ride), dropoff C. I'm guessing that having each passenger one at a time for a line ride is atypical though and was probably just a matter of the timing the requests came in since it seems somewhat counter-intuitive to what Lyft Line is supposed to be (each line passenger basically lucked out on a reduced fare without having to make another stop before their destination).


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

DaveM88 said:


> Thanks. That's good to know. I didn't think the steering wheel button would even work while a ride was active.
> 
> My ride queue was basically one after the other, pickup A, dropoff A, pickup B, dropoff B, pickup C (which weirdly wasn't a line ride), dropoff C. I'm guessing that having each passenger one at a time for a line ride is atypical though and was probably just a matter of the timing the requests came in since it seems somewhat counter-intuitive to what Lyft Line is supposed to be (each line passenger basically lucked out on a reduced fare without having to make another stop before their destination).


Doubt it.

You probably let paseengers navigate or alter the route. Or did so yourself.

Line cant get you new pax into a loaded car if it only knows your start and endpoints. It needs you to follow the proscribed course.

Also dont accept additional dropoffs or changes of destination from "friendly", "polite" pax - cause they scammers.

Their payment is already fixed. So is yours, pretty much (except detours to fill seats arw paid by Lyft)

On lyft basic, they talk you into driving three counties over despite destination: 7-11 down the block, you drive em, drop em off and get paid for 3 counties (still have em edit it thenselves on their phones though, else there's a risk they'll claim they were nevwr there or asleeep or smthn and you just"ran up meter")

On LyftLINE get talked into 3 counties ? They still pay like its still the 7-11, and your earnings are presumably affected too


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Conversely, you and pax agree you dont want more seats filled? Drive parallel streets to what the directions tell you


----------



## DaveM88 (May 18, 2016)

Adieu said:


> Doubt it.
> 
> You probably let paseengers navigate or alter the route. Or did so yourself.
> 
> Line cant get you new pax into a loaded car if it only knows your start and endpoints. It needs you to follow the proscribed course.


Followed the first trip to a T (was a longer one, just shy of 21 miles, mostly highway) and after reaching the destination and it switched back from navigation to lyft app it showed that another passenger was already added to my queue (roughly 3 miles away iirc) and switched naviagation to that passsenger. I did however, after picking up that passenger, get messed up by a weird intersection that looked slightly different on the Google Maps nav screen (to which the passenger replied, "everyone gets messed up by *street name*" but there was merely a parallel street that kept me on course with no time lost). So perhaps that's what caused the next ride that was automatically added to my queue to be a non-line ride?

What I didn't like was there was no way for me to know a new line rider was added until I got to my destination and it switched back to the Lyft app from Google. I assume if it was going to divert me to another pax pickup it would have done so in the background and it would have changed right there on Google maps for me since following nav directions to a T but also simultaneously juggling between apps to check for new pickups would be counter-intuitive and dangerous.


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Eh? There is NO fully inyegrated turn by turn navigation in Line. Afaik

I compared Waze and in-window Lyft routing they were different


----------



## DaveM88 (May 18, 2016)

Each time it automatically switched to Google Maps navigation on pickup just as it would with a normal Lyft ride. Are you saying that _isn't _supposed to happen for a Lyft line ride? If so, what a terrible system that is for Line. Why wouldn't it just use nav and hijack the nav app and reroute whenever it needs to?


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

DaveM88 said:


> Each time it automatically switched to Google Maps navigation on pickup just as it would with a normal Lyft ride. Are you saying that _isn't _supposed to happen for a Lyft line ride? If so, what a terrible system that is for Line. Why wouldn't it just use nav and hijack the nav app and reroute whenever it needs to?


Seems that way, yes.

My county doesnt have Line though, only get em in next county over

Noticed it switching over to built-in map in Lyft app when looking to figure out what was going on (since waze is a disaster and gmaps conflicts with my bluetooth)

I always click over to Lyft app when approaching destinations anyway (and stay in it for "geometric" cities with grid street plans)...waze will mess the last few feet up 100% of the time. Dunno about google. As i said it doesnt get along with my rig. And it lacks options n stuff


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Navigation in Lyft is horrible.

If they just had turn arrows or zoomable street name fonts on builtin map, i wouldnt use it at all

Its so bad it might be worse than BMW iDrive navi, in fact


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

DEARLY wish it could use the "offline navigation" app, the one that downloads like 4 gigs of maps and tells you everything from elevation to ratio of Soviet vs. American military satellites being used for your location...


----------



## DaveM88 (May 18, 2016)

I don't know if Google messes up the last 100ft or so because it would actually automatically kick back to the Lyft app once I got that close (which actually screws me up a ton because I go from having a map at a perspective view to suddenly switching to a map oriented with north at the top). Every passenger was pretty much there waiting though so it wasn't too big of an issue, but it also meant that I had such a short period of time after the switch back to lyft to the start ride option that I never have been able to tell what I was looking at. When I'm approaching a pickup destination is the blue dot still me or is that now my passenger? I do try to look at address numbers if I can at that point anyway but not all numbers are clearly marked and some straight up aren't marked at all. Then throw in the fact that it's night time and looking for the address number becomes futile.

At least now though I know to switch back to the Lyft app during a line ride (even though I'll have to deal with it's terrible navigation). At the very least I used to deliver auto parts a few years ago and always utilized a roadmap book that I couldn't conveniently hold in front of me at all times so I should be able to manage.

As far as offline maps goes, I would love to be able to use that to save my data, Google Maps lets you do it too. You can select an area and save the maps. The problem is, there is no option for me to save the maps to my SD card, and since Verizon decided the only S4 I would need is the 16GB one I'm already pushing the limit on storage space (I constantly have to clear the cache just to let apps update because I'll get the "not enough storage" error, which is annoying since it'll say that with over 500Mb remaining when it needs to download a 20Mb update).


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

500 mb thing = across all androids

Non 16gb androids (or 8 for budget phones) are mythical unicorns in US market. Not carried anywhere.

You can set up to use sd card for most things on most versions. Except new androids. Updates mess everything up lol, 5.x.x+ restricts SD usagefor most things. Probably an attempt to sell more expensve versions of phones

Never update a 4.4.x to 5.anything youll lose features you paid for and itll slow down A LOT


----------



## DaveM88 (May 18, 2016)

Adieu said:


> 500 mb thing = across all androids
> 
> Non 16gb androids (or 8 for budget phones) are mythical unicorns in US market. Not carried anywhere.
> 
> You can set up to use sd card for most things on most versions. Except really new androids. Updates mess everything up lol


Yeah, I have the "option" to move a lot of apps onto the SD card but after they get updated they get shuffled back onto the internal storage.


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

DaveM88 said:


> Yeah, I have the "option" to move a lot of apps onto the SD card but after they get updated they get shuffled back onto the internal storage.


And it all worked beautifully in 4.4.3

&#8230;dang update pretty much killed half the benefits of my Galaxy S Tab. Which was top of the line when bought & when the v5 updategot pushed

-1 gig ram
Loss of use of storage
Glitches
Permissions that change themselves
Unkillable processes
"Security" stuff that's actually Sammy/Google adware and malware


----------



## BostonBarry (Aug 31, 2015)

Line allows 3 different requests. The ride that wasn't a Line is a "stacked" ride, this can be done because you were on a Line ride at the time and Lyft knows you're going to drop in that area for certain. Will give you the request since your ETA is closer than anyone nearby.


----------



## BostonBarry (Aug 31, 2015)

(Stacked ride is not part of the line)


----------



## DaveM88 (May 18, 2016)

BostonBarry said:


> Line allows 3 different requests. The ride that wasn't a Line is a "stacked" ride, this can be done because you were on a Line ride at the time and Lyft knows you're going to drop in that area for certain. Will give you the request since your ETA is closer than anyone nearby.


Thanks. So if I accept a Lyft Line request, I know it will never be more than 3 rides. That sounds good to me. I didn't mind having that stacked request although I could see it potentially screwing me if it ended up being another long ride that took me further from home when I was getting ready to call it a night (or if I am in another situation where I need a bathroom break really bad, haha).


----------



## BostonBarry (Aug 31, 2015)

Yup, you can use Last Ride mode to avoid stacked requests. You'll still get additional Line riders, but no stacked.


----------

