# New Feature on PAX App??



## NachonCheeze (Sep 8, 2015)

This may have already been a feature, if so I was unaware. I was told by two PAX ,today, that the app provides a timer of when a surge will end and that they can opt for a text message to be sent when the surge ends. Both said they had not seen this feature before.Is this a new feature or existing??


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## UberPartnerDennis (Jun 21, 2015)

Its newish.....it was rolled out in some markets before it went common amongst all of them. Its Screwbers way of fighting the surge drivers.


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

Not new ... we've had it here for 6+ months. However, yesterday I saw a group of people waiting for 2.1X surge to disappear for a short 5 mile ride to downtown ... they were literally standing right next to my car ... rider app showed me 1min away. As soon as surge disappeared, I went offline only to hear them say ... "what happened to the car that was just here? now it says closest car is 15 mins away". Yep, should have taken the surge trip; I guess you'll be missing the concert


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## UberPartnerDennis (Jun 21, 2015)

Ziggy said:


> Not new ... we've had it here for 6+ months. However, yesterday I saw a group of people waiting for 2.1X surge to disappear for a short 5 mile ride to downtown ... they were literally standing right next to my car ... rider app showed me 1min away. As soon as surge disappeared, I went offline only to hear them say ... "what happened to the car that was just here? now it says closest car is 15 mins away". Yep, should have taken the surge trip; I guess you'll be missing the concert


HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Karma....LOVE IT


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## LondonONTdriver (Oct 29, 2015)

...this is probably why when my city does surge it only lasts for 5 mins. No pings within those minutes and then when the surge ends the pings commence.


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## Contuber (Jan 31, 2016)

With these rates, no reasonable driver would accept a non-surge ping. Pax try to wait out the surge. At the end, everybody is mad, ratings go down, and only Ewber still gets its surge cut.


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## 80sDude (Jul 20, 2015)

Way to go ziggy... I do the same thing... Turn the app OFF people when surge ends.. Turn it off indefinatly if it don't return.. Regular rate is for for chumps..


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

80sDude said:


> Way to go ziggy... I do the same thing... Turn the app OFF people when surge ends.. Turn it off indefinatly if it don't return.. Regular rate is for for chumps..


The only non-surge trips I take are Lux ... 'cause at $3.75/mi ... I can still get by on that. And most of my tips have been from Lux pax ... so win-win.


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

80sDude said:


> Regular rate is for for chumps


It's not really regular rate anymore, it's more like "highly discounted screw the drivers with winter rates that will never go back up" rates. *last regular rate I saw was Jan 2015 (X @ $2.50/mi) ... now it's $1.00/mi.


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## NachonCheeze (Sep 8, 2015)

ok, so I did a little research using the app as a PAX. The app tells you that the current surge is X.X and that it will EXPIRE in XX minutes. I did not see a "timer" as the PAX stated. I think this would explain why when the surge jumps, say to 2.5, and when I go online I immediately get a ping at a lower surge than is what being shown on the Driver app. I'm thinking that I'm getting an "unexpired" surge rate.

I also think that the "expire" is not when the surge will end, as some passengers have stated, but is an expiration of the guaranteed surge rate. Meaning, if the PAX does not accept the current surge and the surge rate has gone up after the current surge expires they will now have to pay the now higher surge rate.

_Completely just a theory_


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## Disgusted Driver (Jan 9, 2015)

My understanding is that the timer is how long they have to lock in that rate, NOT when it expires because it's always 3 minutes. The app does have an option to notify the pax when the surge ends, that's the cheapskate button and the reason why you get a flood of requests after the surge ends. 

What everyone should remember is that the driver app ALWAYS lags behind the pax app so if you want to know what's going on in real time, check the pax app.


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## grayspinner (Sep 8, 2015)

When you are in the process of requesting a ride, but haven't yet finalized your request - you are guaranteed your price for a couple of minutes (I think it's 3). So if the surge increases while you are requesting, you'll get a lower surge. 

Separately - if you start to request a ride during surge, you'll get a pop up screen that asks you to confirm the rate or take the option of waiting & you can have uber notify you when surge ends. 

This has been the option for at least 4 months


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## nickd8775 (Jul 12, 2015)

grayspinner said:


> When you are in the process of requesting a ride, but haven't yet finalized your request - you are guaranteed your price for a couple of minutes (I think it's 3). So if the surge increases while you are requesting, you'll get a lower surge.
> 
> Separately - if you start to request a ride during surge, you'll get a pop up screen that asks you to confirm the rate or take the option of waiting & you can have uber notify you when surge ends.
> 
> This has been the option for at least 4 months


Of course, that doesn't guarantee a driver will accept a lower surge ride.


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## grayspinner (Sep 8, 2015)

nickd8775 said:


> Of course, that doesn't guarantee a driver will accept a lower surge ride.


True - I certainly won't. But it seems there is always some driver who will


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## UXDriver (May 20, 2015)

Raise the rates to at least double or around $1.50 a mile

Get rid of the surge

Everyone wins


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

Disgusted Driver said:


> My understanding is that the timer is how long they have to lock in that rate, NOT when it expires because it's always 3 minutes. The app does have an option to notify the pax when the surge ends, that's the cheapskate button and the reason why you get a flood of requests after the surge ends.
> 
> What everyone should remember is that the driver app ALWAYS lags behind the pax app so if you want to know what's going on in real time, check the pax app.


And immediately log off when surge drops below 1.6x unless your desperate or something. SD drivers are doing the same thing. Surge pricing allows us to collectively set our price. RIght now most drivers wait until it hits 2x to log on but I predict we can get it up to 3x as more drivers catch on to what we are doing.


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## RockinEZ (Apr 29, 2015)

I don't mind driving at $1.80/mile and 20 cents/min. 
That is 2x here in San Diego. 
I stealth it until at least 2.x


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## Disgusted Driver (Jan 9, 2015)

grayspinner said:


> True - I certainly won't. But it seems there is always some driver who will


The trick is you would actually have to be paying attention to know that the surge is higher than the request you just got. I get the sense that most drivers accept ping, p/u, drop off. repeat, without much thought and there are too many of them for us to be able to manipulate the surge in any meaningful way. At this point I'm content to simply not be a part of the madness.


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## 80sDude (Jul 20, 2015)

Submarine mode is the ONLY WAY TO GO..

Fares/Hour
Last Week $62

2 Weeks Ago $31

Top drivers $49


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## Contuber (Jan 31, 2016)

I got several rides to the airport last week (students leaving for the spring break), a 40-45 miles and about 1 hour round trip. I feel that it is worth at 3.1+ surge (that I had for most of my runs in the morning), but not that much at 2.0.

It would be a failure at regular rates. I refused such trip today on Lyft. $15 fare, and $5 for gas? No, thank you.

Sitting near the airport doesn't seem like an option, though. After drop-offs, I just took off still having both Uber and Lyft on, not a single ping.


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## MrZimmer (Sep 21, 2015)

I have attached a snapshot of what it looks like on my passenger app. I just discovered it yesterday myself. It gives both an option to be notified of when the surge ends, and in fine print at the very bottom it even gives an estimate of how long that will be. The whole point of the surge is to dangle carrots in the faces of drivers to get them on the road. Look at the snapshot I am attaching--it even says just that across the top! 

"Fares have been increased to get more Ubers on the road."

Uber is doing everything it can to stick it to its "partners".


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## Disgusted Driver (Jan 9, 2015)

MrZimmer said:


> I have attached a snapshot of what it looks like on my passenger app. I just discovered it yesterday myself. It gives both an option to be notified of when the surge ends, and in fine print at the very bottom it even gives an estimate of how long that will be. The whole point of the surge is to dangle carrots in the faces of drivers to get them on the road. Look at the snapshot I am attaching--it even says just that across the top!
> 
> "Fares have been increased to get more Ubers on the road."
> 
> Uber is doing everything it can to stick it to its "partners".


That is not correct. The "This rate expires in 1 minute" is NOT when the surge is expected to go away. It is when your rate lock at 2.0 surge goes away. If it keeps surging higher and you take to long to request the trip, you lose the lower rate and have to try at a higher one. This is the reason why sometimes it may be surging 2.5 on your app but you'll get a request for a ride at 2.0, they were in the middle of requesting a ride when the rate jumped, they still get to finish their request (doesn't mean you should accept it though). Nothing has changed there!!


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## MrZimmer (Sep 21, 2015)

Disgusted Driver said:


> That is not correct. The "This rate expires in 1 minute" is NOT when the surge is expected to go away. It is when your rate lock at 2.0 surge goes away. If it keeps surging higher and you take to long to request the trip, you lose the lower rate and have to try at a higher one. This is the reason why sometimes it may be surging 2.5 on your app but you'll get a request for a ride at 2.0, they were in the middle of requesting a ride when the rate jumped, they still get to finish their request (doesn't mean you should accept it though). Nothing has changed there!!


Thank you for the clarification!


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## Agent99 (Nov 4, 2015)

The rate lock can be substantially longer, especially when there is no surge. I have seen the rate lock be as much as 11 minutes for a non surge fare. This is one more reason why a driver could get a non-surge request five or ten minutes after surge begins. This is also one more reason why drivers need to pay attention to that request when it comes in, looking carefully at the surge multiplier, if any. Blindly assume nothing, carefully check everything.


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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

Agent99 said:


> The rate lock can be substantially longer, especially when there is no surge. I have seen the rate lock be as much as 11 minutes for a non surge fare. This is one more reason why a driver could get a non-surge request five or ten minutes after surge begins. This is also one more reason why drivers need to pay attention to that request when it comes in, looking carefully at the surge multiplier, if any. Blindly assume nothing, carefully check everything.


There is no rate lock timer on non-surge fares, that time you see on the request button is the time estimate it will take a diver to reach you.


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## Agent99 (Nov 4, 2015)

Beur said:


> There is no rate lock timer on non-surge fares, that time you see on the request button is the time estimate it will take a diver to reach you.


I believe I saw a rate lock timer for a non surge ride just after surge went into effect. I could be wrong. I will try to replicate it...


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## MrZimmer (Sep 21, 2015)

Agent99 said:


> This is also one more reason why drivers need to pay attention to that request when it comes in, looking carefully at the surge multiplier, if any. Blindly assume nothing, carefully check everything.


I do. Surges really do not last long in our locale for the most part, but I do get them from time to time. Most of the ones I get just take me up to the old rate though I have caught some bigger ones.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Ziggy said:


> Not new ... we've had it here for 6+ months. However, yesterday I saw a group of people waiting for 2.1X surge to disappear for a short 5 mile ride to downtown ... they were literally standing right next to my car ... rider app showed me 1min away. As soon as surge disappeared, I went offline only to hear them say ... "what happened to the car that was just here? now it says closest car is 15 mins away". Yep, should have taken the surge trip; I guess you'll be missing the concert


You should have told them.


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> You should have told them.


Right ... though I had a Lewis Black moment and wasn't thinking clearly enough at the time.


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## Ziggy (Feb 27, 2015)

UXDriver said:


> Raise the rates to at least double or around $1.50 a mile
> 
> Get rid of the surge
> 
> Everyone wins


Raise the fares and lower commissions to JAN 2015 rates / commissions - that's workable


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## OrlandoUberX (Feb 15, 2016)

As a note they have to verify the surge number. So if its 2x they have to type in 2.0 before they can summon a driver. So if you ever get a rider who didn't know it was surge they are a liar and you shouldn't listen to them or feel bad.


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