# Perhaps I don't understand surge......



## 2kwik4u (Aug 27, 2019)

So I got this in the app for the first time last night. It looks different than what I thought was "surge" pricing.










Wouldn't more requests than usual mean that surge pricing should be involved?

This is what I thought surge pricing was. The $3 little redish-purplish area in the bottom center there. That's surge pricing right?









Can someone explain the difference for me? Any thoughts on what the little lightning bolt is for as compared to putting surge pricing out there? AM I missing something here?

Also......a quick gripe.....the colors in the "night mode" suck for someone that is mildly color blind.


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## nouberipo (Jul 24, 2018)

That means they want you to go to that area to get more rides because it IS surging. Uber, however, now charges the surge to paxoles but no longer passes it onto the driver. It used to be used as an incentive to drive during inclement weather, rush hour, major events but that is no longer. Instead they still charge the paxoles exhorbitant rates based on surge pricing but again, you will receive regular rates. There is no reason at all why a driver should drive to a "busy" area to make money for Uber while tearing up their car in the process, spending their money on gas, spending the time, etc. In the end you will not make more than minimum wage whereas in years past with surge you could actually make a living doing this.


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## Coyotex (Feb 10, 2019)

nouberipo said:


> That means they want you to go to that area to get more rides because it IS surging. Uber, however, now charges the surge to paxoles but no longer passes it onto the driver. It used to be used as an incentive to drive during inclement weather, rush hour, major events but that is no longer. Instead they still charge the paxoles exhorbitant rates based on surge pricing but again, you will receive regular rates. There is no reason at all why a driver should drive to a "busy" area to make money for Uber while tearing up their car in the process, spending their money on gas, spending the time, etc. In the end you will not make more than minimum wage whereas in years past with surge you could actually make a living doing this.


What? Uber no longer pays surge to the driver? I haven't heard this yet. Hmmmmm


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## losiglow (Dec 4, 2018)

Uber pays surge to the driver if you are in the surge area, of if you get a request from the surge area. The lightening bolt would likely mean that there is a lot of demand, but maybe not to the point where the ratio of trip request/drivers is high enough to warrant surge. Could be a bit conspiracy for Uber to make more $$$. Who knows.

I've found the lightning bolt to be relatively worthless even when I'm near it. I don't chase surge much, let alone the lightning bolt. 

Yes, the color scheme sucks for night. I changed the settings to stay in daytime mode all the time. Then just lower my screen brightness at night.


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## 25rides7daysaweek (Nov 20, 2017)

Coyotex said:


> What? Uber no longer pays surge to the driver? I haven't heard this yet. Hmmmmm


The little lightning bolt on the top is
Busier than usual with no money for us....


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## Ssgcraig (Jul 8, 2015)

I see $3 of surge. More requests than usual is Ubers feeble attempt to move drivers around.


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## 2kwik4u (Aug 27, 2019)

Thanks for the replies and explanations. I'm still getting my feet under me in completely understanding the map.....and the app usage in general.

Had a music festival going on Saturday night. Busiest I've seen the town in the time (mid August to now) that I've been working. Averaged a shade under $20/hr after expenses for about 5.5hrs or so.










The actual Festival Pickup/Drop-Off Site was a complete clooge of poor organization. Went there once, and while the money was good, the traffic in/out spoiled the ability to get much from it. Was only like this from about 10pm until ~1am or so. I spent the evening shuffling people around the downtown night-life spots.


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## mch (Nov 22, 2018)

The lightning bolt indicates the area to head to for your free Uber prostate exam.


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## BuberDriver (Feb 2, 2016)

just ignore that "more requests than usual" alert. Now in our market, and I'm sure many others, those areas are grey/gray whatever...they're still busy areas but without a surge.Yes uber has been known to charge riders a surge and not pay the drivers surge pricing (check the blogs), but this also goes both ways when you keep a sticky surge and use it later when a pax isn't paying surge pricing


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## soundude (Mar 26, 2018)

2kwik4u said:


> Thanks for the replies and explanations. I'm still getting my feet under me in completely understanding the map.....and the app usage in general.
> 
> Had a music festival going on Saturday night. Busiest I've seen the town in the time (mid August to now) that I've been working. Averaged a shade under $20/hr after expenses for about 5.5hrs or so.
> 
> ...


As you can see from this picture, the new surge pricing is a FIXED AMOUNT. I have no idea what the passenger is charged, but gone are the days when a $12 ride and a 700% surge would net you $84. I've never seen any "Minimum Surge" above $5.75.


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## 2kwik4u (Aug 27, 2019)

soundude said:


> As you can see from this picture, the new surge pricing is a FIXED AMOUNT. I have no idea what the passenger is charged, but gone are the days when a $12 ride and a 700% surge would net you $84. I've never seen any "Minimum Surge" above $5.75.


I saw some $7 and $10 min surges this weekend for about 2hrs. Had two different concerts going on in two different areas of town. Guessing the drivers were stretched thin.


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## TPAMB (Feb 13, 2019)

It work differently for Uber and Lyft. For example, there was an event the other night. Uber offered $8 and would not ping me as I was too far whilst Lyft offered nothing and sent me over a dozen pings.


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## Ssgcraig (Jul 8, 2015)

TPAMB said:


> It work differently for Uber and Lyft. For example, there was an event the other night. Uber offered $8 and would not ping me as I was too far whilst Lyft offered nothing and sent me over a dozen pings.


Very different. Uber you just have to be online and drive through the surge, you get it no matter what on your next ping.


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## Seamus (Jun 21, 2018)

2kwik4u said:


> Thanks for the replies and explanations. I'm still getting my feet under me in completely understanding the map.....and the app usage in general.
> 
> Had a music festival going on Saturday night. Busiest I've seen the town in the time (mid August to now) that I've been working. Averaged a shade under $20/hr after expenses for about 5.5hrs or so.


In the glory days of Uber driving "Busy" meant 3.0x to 5.0x surges from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on a regular basis. My personal highest was 7.0x! The old rates and surge allowed you to make $38-$55 per hour believe it or not. This is why so many long time drivers are turned off to Uber and Lyft now. The flat rate surge is complete garbage unless it is a very short, very quick trip. Be careful with large events. If you end up sitting in traffic for 30-45 minutes for 1 ride it is an earnings killer.


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## lyft_rat (Jul 1, 2019)

I saw something cool for the pax when riding Lyft in LA this past weekend. I was quoted a $32 fare with a message that the fare is high because it is busy but if I could wait a couple minutes it would go lower. This was around 8pm on Sat. night in a "fashonable" area. Sure enough after literally just a couple minutes it dropped to $23. Also there was a cool pickup location sign.


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## 2kwik4u (Aug 27, 2019)

Seamus said:


> In the glory days of Uber driving "Busy" meant 3.0x to 5.0x surges from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on a regular basis. My personal highest was 7.0x! The old rates and surge allowed you to make $38-$55 per hour believe it or not. This is why so many long time drivers are turned off to Uber and Lyft now. The flat rate surge is complete garbage unless it is a very short, very quick trip. Be careful with large events. If you end up sitting in traffic for 30-45 minutes for 1 ride it is an earnings killer.


Yea, I learned very quickly that the large events are profit killers. Traffic, finding the PAX, and general PIA level were all much higher. I took one, then avoided the rest of the evening. Looks like most of the other drivers were out there though, so I stuck to the suburbs and enjoyed the non event surge.


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## NauticalWheeler (Jun 15, 2019)

Seamus said:


> In the glory days of Uber driving "Busy" meant 3.0x to 5.0x surges from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on a regular basis. My personal highest was 7.0x! The old rates and surge allowed you to make $38-$55 per hour believe it or not. This is why so many long time drivers are turned off to Uber and Lyft now. The flat rate surge is complete garbage unless it is a very short, very quick trip. Be careful with large events. If you end up sitting in traffic for 30-45 minutes for 1 ride it is an earnings killer.


Yes, 6.5x every fri and Saturday night in Ft. Worth, TX in the glory days


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## nouberipo (Jul 24, 2018)

2kwik4u said:


> So I got this in the app for the first time last night. It looks different than what I thought was "surge" pricing.
> 
> View attachment 355863
> 
> ...


Yes, the lightening bolt is the new surge area. It means you WON"T get surge pay but Uber will. It means paxoles are willing to pay higher fares because it is so busy BUT again, the drivers get nothing. It is Uber basically saying......rush to the areas where the lightenting bolts are because we are charging paxoles surge rates, need to make money, and you are dumb enough to drive to those areas with no incentives to do so.


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## DriverMark (Jan 22, 2018)

Below isn't normal (unless it's SNOWING!).... but I do see some very good surges in the area. And although I miss the big multiplier surges, they were less than we see sticky surges here. Overall, I like the new surge, as long as they actually pop up. Markets where you hardly see surging would seem to be driver over saturation.


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## losiglow (Dec 4, 2018)

DriverMark said:


> Below isn't normal (unless it's SNOWING!).... but I do see some very good surges in the area. And although I miss the big multiplier surges, they were less than we see sticky surges here. Overall, I like the new surge, as long as they actually pop up. Markets where you hardly see surging would seem to be driver over saturation.
> 
> View attachment 362305


Was that during that solar conference last week? I did pretty well with that in the morning hours.


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## DriverMark (Jan 22, 2018)

losiglow said:


> Was that during that solar conference last week? I did pretty well with that in the morning hours.


Yea, I think last Tuesday. I was working full time job  .... but.... I made enough Mon-Wed evenings with that conference I pretty much took the weekend off (worked a tad Sunday morning).


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## 2kwik4u (Aug 27, 2019)

Been watching the surge characteristics the last few weekends I've driven. I've not seen it get over $10 in my area, but I'm in a pretty small market, and I see a LOT of drivers out on the weekends, so that makes sense.

About 5-6 times (out of maybe 30-40 trips) Uber has adjusted my portion of the fare UP to "More closely reflect what the passenger paid". Couple of times that has been 50% or more of the total fare. I'll see if I can find an example and post it up.


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## touberornottouber (Aug 12, 2016)

The "opportunities nearby" is simply where the algorithm would like to send you. Here it shows "opportunities nearby" each time I go online. It is best completely ignored.


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