Uber is trying to be more driver friendly and has introduced a new policy today which will let drivers charge you more if they have to travel for more than 8 minutes to pick you up.
The new feature might be a little heavy on your bank account if you are a passenger but it will encourage drivers to pick you up from long distances. The trips may become expensive for users who live far away and where Uber takes some time to reach them. Uber is making all of these efforts to make its services more driver friendly. Along with the long pick up fee, a per minute late fee will be also applied if the driver has to wait more than 2 minutes at the pickup point. The Uber app will also help drivers to avoid tolls where possible and if there is no way to avoid tolls, drivers can add the tolls into the fare.
Also read: Uber introduces its own credit cards.
The new policies might cause some problems, as sometimes drivers cannot find their way to the pickup point which makes it driver’s fault but the passengers will have to pay for this. And sometimes, due to bad mapping, the driver thinks that he is at the pickup point but actually he isn’t. So the passenger will have to pay the waiting fee if the wait exceeds 2-minute mark. Moreover, drivers might make themselves late intentionally and it will result in more fair as well.
Here’s how the fair breakdown will look like if the driver has to travel more than 8 minutes to pick you up.
The 8 minutes pick up time is average, according to Uber, the decision that when the extra charges should be applied depends on the market and the length of the pickup. One example of how the extra charges are effective is shown above in which the passenger is charged extra $5.77 for a 4.2-mile pickup that took 11.8 minutes of driving.
Uber will also show the extra pick up fare in the estimated fare section before you book a ride. This means that the app will calculate that how much time it will take for the driver to reach you and will show you fare based on that.
Uber says that this move will ultimately be beneficial for both drivers and passengers. As drivers will be encouraged to pick up the passengers from even out of the city. And drivers will not feel bad if they have to wait longer for the passengers as they’ll be paid extra for waiting or driving extra. It will ultimately lead to happier drivers and a happier driver-passenger relationship.
Here’s what Aaron Schildkrout, head of driver product at Uber, has to say on this.
“It’s not always as easy to get a car in the suburbs as it is in the city. Even in the outskirts of a city people sometimes have this experience. So from a driver’s perspective, it’s easy to see why this makes sense: you’re more likely to forgo trips with long ETAs… With this change, we hope to make those long trips more worth drivers’ while. And for riders, we hope this means they’ll able to get a ride reliably where ever they are.”
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