At the moment, riders are charged a small fee if they cancel a trip five minutes after completing an order. Soon, Uber will be reducing this time frame to two minutes in order to discourage last-second back-outs. There is an exception, however — if you book a car and two minutes pass, but your driver is more than five minutes behind schedule, you can still cancel and avoid a fee. That way you're not penalised if what should be a 10-minute trip is fast becoming an hour-long wait for an Uber driver.

Other additions include a "no thanks" button, so drivers can instantly pass on a trip and wait for the next offer. It only works three times, however — drivers will be logged out of the app if they keep turning down work. Uber is also adding a filter so fancy UberXL and Exec drivers can ignore lower-paid UberX trips. Finally, Driver Destinations is being updated with arrival times. That way, drivers can be clear about their schedule for the day — a doctor's appointment at 2pm, or a dinner reservation at 7pm — and pick up passengers that need to be in roughly the same place, at the same time.