Uber’s List of Fares Cuts in 80 Cities to Start 2016

As some of you know, I have been taking weekly fare snapshots of Uber and Lyft since late 2014, so I have compiled a lot of data over the past 18 months or so. I had taken the last snapshot on January 4th and was surprised there was no price drop for a few weeks. They were probably saving it up for this one time massive price drop in January, just like last years price drop in 48 cities. From my tracking, only 24 of those cities received price increases, and none of the cities had their original fares reinstated, so half of the fare cuts last year were permanent. Here is my detailed post on what happened to the cities that received a fare cut last year, including their fare increases post fare cut and also when the fares increased:

Below, you can see the my other posts on Uber fare cuts here.

Bloomberg reported that Uber plans on cutting fares in 100 cities. So far, I only managed to find about 80 cities. I will be running the script daily to find when the other fare cuts will occur in the other 20 cities.

Hourly Guarantees

So Uber is back again with hourly guarantees for the cities that got the fare cut, but from my experiences last year, those guarantees don’t last. They last for about 6-8 weeks but then disappear and often without any fare increase. You can read more about Uber Hourly Guarantees here. Keep in mind that the guarantee income per hour is BEFORE Uber fees, so take 20-28% off of that to get your net income.

I’ll be posting a list of hourly guarantees, so forward your emails to thedriver at ridesharedashboard.com

What are your Alternatives?

There are a few things drivers can do. The first thing is that if you don’t like the fare decrease, just stop driving for Uber. It is that simple. I would encourage drivers to try driving the first week or two to see if your earnings go up or down. The fare decreases affect people differently.

Another alternative is to drive on Lyft. They are active in some of these markets and I would encourage you to try them if you have not already. Note that when this happened last year, there were a ton of Lyft drivers on the road so it was less busy than usual on Lyft. It is not a sure fire way to maintain your earnings, but it may help.

If you are not a Lyft driver, check out this page to see what referral bonus you may be eligible for and how you can sign up for Lyft.

In some markets, there are delivery services such as Doordash, Postmates and Instacart that you can try out. Amazon Flex is quite new but hours can be hard to come because there are many more drivers than available slots.

Which Cities Got Cut?

Well, it was a giant list and took me some time to download and compile. I have a script now that does it really quickly, but doing the math and formatting took me the longest time. I will be displaying it a few different ways.

Uber noted that they cut fares in 80 cities, but I only found 77 today. There were two cities that were already cut back in mid December, so 79 in total. I noted which cities were seasonal cuts based on the fare cut from last year. Click on the link above to see the price cut in the below two cities. The below cities do not have hourly guarantees:

Atlanta

Nashville

Below you will see the fare cut by service. This is the first time I have seen so many UberXL fares cut. Normally, UberX fares were cut but UberXL were untouched (keep that in mind the next time you go shopping for a car), but it seems that some UberXL fares were cut (55 out of the 78 found cities).

Note that even though San Francisco got a small cut, East Bay and South Bay got a more dramatic cut at around 20% for UberX and 40% for UberXL:

Base Fare: $1.50, $0.15/min, $0.85/mile and $1.35 Safe Ride Fee. (unsure what the original price was)

The issue is that they still consider those areas San Francisco in their city list and city page but the rates are not the same within the coverage area they call San Francisco and they have not broken it out on their public website.

Note that I was only able to find 77 cities, with two more from December, bringing it up to 79. New Orleans may be the 80th city. It could have been an small error in my algorithm that may have missed one cities so if your city is not here, send me an email so I can update the list! Further analysis is below the table:

City UberX UberXL ‘Akron’ 52% 40% ‘Albuquerque’ 19% 0% ‘Amarillo’ 38% 0% ‘Asheville, NC’ 26% 25% ‘Augusta’ 42% 0% ‘Bakersfield’ 29% 0% ‘Baltimore’ 19% 39% ‘Boise’ 34% 32% ‘Charleston, SC’ 29% 2% ‘Chattanooga’ 35% 0% ‘Cincinnati’ 26% 31% ‘Cleveland’ 27% 32% ‘Columbia, SC’ 38% 29% ‘Denver’ 18% 0% ‘Des Moines’ 26% 25% ‘Detroit’ 3% 15% ‘El Paso’ 51% 0% ‘Fargo’ 25% 0% ‘Fayetteville, NC’ 36% 0% ‘Fort Wayne’ 26% 0% ‘Fresno’ 22% 39% ‘Gainesville’ 34% 33% ‘Greater Maryland’ 0% 33% ‘Greenville, SC’ 35% 39% ‘Hamilton’ 25% 0% ‘Hampton Roads’ 35% 40% ‘Houston’ 16% 22% ‘Indianapolis’ 13% 17% ‘Inland Empire’ 57% 51% ‘Jacksonville’ 10% 14% ‘Kalamazoo’ 24% 0% ‘Kansas City’ 19% 22% ‘Killeen’ 36% 0% ‘Kitchener-Waterloo’ 25% 0% ‘Knoxville’ 40% 44% ‘Little Rock’ 34% 0% ‘London, Ont’ 25% 0% ‘Los Angeles’ 9% 32% ‘Maui’ 40% 0% ‘Memphis’ 16% 24% ‘Midland’ 42% 0% ‘Minneapolis – St. Paul’ 20% 29% ‘Modesto’ 35% 36% ‘New Jersey’ 18% 38% ‘Oklahoma City’ 27% 32% ‘Omaha’ 22% 34% ‘Orange County’ 12% 32% ‘Orlando’ 10% 14% ‘Ottawa’ 16% 14% ‘Palm Springs’ 40% 48% ‘Piedmont Triad, NC’ 21% 41% ‘Pittsburgh’ 23% 20% ‘Portland, ME’ 32% 32% ‘Quad Cities’ 42% 0% ‘Quebec City’ 22% 0% ‘Raleigh-Durham’ 16% 33% ‘Richmond’ 18% 24% ‘Rockford’ 26% 0% ‘Sacramento’ 15% 39% ‘San Diego’ 56% 32% San Francisco 12% 27% ‘San Luis Obispo’ 32% 36% ‘Santa Barbara’ 22% 27% ‘Santa Fe’ 37% 0% ‘Savannah-Hilton Head’ 40% 15% ‘Spokane’ 37% 42% ‘Springfield, IL’ 27% 0% ‘Stillwater’ 28% 0% ‘Tacoma’ 25% 26% ‘Tallahassee’ 23% 18% ‘Tampa Bay’ 16% 8% ‘Toledo’ 23% 0% ‘Tulsa’ 24% 25% ‘Ventura’ 50% 50% ‘Washington D.C.’ 19% 31% ‘Wichita’ 44% 31% ‘Wilmington, NC’ 25% 9%

New Uber Fare Data Analysis:

Average Fare Cut:

The average fare cut was 27% for UberX and 30% for UberXL. Last year, the average fare cut was 26% so it seems to be in line with what Uber has done in the past.

Per Mile Rates

The lowest per-mile Uber rate before the cut was 75 cents. Now its 30 cents. Remember that the IRS mileage deduction is now 54 cents for 2016 so the per mile rate is half that. The one saving grace for that city is that per minute, it is 30 cents a minute, so about $18 an hour just for waiting around. Hopefully that will balance things out a bit.

Here are the cities that have per-mile rates below 80 cents BEFORE the rate cut:

Base Fare Minute Mile Safety Min Fare Cancel ‘Atlanta’ 1 0.12 0.75 1.75 5.75 6 ‘Charlotte’ 1.1 0.15 0.75 1.65 5.65 5 ‘Detroit’ 1 0.15 0.75 2.3 5.3 5 ‘Flint’ 1 0.15 0.75 2.25 5.25 5 ‘Grand Rapids’ 1 0.15 0.75 1.55 4.55 5 ‘Jacksonville’ 1 0.13 0.75 2.05 5.05 5 ‘Orlando’ 1 0.13 0.75 1.85 4.85 5 ‘Ottawa’ 2 0.18 0.8 1.5 3.5 5 ‘Rhode Island’ 1.1 0.17 0.8 1.4 4.4 10 ‘Toronto’ 2.5 0.18 0.8 1.5 4 5

Here are the cities that have per-mile rates below 80 cents AFTER the rate cut:

Base Fare Minute Mile Safety Min Fare Cancel ‘Akron’ 1 0.12 0.77 1.85 4.85 5 ‘Atlanta’ 1 0.12 0.75 1.75 5.75 6 ‘Augusta’ 0.75 0.1 0.75 1.35 5.35 5 ‘Bakersfield’ 1.1 0.17 0.8 1.45 4.45 5 ‘Charlotte’ 1.1 0.15 0.75 1.65 5.65 5 ‘Cincinnati’ 1 0.15 0.8 1.6 4 5 ‘Cleveland’ 1 0.12 0.77 1.7 4.7 5 ‘Des Moines’ 0.9 0.15 0.65 1.6 4.35 5 ‘Detroit’ 0.5 0.3 0.3 2.3 5.3 5 ‘Fargo’ 1.5 0.25 0.75 1.1 4.5 5 ‘Fayetteville, NC’ 1 0.1 0.7 1.5 4.5 4 ‘Flint’ 1 0.15 0.75 2.25 5.25 5 ‘Fort Wayne’ 2 0.15 0.7 1.35 3.35 0 ‘Fresno’ 1 0.09 0.7 1.75 4.75 5 ‘Grand Rapids’ 1 0.15 0.75 1.55 4.55 5 ‘Hampton Roads’ 0.67 0.12 0.6 1.9 5.9 5 ‘Indianapolis’ 1.25 0.15 0.75 2.1 3.35 0 ‘Inland Empire’ 0 0.15 0.64 2.45 5.45 5 ‘Jacksonville’ 1 0.11 0.65 2.05 5.5 5 ‘Kalamazoo’ 0.9 0.15 0.75 1.15 3.95 5 ‘Knoxville’ 1.05 0.15 0.7 2.2 5.2 5 ‘Little Rock’ 1.25 0.15 0.7 1.4 5.4 5 ‘Memphis’ 0.7 0.11 0.8 1.9 5.85 5 ‘Modesto’ 1 0.1 0.75 1.6 5.6 5 ‘Oklahoma City’ 0.75 0.11 0.7 1.8 4.8 5 ‘Orlando’ 1 0.11 0.65 1.85 5.5 5 ‘Ottawa’ 1.5 0.15 0.75 1.5 3 5 ‘Palm Springs’ 1 0.12 0.8 1.95 5.5 5 ‘Piedmont Triad, NC’ 1.2 0.15 0.8 1.9 4.9 4 ‘Quad Cities’ 0.8 0.13 0.6 1.1 3.9 5 ‘Raleigh-Durham’ 1 0.14 0.7 1.8 4.8 4 ‘Rhode Island’ 1.1 0.17 0.8 1.4 4.4 10 ‘Richmond’ 1 0.16 0.8 1.5 5.5 5 ‘Rockford’ 2 0.15 0.8 1.4 5.4 5 ‘Sacramento’ 1 0.12 0.75 1.75 4.75 5 ‘Springfield, IL’ 2 0.15 0.75 1.05 5.05 5 ‘Tampa Bay’ 1 0.11 0.65 1.7 5.5 5 ‘Toledo’ 0.9 0.12 0.7 1.6 4.6 5 ‘Toronto’ 2.5 0.18 0.8 1.5 4 5 ‘Tulsa’ 0.75 0.11 0.8 1.65 4.65 5 ‘Ventura’ 0 0.15 0.8 2.2 5.2 5 ‘Wilmington, NC’ 1.2 0.12 0.75 1.45 4.45 5

Cities with No Minimum Fares:

Base Fare Minute Mile Safety Min Fare Cancel ‘El Paso’ 0 0.15 0.9 1.6 5 5 ‘Inland Empire’ 0 0.15 0.64 2.45 5.45 5 ‘Lincoln’ 0 0.18 1.25 1.1 4.1 5 ‘Los Angeles’ 0 0.15 0.9 1.65 4.65 5 ‘Orange County’ 0 0.15 0.9 1.95 4.95 5 ‘San Diego’ 0 0.1 0.9 1.75 4.75 5 ‘Ventura’ 0 0.15 0.8 2.2 5.2 5

Cities with the highest per-mile rates:

Base Fare Minute Mile Safety Min Fare Cancel ‘Columbia, MO’ 1.75 0.5 1.8 1 5 5 ‘Florida Keys’ 4 0.2 1.8 1 8 5 ‘Greater Maine’ 1.75 0.25 1.8 1.2 5.2 5 ‘Mobile, AL’ 2 0.2 1.8 1.35 5.35 5 ‘New Hampshire’ 1.75 0.23 2 1.4 5.4 5 ‘New Jersey (Shore)’ 3 0.18 2 1.6 8.6 5 ‘New York City’ 3 0.4 2.15 0 8 10 ‘Ocala, FL’ 2 0.2 1.8 1.45 5.45 5 ‘Oxford’ 2 0.25 1.9 1.5 5.5 5 ‘Taos’ 2.35 0.3 1.85 1.15 5.15 5

I’ll be updating this post with more analysis, but how do you feel about these fare cuts? Seeing some of these fare cuts, will you convert over to UberXL for the higher fares?

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