Both Uber and Lyft struggle with wait times on opening weekend
Credit to Author: Matt Robinson| Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 01:44:09 +0000
Now that ride-for-hire in Vancouver has had the green light for the past few days, one of the questions prospective riders will want answered is whether Lyft or Uber provides the cheaper or better service.
Postmedia News set out Sunday morning to take six trips — three with Lyft and three with Uber — to judge the companies against one another, and crown a winner. In the end, that plan had to be scaled back to include just four trips due to the surprising amount of time it took to wait for rides from a pair of firms that seemed to be struggling with teething problems.
Here’s how it went:
• Trip 1: Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain Station to Vancouver airport.
• Time: 10:40 a.m.
• Company: Uber.
• Estimated travel time on Google Maps: 23-minute drive, 42 minutes by transit.
• Quoted price: $26.54.
• Actual time to arrive at destination, including wait: One hour, 18 minutes.
• Actual price: $40.05
It took 14 minutes to connect with a driver and another 21 minutes before they reached the neighbourhood. But before the driver arrived curbside, the app reported the trip had started, and the driver appeared to have turned around, seemingly en route to YVR. “How’s your ride going?” Uber’s app asked. “Not well, thanks.”
The driver, Jugoslav, 60, who declined to give his last name, explained by phone that the app had had a glitch. He asked again for the pickup address and turned around. After he’d arrived in his Mazda 3 and began the trip, Jugoslav said he works as a school-bus driver and picks up fares on Uber as a part-time gig. He said he’d completed more than 40 rides by that time. The app had said he’d completed 864, but Uber appears to bend the truth about the experience of its drivers given that the vast majority of Jugoslav’s trips were for Uber Eats.
• Trip 2: YVR to Vancouver City Hall.
• Time: 12:03.
• Company: Lyft.
• Estimated travel time on Google Maps: 25-minute drive, 24 minutes by transit.
• Actual time to arrive at destination, including wait: One hour, two minutes.
• Actual price: $24.51
Driver Larry Wong was about 17 minutes away when he was booked, and apart from some minor confusion around the pickup location, the ride went smoothly.
General manager for Lyft B.C. Peter Lukomskyj speaks at a news conference Friday in Vancouver after the ride-hailing company was given approval to operate in Vancouver.
Wong, 68, drove a very plush Lexus RX Hybrid and said he decided to drive with Lyft after considering what he was going to do with his free time as a retiree. Wong used to work in Fort McMurray and said he’d lost his home, his truck, his motorhome and much more in the devastating 2016 fire.
• Trip 3: Vancouver City Hall to YVR.
• Time: 1:38 p.m.
• Company: Uber.
• Estimated travel time on Google Maps: 19-minute drive, 22 minutes by transit.
• Actual time to arrive at destination, including wait: 39 minutes.
• Actual price: $23.50.
Driver Akhil Arora, a 24-year-old former cab driver and part-time limousine driver, showed up promptly in a very new Toyota Camry Hybrid that he’d bought for the purpose of ride-hailing. Arora said he was “super-excited” to be driving for Uber after months of waiting for the service to start up.
“It’s blowing up. The moment you get on you get ride-after-ride-after-ride,” he said when asked how business was.
• Trip 4: Vancouver airport to Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain Station.
• Time: 2:20 p.m.
• Company: Lyft
• Estimated travel time on Google Maps: 29-minute drive, 50 minutes by transit.
• Actual time to arrive at destination, including wait: 41 minutes.
• Actual price: $31.01
The driver, 35, who declined to give his name, showed up in an older Toyota Camry Hybrid and took five minutes less to complete the trip than the app had predicted. That’s even factoring in a wrong turn due to some odd directions Lyft had provided.
• Conclusions: Technically, Lyft was cheaper overall, and both companies offered pleasant drivers in solid cars. But given that three of the trips would have been faster and far cheaper by transit, it’s hard to glow about either service just yet.