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A sudden spike in pricing during two days of heavy snowfall frustrated Uber riders in London as officials with the ride-share giant explained how its pricing model means higher fares during stormy weather.
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Multiple customers vented on social media, expressing their dissatisfaction with the prices Uber drivers were charging during the storm that lashed the London region Monday and Tuesday – some reporting as much as $80 for an 11-minute ride.
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“This (price) is crazy. I’d pay almost what I’d make in a day just to get to work,” Shyanne Larocque wrote on social media, showing a screenshot of an 11-minute Uber ride request costing $72.98.
Thinking it was a glitch, Larocque closed the app but reopened it to find the price had actually gone up by almost $5, she told The Free Press in an interview.
On Monday and Tuesday, the London region was hit with the season’s first massive blast of snow, enough to cancel school buses both days, close several schools and ground planes flying from London International Airport. An Uber official says greater demand meant higher prices for rides – a model known as surge pricing.
“Due to weather conditions in the London area, there are more trip requests than usual. Surge pricing occurs when there are more ride requests than there are drivers,” said Keerthana Rang, a spokesperson for Uber Canada.
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The fares are shown upfront to riders using the Uber app and are available so customers know how much they’ll pay for the ride. If the prices are higher, a message will appear before ordering the trip that reads: “Fares are higher due to increased demand.”
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When more customers use the Uber app to request rides than drivers available in an area, prices temporarily increase, leading to “dynamic pricing” or “surge pricing.”
Rang said it’s “just like consumers pay higher utility rates during peak hours of the day or pay more for a hotel room when a big convention is in town.”
Price-surge pricing is automatically triggered by artificial intelligence software that catches “the balance or imbalance in rider demand and driver availability, in real-time, all over a city,” Rang said.
Drivers are warned in the app when demand increases through a map that displays the busiest areas and information about dynamic fares like price. While Rang says it’s a “premium” cost for riders because “fewer people are willing to pay the premium,” some customers choose to close the app or plan ahead to dodge the price surge, she said.
For Laroque, who didn’t pay the “ridiculous” price for a ride, the price spike was “unfair” for consumers.
“I get that price-surging can be reasonable to a certain degree, but Uber has taken it past that, and it’s unfair to the community that relies on Uber during their everyday lives,” Larocque said.
Uber first arrived in London in 2015, upending the city’s traditional tax industry as it has in other cities across North America. Through its app, riders are matched with drivers who will use their personal vehicle to pick up fares for a fee.
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