RIDEGURU
I am not a driver so I am just curious. Wouldn't they want to know where others are? To either gauge where the activities are or drive to where there's less competiion?
As a driver, can you see other Uber drivers near you? like on a map?
Posted 6 years, 6 months ago
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Posted By
J Green (jcgreen79)
174
Rider
Ride Apprentice
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The Guru Take
For the most part, no. Only surge information
No, they technically cannot. Uber Driver app (a different app than the one riders use) does not display other drivers on the map at all.
With that said, Uber drivers can theoretically open a Uber "Rider" app, and check out where the nearby drivers are. I am not sure how useful this would be though, as it only displays the 6 closest vehicles. It really isn't helpful in order to gauge the driver activities.
On the Uber Driver app, one thing that enables the drivers to gauge activities is the surge maps. This is a color-coded heatmap, that shows where the surge pricing is occuring. This is Uber's way of re-locating their workforce (i.e. drivers) to areas where the demand is high. (i.e. many riders not enough drivers). This can encourage drivers to migrate to those locations to find their fares.
Source: RideshareGuy (link)
Additional note: At airports, drivers are placed into queues where they wait for their turn to be requested. Drivers can see their place in the queue, so this also gives them visibility into nearby drivers.
ippei
1202
Uber Driver, CEO of TaxiFareFinder and Unleashed, LLC
Comments
I am in Southern New Jersey. If no requests are coming my way, I turn on my rider app and if I see six cars close by, I find another spot. I like driving in this area because the rides are long and the traffic bearable. I generally get a nice long ride to Philadephia and then I stay there the rest of the day.
Once in Philadelphia the rides come immediately but the traffic is unbearable.
I have driven to the Philadelphia airport and even though I never get in the queue, I have received three pickups after dropping off passengers. Perhaps they have a software bug. The queue is generally too long for me, so I just head back to the city.
Maybe I should rethink this queue idea, because one of the pickups I received a $40 cash tip (from the wife) and a $30 tip.in the app (from the husband).
Hello. I read your post. I was wondering if any Uber driver from New Jersey can pick up riders in Pennsylvania? Where I live in New York, we are only allowed to pick up people in New York ( and we are not allowed in NYC!). Can you pick up people in any state? Thank You!
I guess NYC is a different animal.
I live in New Jersey, only 20 minutes from Philadelphia. For some reason I am attached to that city.
Once I am in Philadelphia I can pickup rides going to Delaware and New Jersey.
I once drove a passenger to Reading Pa from Philadelphia.
The strange thing about Uber is if I have a problem, they tell me to go to a greenlight location in upper New Jersey (1 hour & 50 minutes) rather than the one in Philadelphia (20 minutes).
Thank You Beth! I was just curious about this. Where we live in upstate New York, we get occasional rides to the airport in Burlington, Vermont which is only about an hour away by ferry. The problem is that we are not allowed to pick up passengers over there so we are required to return home empty and we still have to pay for the ferry ($10.75 per car +$4.50 per extra passenger). Plus, Uber and Lyft make us collect the ferry money ourselves from our passengers because they do not acknowledge the ferry exists. Even after telling somebody at Uber Support this, they do not care. It always makes us seem like beggars to our passengers. I tell them that if they don’t have the cash that they can pay for the ferry by masking the payment as a tip. Anyhow, I Thank You for your answer and wish you many successes in this New Year and hopefully 2021 will be much better than its’ predecessor!😊😉😊😉
Ah, so you are in the camp of checking the user app. That's a neat trick. I wonder if it's accurate though. When I request a ride, never once I feel like one of the cars I see on the map had responded.
Is there a way to download the Driver's App if I am not a driver?
I don't think so. Why don't you just try it.
Thank you! Driver apps are such mystery to us non-drivers. This is neat. i've always wondered this.