As a rideshare driver, you are always thinking about the next ride and what passenger from hell you will get. This is of course in direct relation to when and where you drive. So we have collated some options to evaluate and consider when to accept or refuse a ride.
The Day
Yes, the day of the week is an important factor when driving. Weekends and holidays bring different passengers to weekdays. Also, certain days of the week create surges to the airport and train stations. It all depends on where you live, which is another factor, but in general, after a while of driving you will pick up the patterns and be able to discern which days provide certain passengers.
Daytime or Nighttime
Each hour brings different clients. There are early morning surges to work, mid-morning surges for shopping, Noon surges for lunch, afternoon surges for soccer mum activities, evening surges for after work and entertainment, night surges for entertainment and drinking, late night/early morning for drunks and early morning for airport runs.
Each moment of every day provides a different customer type and each day provides a different customer group. Planning the hours is perhaps one of the key elements to success because this will paint the type of passenger you will be taking.
Your Location
This means where you work in; it can be a general location such as a city or a neighborhood or area in a city. Each area is defined by its demographics and not by its borders. Downtowns and commercial areas produce different passengers to suburbia, university campuses, holiday resorts, and airports. Each city offers different types, for instance, LA has a complement of every kind of area, whereas Denver doesn't have a sea and beach it does have plenty of winter sports which LA doesn't have.So there is trade-offs between each city and each state.
Within each city or state area are locations that provide more or less work at different times of the day.Finding out which area best suits you is calculated together with day and time.
Surges
Surges are great ways of increasing your income, and knowing where a surge is, is a science all unto itself. However, there are ways to discern patterns, and these come from experience only. Just keep a written record of all surges, and over time you will see the patterns emerge. By assuring you are newer surges when they assure you fo greater income.
Pool Requests
If you are driving UberX, don't take on UberPool requests, these invariably confuse and cause many issues that affect the ride and the rating. They also don't pay as much and should be avoided at all costs.
Destination Filter
By using this option you open yourself to some lucrative short rides on the way to your general direction, they also include surges, so it's a great feature to use.
Cancellation Rates
Drivers have 15 seconds to accept a request, after which they move onto the next request. If a driver did accept a request, they have a certain amount of cancellations before they are considered to be problematic. Usually, a 20% cancellation rate is problematic, and once you reach this percentage of cancellations, you have to take every ride you receive otherwise you are endangering your self from being temporarily de-activated.
Passenger Ratings
When you receive a request, check out the passengers rating (PAX), this can show you if the passenger is good or bad for a ride. Usually, a passenger rating under 4.5 means that the passenger is not so good and anyone above 4.6 is excellent. However, even perfect passengers can have bad days, but at least the chance of that is low. Allways check out the pax rating at the bottom of the Uber app screen when the request comes.
The Mix
Now that we have these factors lets mix them all up and produce profiles that will make choosing or losing a passenger the main issue.
Passengers are split up into five groups;
- Kids (Families)
- Teens
- Students
- Professionals
- Drunks
Kids come with parents, but sometimes they can be sent alone, which is against company policy. Driving families can be fine and can be an issue with unruly or loud kids. Parents can also be a problem too, so if you are not into the whole family scene, stay clear of the weekend crowd, the afternoon soccer mum crowd and the evening entertainment crowd.
Teens are usually an engaging group, but can sometimes be problematic due to their "hormonal imbalance," many times you will be asked to take these alone, which again is against company policy. If you are not interested in loud music, unruly behavior and weird conversations, that stay clear of teens. They tend to congregate at any time but early mornings and late nights.
Students can be terrible pranksters and excellent rides, it all depends on the time of year and what they are going to. If they are all hyped up going to or from a gig or party then get ready for a raucous ride, otherwise, if it is just driving to and from college, it could be pretty banal.
Professionals are all in a rush to get somewhere, so no matter what time of day, if its working hours or early morning airport drop-offs or pickups, these passengers are interested in safe, quick and efficient drivers.
Drunks, and drugs, can come together, either you accept them and get ready for the crazy bumpy and sometimes messy rides, or you steer clear of them. They are usually congregating around late night in certain areas of town.
Conclusions
The driver determines when and where they drive; Uber determines who the drive, so if you want to avoid certain crowds, pick your day, time an destination carefully.