Driving on UberX on New Years Eve in Boston
Here is my previous post about how I came about signing up to UberX and a few words about the application process.
Driving for Lyft and UberX in Boston
I drove two shifts, around 5-10pm and then around 2am to 5am.
First shift:
It started out pretty quiet until about 5:30pm when I would a request a few minutes after the previous ride. Most of them were relative short trips but they usually started in the downtown area and ended outside the city. This meant I would have to drive back into the city in order to pick up someone. The rides earlier in the night were mainly people commuting home.
I had a client for about an hour. I drove them from Sheraton Boston Hotel to Faneuil Hall and then back as they had to pick up something. They were afraid of not getting another Uber car so I waited for them so I can take them to a dinner cruise. Taking a look at the waiting fares, it wasn’t so good of a deal for me so next time I’ll won’t be doing this again.
The rest of the night was fairly busy. The rides later in the night were people going out, so they were going into the city or around in the city, which was much better logistic wise.
I believe that these observations can drastically change once the college kids come back from vacation. I was mainly picking up young professionals either commuting home or going out.
I stopped doing UberX around 9:30 so I could pick up my wife around 10pm to get something to eat before going to a NYE party. I had a few sips of champagne so I could do another shift later that night.
Second Shift:
After I dropped off my wife at home just before 2am, I turned on UberX again and got a fare out to Roxbury. The surge pricing was in effect so the ride was 3x what it was supposed to. I only got one of these fares unfortunately. My next ride was 30% more, not 3x more. This was a longer ride so I got something out of it.
Both fares were about $25 for about 30 minutes of total drive time. During surge pricing, you could make good money by picking anyone up.
The next few trips were within Boston but far enough from downtown so I had to head back there to pick up my next fare. I managed to pick up a fare in South Boston when I was there so that worked out well.
I did get a trip out to Quincy for about $25. Not sure if it was really worth it. It takes about 30 minutes roundtrip.
Since I started a bit late, I didn’t get much out of the surge pricing but avoided all of the super drunk people from NYE. Everyone I picked up was nice and not too drunk.
Clients
So far, they all seem to be young professionals and predominantly white. Again, this could be because the college kids are out of session.
I have only drove one day on UberX. I hope to provide a better overview of the UberX program in a few months once I’ve driven more on it.
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