Lyft Responds to Uber by Cutting Fares in 2016
Right after Uber did their price cut, I downloaded the data from Lyft to see if they had responded to it. I downloaded the data on the 11th and found some of the fare cuts they did back in December:
- Los Angeles (15%)
- Nashville (7%)
- San Francisco (3%)
By the end of the week, however, they decided to decrease rates after Uber cut fares in 82 of their markets. This was the same as last year when Lyft cut fares in numerous markets in response of Uber’s cut of fares in 48 markets.
After looking at the data, Lyft decreased fares by about 25% in these 33 cities and about 15% for about 31 Lyft Plus cities. The interesting thing is that one market got a fare increase on Lyft Plus while a few cities had an increase in base fares for Lyft Plus. From the trend last year, Lyft did not increases prices back up for the cities they reduced fares on so on Lyft, these may be permanent.
Before the Lyft fare decrease but after the Uber fare decrease, I did a fare comparison between Uber and Lyft. I will be updating that analysis next week to see if it is better to drive on Lyft or Uber.
The list of cities was reported on by Recode on Friday but here are the list of cities, along with the percent drop in each of these cities for both Lyft and Lyft Plus:
| Lyft Regular | Lyft Plus | |
| ‘bakersfield’ | 16% | 0% |
| ‘baltimore’ | 23% | 34% |
| ‘cincinnati’ | 30% | 29% |
| ‘cleveland’ | 29% | 26% |
| ‘colorado-springs’ | 13% | 0% |
| ‘denver’ | 27% | -6% |
| ‘detroit’ | 22% | -1% |
| ‘fresno’ | 21% | 20% |
| ‘indianapolis’ | 21% | 11% |
| ‘inland-empire’ | 50% | 27% |
| ‘jacksonville’ | 13% | 5% |
| ‘los-angeles’ | 14% | 10% |
| ‘memphis’ | 16% | 11% |
| ‘minneapolis-st-paul’ | 23% | 11% |
| ‘modesto’ | 35% | 26% |
| ‘napa-and-sonoma-county’ | 38% | -38% |
| ‘oklahoma-city’ | 31% | 10% |
| ‘omaha’ | 21% | 10% |
| ‘orange-county’ | 17% | 9% |
| ‘orlando’ | 11% | -13% |
| ‘pittsburgh’ | 21% | 16% |
| ‘raleigh-durham’ | 26% | 28% |
| ‘sacramento’ | 23% | 26% |
| ‘san-diego’ | 54% | 35% |
| ‘san-francisco’ | 14% | 12% |
| ‘santa-barbara’ | 30% | 35% |
| ‘silicon-valley’ | 7% | 37% |
| ‘spokane’ | 29% | 21% |
| ‘tampa-bay’ | 22% | 6% |
| ‘toledo’ | 29% | 9% |
| ‘tulsa’ | 30% | 13% |
| ‘virginia-beach-hampton-roads’ | 39% | 36% |
| ‘washington-dc’ | 24% | 21% |
Below is where you can find the full raw data from the price cuts of both Lyft and Lyft Plus:
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