Lyft Cut Fares in 10 Cities in November 2016
Two months ago, Lyft announced that they were increasing fares in 14 cities. On their email, they noted that it was part of their fall pricing. This was the first time Lyft or Uber increased their pricing for the fall. Typically, the demand for rideshare is the highest in the fall season, from September to Halloween. The demand also depends on the number of drivers and passengers, so if Uber or Lyft have big driver signup bonuses, then there will be more drivers, which reduces the number of available trips for drivers. The opposite can happen when Lyft or Uber promotes heavily to passengers, but there isn’t enough drivers available, leading to a lot of Prime Time or Surge Pricing. These situations can happen in various cities across the country. One city may be less busy for Lyft drivers while another city may be much more busy for Lyft drivers.
In the email two months ago, there was no indication of when the fall pricing will end, but we were notified last week that it would end in Seattle (along with Tacoma). The email stated that the increase during the fall was only a test and now they were reverting back to their winter prices while they analyze the data from the price increase in the below 11 cities. Other cities were notified in the previous weeks.
Being that they mentioned this as their winter pricing, there is hope that Lyft will raise prices during the spring. Typically, demand starts to pick up sometime in late January before Valentines day and then increase in demand in most cities (especially the northern cities) as the temperatures rise and more people go out. Uber tends to do the opposite: they will decrease prices over a few winter months and usually reinstate the old prices in the spring the following year. The first time this happened, prices were not restored but resulted in a net drop in prices.
This year, Uber has reduced prices in a total of 117 cities (the total count in 2015 is 52 in total) and Lyft gave cuts to 30 of their own markets this month:
- Uber List of Fare Cuts in 80 Cities in 2016
- Lyft Responds by Cutting Fares in 30 Cities in 2016
- Uber Cuts Fares in 26 more Cities in 2016
Lyft’s 2016 Winter Pricing:
Below are the cities that maintained their fall pricing as of this posting:
- Honolulu
- Lake Tahoe
- Santa Barbara
- Silicon Valley
Below is the list of cities that had their fall pricing reversed:
- Atlanta (Lyft Plus only)
- Charlotte
- Cincinnati
- Indianapolis
- Napa and Sonoma County
- New Orleans
- Portland
- Seattle
- Toledo
- Tucson
- Virginia Beach Hampton Roads
Note: Miami and New Jersey had a minor adjustment of a cent or two per mile and minute.
Fare Cut Data
Here is the list of cities along with the percentage of fare cut the city received. Most of the cities rolled back the Fall Pricing increase while the others have been noted above.
| Lyft | Lyft Plus | |
| Atlanta | 0% | -11% |
| Charlotte | -15% | -17% |
| Cincinnati | -18% | -18% |
| Indianapolis | -16% | -15% |
| Miami | -1% | 0% |
| Napa and Sonoma County | -13% | -17% |
| New Jersey | 1% | 0% |
| New Orleans | -19% | -24% |
| Portland | -22% | -25% |
| Seattle | -21% | -18% |
| Toledo | -22% | -20% |
| Tucson | -3% | -13% |
| Virginia Beach Hampton Roads | -18% | -18% |
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