redblueskies

I was pondering this today. Most of us live within a half hour of the airport we drive to. A half hour Uber is about $50, so $100 round trip. Unless you do day trips most of us are driving 30-50 times a year, so that’d be about $3,000-$5,000 a year.

Some positives: You’d save some of that in fuel. You’d get princess parking. You could get work done on your drive to/from. If you own a car only for the airport it would eliminate that and result in a net savings. No more scraping windows in cold climates, or getting into a cold car. No more hot cars in warm climates. No worries about leaving your car in a parking lot. Because you’re not waiting for a bus you get home quicker. No more waiting for a bus. No more waiting for a bus when it’s hot/cold.

The more I thought about it the more appealing it sounded. I’m not sure about their reliability though having only used the service a handful of times myself. I’m sure some places are better than others.

Anyone use Uber routinely for this? If so where? (city center, suburb or the sticks?) Anything I may be overlooking?

On the verge of replacing a car used primarily for this purpose and this popped into my head as a viable or perhaps preferable option.

Riverside

Most hubs have a train that serves the airport.

SonicFlyer

I drive for Uber when I am not flying (lots of training debt to pay off, heh).


Each particular city is a y=mx+b formula for cost and every city is different. y=total cost m=rate per mile + minute, x= how many miles/minutes driven, and b = the initiation fees for each ride (usually only a couple of dollars*).


Keep in mind when leaving an airport many municipalities have a $7 pickup fee for ride sharing that gets passed directly on to the customers. In LGB for example there is actually a prohibition against using the cheapest Uber option to leave the airport, one must call an XL which is more expensive. So you'll want to check on that first.

Look up the rate for your city, it is likely around $0.90/mile+$0.20/min. But be aware, if it is surging it could be several times higher than that. Surging happens when Uber's computers detect more people needing rides in a geographic area than available drivers, so it will raise the price to attempt to entice drivers to come in to the area. That is their way of attempting to equalize the immediate supply and demand curve.

Surging can happen at any time, day, night, wekeend, weekday, and isn't really predictable. So be aware of that.

In most cities you can also schedule a ride in advance from your house in case you need to leave at awkward times (such as 3am). If you are leaving at an odd or busy time, you'll need to allow for 30 minutes between the time you order the car and between the time it shows up. If you live in the city sometimes the wait will be less than 2 minutes. If you are in the suburbs the wait is usually 6 minutes. And if you live on the outskirts of town sometimes there will be no drivers available and you'll need to schedule your own ride.

You can also look at something called https://turo.com which is a cross of AirBnB and Uber - you rent other people's car for way cheaper than you can get a rental car for.



Hopefully that gives you some insight, let me know if you have any other questions.

Qotsaautopilot

I’ve contemplated this before but for me it’s an added expense to save time on the employee bus. My car is not an extra, it’s a daily driver. I’ve used uber a few times to work even at odd times without issue.

MiLa

SonicFlyer mentioned it but depending on where you are, different airports have different rules regarding Uber and Lyft that can affect pricing. In STL I used Uber a couple of times for an airport pickup. If I got picked up at the terminal is was around $36 for a 15 min ride. If I walked off the airport to one of the nearby hotels it was half the price.

SonicFlyer

Many people started taking hotel shuttles off of property to get their ubers. Hotel shuttles are not checking to see if you have a reservation before they let you board.

Qotsaautopilot

This kind of eliminates the convenience factor. May as well take the employee bus to your car if you’re going to take a hotel shuttle to an uber

Pyro

UBER at LAX sucks, they have easy pickup spots but the drivers are shady as hell. I was once going from LAX to MB (like 5 miles) and the drivers would pick up the trip, call you to ask how far (no idea why), then drop the trip because they wouldn't make enough money. I finally got one to bite after 3 tries, he explained that UBER was aware of this practice but hadn't changed anything yet. Don't know if this in a issue at other domiciles but if more than 1 dude was doing it in LA then odds are...

CBreezy

Don't have to tell them where you are going. If they do ask and drop, you can report them.

Qotsaautopilot

Don’t uber drivers see in the app where you are going in the app before they accept it? Isn’t that the point of being a contractor? You work when and where you want. If I’m picking up my last drive and then going home I’m not going to pick up a ride in the wrong direction.

Now I’ve had this issue with cab drivers a lot when you go to an airport hotel. They get called up by the dispatcher after being in line for a fare for an hour and then you tell them you are going w mile away. They get so ****ed because they have to get back in that hour long que.

I figured uber and lyft were first come first served. Ride pops up from a known point A and point B and whoever wants it or snags it first gets it.