It is something very common.
Surely this situation is familiar to you: you request a trip with an application like Cabify or Uber, a driver accepts and you wait for him to arrive. You wait, you wait, you wait… and it doesn’t show up, for no reason that justifies it. So you end up canceling the trip… sometimes even having to pay for it. Do you know why this happens?
Business Insider colleagues have had the opportunity to speak with drivers from several of these platforms and, although there may be various reasons for this, the main one is a very simple one: it doesn’t work out for them.
The way in which things always happen is quite similar, and when it happens to a greater extent, it is at peak times, especially at night, especially when the trip requested by the user is very short and does not involve a large payment.
The trip is requested through the application and at first it is difficult for any driver to accept it. If you endure the wait, it is possible that one of the ‘ok’ and confirm the transfer. However, it then takes a long time to reach your position and sometimes doesn’t even show up.
This occurs because the driver is simply close in the area, but does not approach the customer. He does this because he is waiting for another more lucrative trip to come out and because he wants the user to be the one to cancel the trip.
Both aspects are closely related, so let’s analyze them.
The first is the fact that Cabify or Uber drivers are interested in long trips that cost them more money. Short journeys do not end up being profitable, it is preferable to make long journeys because it is the best way to make “cash” and thus be able to reach the monthly amount that their companies charge them to achieve.
This depends on the company, but it is common for a minimum of 3,500 euros to be required, from which the driver earns, in addition to his salary, a commission.
That is why, for example, if they are in the center of Madrid on a Saturday night, they prefer a trip of more than 20 euros to a short journey of eight euros.
And this is where the second factor comes in: that it is the user who cancels the trip, not the driver.
The importance of driver scoring
This is due to the fact that if a driver cancels a trip after accepting it, it lowers their score, which is very counterproductive.
On the one hand, it is clear that users are going to try to avoid drivers who have bad scores and negative evaluations, but, on the other, it is that their score directly affects the algorithm of the application and how the most “juicy” trips are distributed. .
As one of the drivers who spoke to Business Insider points out: “The normal thing is to have a score between 4.75 and 5. If you go down to a limit set by the application, they can block your account indefinitely. The higher your score, the longer trips you will get”.
In fact, just a few tenths higher or lower can make a huge difference in the distribution ratio of long trips. Thus, he points out that with a 4.80 out of 5, it is normal for a long trip (+20 euros) to come out for every 10, while with a 4.94, as is the case, it is one in four.
That is precisely why an Uber or Cabify often does not come to pick you up, it is simply waiting for a better trip to come up, even if they make you wait in vain and although on many occasions, by “forcing” you to cancel the trip, you also have to to pay a certain amount for the cancellation.
