Bengaluru Has Worst Waiting Time For Uber At 7 Minutes; Drivers Earning 30% Less

The frustration reaches its peak when booking for an Uber cab in Bengaluru doesn’t it?

An in-house study by the cab-hailing service has found that the average wait time in Bengaluru is the longest as compared to three other Indian metro cities – Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

Read to find out more…

Uber has the Highest ETA in Bengaluru!

 The average Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) for an Uber cab in Bengaluru is seven minutes. Comparatively, commuters in Delhi NCR have the lowest average ETA of four minutes, while Mumbai and Hyderabad have the mean ETA of five minutes each.

Peak-hour traffic is between 8am and 10am and 5pm and 7pm. Bengaluru has 85.5 lakh vehicles, with average speed in Central Business District during peak hour at less than 10Kmph.  A total of 1.8 lakh taxis are registered in the city. 

Cab drivers tend to cancel trips due to the longer waiting time.This leads to a lower completion rate for trips in Bengaluru at 45%. On the other hand, Delhi NCR has a completion rate of 71%, Hyderabad 75% and Mumbai 65%. This data is derived from the percentage of trips that are completed, based on requests made.

Uber has concluded that the higher ETA and subsequently lower completion rate are a result of Uber’s dynamic pricing mechanism (that adjusts fares according to the demand for cabs) not being able to work at its best due to fare cap limitations in place in the city. 

Uber said, the higher ETA is caused by the city’s traffic congestion. This forces some users to cancel the rides due to delay in getting the cab. If the cab drivers see heavy traffic congestion near the destination they also cancel the trips. Several infrastructure projects, including Metro Rail and white topping have added to the traffic congestion in the city.

Uber Drivers in Bengaluru Earning Less!

An Uber Spokesperson said, “Bengaluru has fare restrictions (a slab of 12-24 per km), leading to a lower driver earnings and lesser driver availability. Other cities do not have fare caps. A driver in Bengaluru earns much lower than her counterparts in other cities.” Last year the Bengaluru government made a decision to cap the maximum fare to Rs 24 per kilometre for cars worth Rs 5-10 lakh. The official had said then that the average wait time for a cab was 17 minutes.

The official also stated that compared to drivers in Hyderabad or Chennai, Bengaluru drivers are making 25% less than, despite being on the road for 10 hours.

This development is recorded in Uber’s recent data as well. Uber said, “Taking Hyderabad as a relative, drivers in Mumbai earn 8% lower and in Bangalore earn almost 25-30% lower.”