By Aja Styles
Ordering an Uber in Perth has grown increasingly frustrating, particularly late at night in the Perth CBD or Northbridge area, since late last year, and WAtoday can now confirm drivers are deliberately ignoring jobs to create ‘surge pricing’ conditions.
Different cars can be seen cancelling multiple times in quick succession, causing wait times to blow out and surge prices to kick in to particular areas of high demand with no drivers, leading to passengers giving up or hailing traditional taxis.
Passengers wait up to 30 minutes alone on Perth streets as Uber drivers cancel eight times in the hope of securing higher priced fares.Credit: Adam Berry
But there appears to be method to the ride-share madness, with an Uber driver telling WAtoday that drivers cancel jobs in Northbridge and Perth because the job is simply not profitable, and surge pricing “especially in Northbridge and the Airport comes from taxi drivers opening the Uber rider app to create a higher demand for drivers”.
“Uber’s belligerent dismissive attitude to drivers and deactivation of drivers who complain has led to drivers cancelling non-profitable jobs,” he said in an email.
“Drivers relied on surge pricing to balance their weekly earnings out and to increase the per weekly average kilometre rate past $1.
“I have surveyed over 2000 riders of which most are happy for the price to increase and even pay a higher fixed penalty rate for weekends and after 11pm.
“Uber was more about convenience than price.”
The driver said working every Friday and Saturday night, he saw first-hand safety issues for female riders trying to get home after a night out.
“Regularly I get a rider message me in the app begging me not to cancel or telling me she is alone and scared and has been cancelled on six times leaving her alone in Northbridge for 45 minutes,” he said.
“Uber and the Department of Transport have a duty of care to the public to overcome this issue with better regulations especially with the pricing structure.
“The taxi industry has its fees set by the form of regulations, why can’t this be the case with Uber?”
He said price regulations and a ban on Uber’s “ridiculous failed dynamic surge pricing feature” would fix the problem.
Radio 6PR revealed last week that rideshare drivers at Perth Airport would switch off their app while waiting.
“The suggestion is drivers are deliberately manipulating the system to create the impression that there is a shortage of drivers, to try trigger surge pricing and higher fees for all of them,” an anonymous ‘surge rider’ wrote to Breakfast’s Gareth Parker.
A caller, Pauline, said she saw a friend’s $68 Uber receipt for a trip home from a venue nearby in Carramar on a Saturday night, which should have cost about $10.
WAtoday can reveal a deliberate notification calling for Perth Uber drivers not to accept “non surge jobs within a 10-kilometre radius of the CBD” from 8pm until midnight on Thursday, February 3, was posted to Facebook, so that drivers could collect “50 per cent more”.
In other Facebook groups an Uber driver, who had worked for the company for a year, posted around the same time that he netted only $15 an hour but since the company held 75 per cent of the Perth market “the reality is you have to work for them”.
Another posted on February 14 that after driving 60 hours a week for two years, he cancelled his lease on his Uber car after having “had a gutful”.
“Am told a few others are doing same. Last year taxable income average was $20 per hour casual. This year is less,” he said.
Uber Perth price gouge.Credit: Facebook
“If they need drivers they need to make pay and conditions better.”
The driver said he had a 1 per cent cancel rate and 92 per cent acceptance rate and only knocked back fares more than 10 minutes away as he didn’t want to be cancelled on from impatient passengers.
“I have only cracked minimum wage when Uber does bonus and discounts on commission (about four weeks total). Then suffered low income in slow periods,” he posted.
“I would enjoy rideshare if I was paid a comfortable income. Uber rates make that impossible.”
An Uber spokesman sent the Facebook post and the reports to 6PR said Uber’s data did not support the price-gouging theory.
He said surge pricing was impacted by the number of drivers on the app and the demand; cancellations did not impact surge pricing.
In fact, he said, if a driver were to accept a trip and then cancel, the only potential impact would be surge going down given there would be one more driver online and available to accept trips.
Yet he also said the cost of riding was higher than usual.
“[It] happens when demand from riders at a particular time exceeds the supply of driver-partners,” he said.
He did not confirm whether there was a driver shortage.
Cancelled Uber rides in January cost a fee over a 30-minute wait, while in December it surged the price for a WAtoday reader.
“While we have seen strong demand for movement in Perth over the summer, which is always one of the busiest times of the year, we’re still seeing driver-partners returning to the platform,” he said.
He encouraged users to report safety or fraudulent issues, saying Uber was letting driver-partners know about the negative impact cancellations could have.
He said the app helped ensure riders weren’t charged for cancellations if their driver was running late, dropping off another rider or had not progressed towards the pick-up location.
If a rider did believe they had been wrongly charged a cancellation fee they could go to ‘Review my cancellation fee’ in the app for assistance.
The $93 billion US tech company has also launched Uber Reserve, which allows riders to reserve their trip between two hours and up to 30 days in advance, as “a great option for riders wanting extra certainty”.
But another ride-share driver told WAtoday he hoped Perth Uber users would transfer to locally launched MooVr after learning on February 10 that the ‘cancelling’ phenomenon had extended to UberEats because those drivers didn’t get paid a ‘waiting time’ and it was unviable.
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Moovr co-founder Delsie Cook left Uber after seven years once the company hiked its commission to 27.5 per cent, from its starting point of 15 per cent, while repeatedly reducing fare rates.
She and another Uber driver Keith Logan spent four years creating Belmont-based MooVr which sets a flat rate, with no surge pricing and offers zero commission to drivers who sign on before May.
“It was just all about trying to create a fair platform for both passengers and drivers,” she said.
“We are slightly more expensive, I’m not gonna lie to you, but we’re nowhere near the cost of a taxi.”
For a trip from Perth Airport to Baldivis, with no commission taken by MooVr, drivers got about $30 more than Uber and passengers could escape airport surge prices.
MooVr co-founder and Perth rideshare driver Delsie Cook.Credit: Facebook
MooVr is also stricter with drivers who repeat-cancel with no explanation, hitting them with suspensions and sometimes bans, whereas Uber takes them offline for only minutes.
The fledgling company has already amassed thousands of WA drivers and been growing by 10 to 50 drivers a day, with 200 passengers joining over the past three days alone.
A DiDi spokesman said the whole industry had suffered a driver shortage during the pandemic due to a lack of immigration, but DiDi had experienced a tremendous bounce-back since restrictions had eased and this would hopefully increase driver numbers in Perth once the border opened.
DiDi also has surge pricing, but incentivises drivers not to cancel through charging lower fees to those with higher trip acceptance and completion rates.
A Swan Taxis spokesperson said Swan Taxis meters reflected the regulated fares of Perth’s traditional taxi industry. While the cost per kilometre could vary at different times of the day or week, there was no surge pricing.
Ola was contacted for comment.
The Department of Transport said any complaints of price manipulation should be lodged with the ride-share company and if the response was unsatisfactory, WA Consumer Protection might be able to assist.
DoT could investigate concerns the companies were not meeting regulatory responsibilities as they were required to accept and work towards resolving complaints within a reasonable timeframe.
“DoT encourages customers to vote with their wallets to choose a service provider who meets their needs,” a spokesman said.