On-demand ride company is pissing off some riders with new feature

abiola

October 4, 2017 4:01 PM

The ride hailing app has started charging riders for time wasting in an attempt to appease some unhappy driver partners.

Uber has a relatively new feature that sees riders who waste time boarding an ordered ride get charged.

The time starts to read some minutes after the driver is parked and waiting.

The feature is already being implemented since April 2017 in some parts of the US such as New York, New York City, New Jersey, Phoenix and Dallas, and is set to roll out to every other country where it operates.

It gets worse during a surge, the wait time is inflated with respect to the luxury of ride offered.

In Singapore, unpunctual UberX riders will be charged S$0.20 ($0.15) per minute. For XL, Exec and ExecLarge rides, the charges are S$0.35 ($0.26), S$0.45 ($0.33)and S$0.60 ($0.44), respectively.

UberPool, UberCarSeat and UberAssist are not eligible yet according to their website.

The new charges come months after Uber started doing this in U.S. cities such as New York City, New Jersey, Phoenix and Dallas.

The U.S. penalty, which started in April, starts the clock ticking sooner — at the two-minute mark.

The changes also hit India in August, with a more generous five-minute waiting time. The UK, which started in the same month, only offers riders two minutes, and Egypt started a similar policy most recently in September.

Naturally, the new charges are generating reactions. In Singapore, riders have expressed discontent with the feature, some seeing loopholes and partiality in it.

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Some Uber riders feel see this being easily abused by drivers.

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The new charges are said to be part of Uber's efforts to mend relationships with unhappy drivers. Since drivers are part of its user base (and aren't employees, as they would be with traditionally structured businesses), Uber needs to keep riders and drivers happy on both sides of the fence.

What do you think guys? Fair or not.

abiola