5 Tips for a Successful New Year's Eve Driving

Via Lyft's Community Blog

Lyft's put together the top tips for having a successful night on the road. Here they are direct from the Lyft Community page:

1. Drive smart hours.

We expect the busiest times to be from 7 - 10 p.m., and again from 1 - 3 a.m., so be sure to take your breaks before, after, or in between those times.

2. Head to the hot zones.

Go where the nightlife goes. Generally, areas that are busy on Friday and Saturday nights are going to be booming on New Year’s Eve. It’s also a good idea to do a quick Google search before the big night to see where the most popular celebrations are happening. Utilize the in-app heat maps and head to areas with the most requests.

Most importantly, don't forget to have fun!

3. Drive safely.

This seems obvious, but it’s especially important to take precautions when driving on busy holidays. Check out these pieces of fatherly driving advice as a refresher.

Driving in 2015? Get you free SherpaShare driving dashboard now!

4. Get the celebration started.

This is the perfect opportunity to give your passengers that extra special experience. Head to your local dollar store and scoop up some party favors. Think party hats, funky New Year’s glasses, and fun candy (maybe some throwback snacks). Definitely pick up a few confetti poppers if you’ll be in driver mode when the ball drops.

5. Stay cool.

Remember to have fun, be patient with traffic and crowds, and celebrate a new year of good things to come.

Happy 2015! - The Lyft Community

More New Year's Eve tips: Best times to request a ride via Uber and Get the price upfront tonight via Sidecar

Driving in 2015? Get your free SherpaShare driving dashboard now.

new years eve, lyft, community, tips

2014 in review: The top 6 rideshare driver trends

Happy Holidays from Team Sherpa!

For those of you who are taking a breather to be with family and reflect on your driving year gone by, here are our top 6 rideshare driving trends we thought you should know. Enjoy!

These driver trends are based on nearly 250 responses from Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar drivers across the United States. Special thanks to The Rideshare Guy, Uber Drivers, and The Rideshare Dashboard for their help! Here are the findings:

1. The driver workforce is new and growing faster every week.

Whether part time or full time, chances are good you began your independent driving in 2014. Only 16% surveyed have been driving for over 1 year, and half have been driving for less than 6 months. Start today and you'll be a veteran in no time.

Months as an independent driver

2. Nearly half of drivers worked less than 20 hours per week

Using driving as part-time income is the major trend, with 44% of drivers working less than 20 hours per week, and 80% of drivers working 40 hours or less per week. Yes, that does mean 1 in 5 drivers is putting in over 40 hours a week - that's higher than we expected!

Average number of hours drivers worked per week

3. Drivers are 'satisfied' with their work

Over 60% of all drivers are 'satisfied' or 'completely satisfied' with their work as an independent driver. Despite the often loud vocal minority, only 1 out of 7 say they are unsatisfied as a driver.

Ranking of driver satisfaction

4. And to stay satisfied, the majority of drivers have other full-time work.

We already knew that two-thirds of drivers were earning from multiple services. We are even more surprised to now learn that 70% of drivers had other full time work during all or part of 2014. And over 40% said they had full-time jobs for the entire year.

Drivers with full-time work in 2014

5. The majority are still using driving as a secondary income source - we hope.

For the vast majority, independent driving is not the $90,000 per year job (Uber's example from earlier this year). Only 2% earned more than $75,000 in 2014. Nearly 6 out of 10 drivers earned less than $10,000 in driving income in 2014.

Driver income in 2014

Looking ahead, 80% of drivers say they'll be back on the road in 2015

We were especially interested in this. Our recent Uber driver survey had nearly half of Uber drivers saying they would drive fewer hours for Uber, in response to some of Uber's PR issues. Only 11% of drivers are 'Leaning No' when asked if they would continue driving in 2015, and 7% are undecided.

Driving in 2015?

UPDATE (SEP 2015)
You can see average earnings by city via SherpaShare CityMetrics. Average earnings available for 150+ cities. You'll need to login/signup for a free account, choose your city, and click on CityMetrics.

Click to share the top 6 driver trends of 2014 on Facebook or Twitter

survey, trends, rideshare drivers

How much do you need to drive to pay for insurance?

NerdWallet in collaboration with SherpaShare

NerdWallet teamed up with the SherpaShare data team to put together this piece on insurance. Enjoy!

Here’s How Much You Need to Drive for Uber, Lyft and Sidecar to Cover Your Car Insurance, Other Costs

by John Kuo, December 1, 2014

Ridesharing companies promise easy money, but how often do you have to drive to pay for car ownership costs, such as insurance? For the more ambitious, how can you make $50,000, $75,000 or even $100,000?

To find out, NerdWallet crunched the numbers to see how many rides drivers for Uber, Lyft and Sidecar would have to provide to pay for their car ownership costs such as insurance, gas and repairs. We also calculated how many rides are required for drivers to make $50,000, $75,000 and $100,000 in pretax income. Using data from SherpaShare, a service that helps drivers track ridesharing income and expenses, NerdWallet analyzed 14 of the country’s largest markets for Uber, Lyft and Sidecar.

Key findings

• On average, drivers make more per trip driving for Uber than they do with Lyft or Sidecar. The average fare for Uber is $15.97; average fares for Lyft and Sidecar are $11.48 and $13.35, respectively.
• To make an annual income of $50,000, the average Uber driver needs to provide 60.21 rides each week, while those working for Lyft need to give 83.76 rides a week and Sidecar drivers would have to provide 72.03 rides in a week.
• Lyft drivers in Dallas make the least, $9.73, per trip. Based on the city’s average annual insurance premium of $1,042.30, a driver would have to provide 97.65 rides before paying for a car insurance premium.

Read the rest

SherpaShare is the #1 site for rideshare drivers in the US to track their earnings, expenses, and get driving information. It's free. Sign up here

sherpa, data, lyft, uber, sidecar, nerdwallet, insurance

Spotlight on the fast-paced driving scene in Austin

Interview with Anthony, a veteran driver

Austin is one of the cities in particular that's got us jazzed about the future of transportation network companies. Drivers have adopted fast, been hyper-connected, and now have supportive regulation to grow even faster.

Hundreds of Lyft and Uber drivers are now driving in Austin since ridesharing launched their this past spring, and over 100 of them are using SherpaShare.

Lyft and Uber rally in Austin

Anthony's one of the veteran drivers in Austin, who's been championing ridesharing as well as championing SherpaShare. We caught up with him earlier this week:

Sherpa: Hey Anthony, tell us about driving in Austin and when you first started?

Anthony: I have been driving since the very beginning in Austin, six months ago. I started with Uber then signed up for Lyft 3 weeks later. I drive part-time and continue my consulting job, where I work mostly from home. I hope to continue to drive as long as it is worthwhile.

Sherpa: Why has ridesharing grown so fast in Austin, and why have so many started using Sherpa?

Since ridesharing came to Austin in the spring, the local media has helped promote it while the city has been debating about how to respond. The City Council debate has brought a lot of local attention to these services and help grow the local Facebook groups. Around the same time, many of us started using SherpaShare and sharing it on our local Facebook groups. We're very engaged drivers who were looking for more information. Some of the Sherpa data has helped us new drivers realize that actually a) the Austin driving community is growing and b) there is money to be made in this business.

Austin is a young, high tech city and very well connected to others. It still seems like a smaller city to me, but it is #11 in population in the USA. So we are not as small as we used to be.

Sherpa: So what are your top tips for drivers looking to make more money and get the most out of driving?

Drive for as many platforms as possible. You never know when one platform is busy and the other is not. Work when other drivers are not working. Early mornings are great for airport runs and of course Friday and Saturday nights. After 2AM is always a hot time, but you need to be willing to risk taking the drunks home.

Sherpa: What worries you most about driving?

A couple things that can get to me: Picking up drunks late at night and having to deal with them. And secondly, over saturation of the market with drivers. Finding the balance between supply and demand is always a challenge, and there's a concern that demand may not grow as fast for all of the new drivers.

Left to right, Amy, Josh, City Council Member Chris Riley, a big supporter of Austin ridesharing, Anthony, and Raul

Connect with drivers in your city and track your earnings and mileage. Sign up for free.

austin, lyft, uber, driving, regulation,

Survey Results: Uber Drivers Say They'll Drive Less

On Saturday, we asked the SherpaShare community using Uber to share their latest thoughts on the company. This was in response to last week's major privacy and ethical concerns widely covered in the news. At last count, we had over 300 driver responses. Our drivers have lots of opinions!

We shared the results exclusively with Forbes, who put together this great article!

Still want to take the survey? Here you go.

New to SherpaShare? Join us for free.

uber, uber drivers, forbes, survey results

The Uber Storm: How do you feel about Uber now?

Has Uber crossed the line? Will this affect your driving? Tell us.

You've seen the huge Uber news this week: As Pando Daily first reported, "The moment I learned just how far Uber will go to silence journalists and attack women", it's out: Uber is bullying and threatening journalists.

What many felt about the company's culture came out in full view, after comments by a senior executive threatening to dig up dirt on journalists who don't support Uber. Every major media outlet has weighed in on this.

How do you feel about this latest news? Tell us! We'll be publishing the results this week.

Share this with other drivers

Join Sherpa for free

uber, ubergate, pando paily, rideshare controversy

New tips on auto-forwarding from Lyft and Uber

Great news! We've got a few new auto-forwarding tips for you.

Lyft has recently changed the email they use to send you daily and weekly statements.

Click here to add in no-reply@lyftmail.com filter

Still haven't set up auto-forward? Make your integration easy. Here's the quick how-to video

You can auto-forward Uber too!

Add in your local Uber address you get your CSV invoices from on your Uber Dashboard by creating a filter too. Then when you request your weekly CSV email from the Uber Dashboard, this will automatically be forwarded to Sherpa. Yes, you will still need to ask for your weekly CSV statement on your Dashboard.

Click here to add in your local Uber address filter

lyft, uber, auto forward

Guest Post: Chasing the Uber Surge

From Uber Driver Diaries

A brand new piece on Chasing the Uber Surge, by our friends at uberdriverdiaries.com!

Chasing the Uber Surge

I just got licensed to drive in New York City last week, after spending almost a year driving in northern Jersey, just across the river from NYC. One of the most frustrating things about being stuck in Jersey was seeing all of Manhattan light up with 2.something times surge!

That meant they were getting paid almost 4-6x what we in Jersey were getting paid per mile and per minute. Last Friday, on my first day in New York, all of Manhattan was surging by at least 2x the normal rates and sometimes close to 3x. And it was surging for long periods of time, like more than an hour! So everyone had plenty of time to participate. I very quickly got used to the surge rates. It was pretty awesome to take somebody across town for a 20-minute 2-mile ride and see the price come to something like $30! You can really get used to that quite quickly!

This week however the surges have been more sporadic. Manhattan seems to surge just about every afternoon sometime during rush hour. The surges vary in length and in area covered. On my first day, everything south of 34th Street surged for more than an hour. But this week the area covered by surges was much smaller and the time duration was much shorter.

I guess I should have foreseen this, but being in a surge area during the time it’s surging is not as easy as it sounds. When you sit across the river watching it on the map, it’s easy to theorize that if you were there you would head straight to that area. But in real life, it’s not like that.

First, you never know when or where it’s going to occur, so you can’t plan or position yourself for it. Inevitably this week, every single time there was a surge, I got a call just before it started. I accepted the calls because I didn’t know it was going to surge two minutes later! And the weird thing is, every time I got a call before a surge, the passenger wanted me to take them to Brooklyn! Read the rest

Sign up for your free Sherpa account

uber, surge, sherpa

Sherpa Study: 30% of Uber Drivers Earning More on Lyft

Based on active Uber drivers from August to October, 2014

According to a Sherpa sample study of drivers using Uber as of August, by October 30% of these drivers were making an increased proportion of their earning on the Lyft platform. That means whether these drivers were earning 1% or 100% of their total driving income from Uber in August, come October, 30% of them had increased their Lyft earnings percentage or started driving for Lyft.

Of course, we've expected tons of 'migration' like this in the on-demand workforce, which is fundamentally based upon independent contractor flexibility. Drivers come and go at various stages in their life, experiment with new services, try to find their schedule sweet spot and maximize on-boarding bonuses. Welcome to the constant cycle of contractors.

We took a deeper look at the 30% of the Uber drivers examined to understand just how much more they were working for Uber. While 25% percent were brand new to the Lyft platform, around a quarter of drivers made over 20% more earnings on Lyft 2 months later, and half had their earnings change by less than 20%.

This was our data team's first look at this migration! Stay tuned for more trends to help understand the life cycle of the independent contractor, and the 'why' behind it.

Join Sherpa for free

uber, lyft, independent contractor, migration, on demand workforce, earnings

Lyft Sues, Halts Houston, and Uber Looks for Another $1B

Weekend rideshare news across the US

A quick news recap from the last 48 hours:

Late this week it was reported the Lyft filed suit against its former COO, Travis VanderZanden, for allegedly taking confidential files over to his new role at Uber.

From Douglas MacMillan at the Wall Street Journal:

Lyft said it discovered some of the documents VanderZanden took because he had synchronized his personal Dropbox account to a company-issued laptop he returned to Lyft after his departure. Read the rest

Meanwhile, Lyft also announced on Thursday that it was pulling out of Houston to comply with new local regulations.

It's the first time Lyft's pulled out of a city due to regulations, but the fight isn't over. According to Joe Martin from the Houston Business Journal:

This is the first time the company has had to pause operations in a market due to local regulations, according to Lyft public policy communications manager, Chelsea Wilson. But just because it plans to stop, doesn't mean the fight is over.
"We'll always continue to fight for ridesharing in Houston," Wilson told the Houston Business Journal. "It's something we believe strongly in, and we believe the community embraced it and we believe that there's a need for (alternative transportation options)." Read the rest

In San Francisco, the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance was formed to take aim at Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar.

It's the first time in decades taxi workers in SF have voted to unionize. Jessica Kwong from the SF Examiner reported:

"We were in a time of crisis before and now we're at a breaking point," said Beth Powder, an organizer and board member of the San Francisco alliance as well as a DeSoto Cab Co. driver and dispatcher. Read the rest

And more big news on Uber's side. It was reported just hours ago that Uber is aiming for another fundraising round of over $1 billion.

The new round could raise up to $2B and likely value the company at over $30 billion. According to Taylor Soper from Geekwire:

A report this afternoon from the Financial Times indicates that the San Francisco-based company is looking to raise another $1 billion at a valuation of up to $25 billion, according to Recode. Read the rest

Want up to the date news? Join Sherpa to see the latest posts, or follow us on Twitter.

lyft, uber, vanderzanden, houston, san francisco