Why is it taking so long to get an Uber or Lyft? Recently I saw a post from a frustrated passenger complaining about an extremely long wait for a rideshare at a U.S. airport. Hundreds of comments followed: take a taxi, take transit, use another app. But a few drivers raised another possibility: Maybe nobody wants the trip. I can't speak for drivers at U.S. airports, but after more than 11 years driving rideshare in the GTA, I can tell you why I'm rejecting more trips. This morning another driver messaged me: “How do I decide whether to take a trip when gas is $1.91 a litre?” Good question. I pulled out my actual bookkeeping and recalculated my operating cost using today's gas price. I drive a Kia Forte, a relatively fuel-efficient compact car averaging about 7.6 L/100 km. My current cash cost to operate that vehicle is approximately 56¢ per kilometre. That's MY cost. Drivers using larger vehicles, particularly SUVs, can have significantly higher costs. And that 56¢ is before I earn a dime for myself. Now look at an actual Lyft offer I received: Pay: $8.01 Pickup: 1.8 km Trip: 11.6 km Total: 13.4 km / 20 minutes Lyft displayed an estimated rate of $24.03/hour. Sounds pretty good. Until you pay for the car. 13.4 km × $0.563 = $7.54 in vehicle costs. $8.01 − $7.54 = 47¢ left for me. For 20 minutes of work. That's about $1.41/hour after vehicle costs. Here's another actual offer, this time from Hopp: Pay: $62.66 Pickup: 2.1 km Trip: 163.3 km Total: 165.4 km My estimated vehicle cost: 165.4 km × $0.563 = $93.12 Hopp offered $62.66. I would be approximately $30.46 in the hole just operating the vehicle. And I still have to get home. This is what passengers don't see when they're staring at an app wondering why nobody is accepting their ride. Drivers aren't looking only at the dollar amount. We're looking at the kilometres, the time, the pickup, where the trip leaves us and whether there's actually any money left after paying to operate the vehicle. Passengers are paying more and complaining about longer waits. Meanwhile, drivers are seeing offers that can leave us earning almost nothing—or actually cost us money to accept. A City of Toronto-commissioned study previously calculated median rideshare driver earnings at just $5.97/hour after expenses, counting all time logged into the apps. That's one reason we're now recruiting drivers for a new earnings study to examine what has happened since upfront pricing. I personally reject roughly 80% of the offers Uber and Lyft send me. At $1.91/L for gas, my operating costs just went up again. That means even more offers won't make financial sense. Rideshare companies need to make money. So do drivers. We're not doing charity runs. And when a trip doesn't even cover the cost of providing it, drivers have one very simple option: Decline.

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