Uber riders with low batteries more likely to agree surge multiples of up to 9.9
Taxi booking service Uber has uncovered an interesting facet of human behaviour after noticing that customers with a smartphone battery on the cusp of running dry are more likely to accept a ‘surge price’ of as much as 9.9 times the going rate than those with a healthy power bar.
Moreover Uber also revealed that it has the ability to identify when its app is about to enter power saving mode, potentially allowing it to artificially activate a surge price to take advantage of this psychological quirk, although the firm stresses it would not do so.
Keith Chen, Uber’s head of economic research, said: “One of the strongest predictors of whether or not you’re going to be sensitive to surge… is how much battery you have left on your cellphone.
“We absolutely don’t use that to push you a higher surge price, but it’s an interesting psychological fact of human behaviour.”
Indeed Uber has found that when it first moves into a new city 27 per cent of fare paying passengers are put off by a price multiplier of just 1.2, a proportion which falls to seven per cent when the service better establishes itself and people acquaint themselves with the practice.
Chen also mused on why passengers are more likely to accept a surge of 2.1 times cost than a notionally lower 2 times, saying: “Whereas if you say your trip is going to be 2.1 times more than it normally was, wow, there must be some smart algorithm in the background here at work, it doesn’t seem as unfair.”
Uber employs so called surge pricing to hike fares during periods of high demand in order to tempt more drivers onto the roads, an attraction to drivers but somewhat less popular amongst passengers.