Uber New Feature: “Area Preference” Now in a Test Market

In this video and article I’m going to share with you what we know about the new ‘Area Preference’ feature for Uber Drivers. We’ll discuss some of the details about it, and where it’s being offered. And stick around, because at the end of the video I’m going to give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down whether I think this is a good thing for drivers.

What is Area Preference?

What you’re seeing right now is the first screen, it’s a screenshot, and you can see where it says Area preference. “Get trips that start and end in areas you choose for up to two hours.” So what does that mean?

What you can see on this screenshot, you can pick the areas that you want to start your ride in and also complete your ride. So basically you can make a concentric circle around you and you can say to Uber, this is the only place that I want to drive. And I could see this being very useful in certain situations.

Where is Area Preferences? Well, the only market we know for sure based on this screenshot that I just showed you, is the Dallas-Fort Worth area. So if you’re in Dallas-Fort Worth, look for this feature and let us know what you think about it down below in the comments. We’d love to get some feedback on how this feature is working for you in the Dallas-Fort Worth market.

What Do I Like About This Feature?

Obviously controlling where we drive is really, really important. If I’m driving in the morning, let’s say during rush hour and I’m in my market of San Francisco, I don’t want to get a ride that takes me across the bridge. I don’t want to get a ride that maybe takes me over the other bridge. I want to stay downtown ferrying people back and forth to work, because a lot of times there might be some surge, I can make some extra money and I can rack up my rides towards a bonus.

In some markets Uber gives the drivers that the ping, you can see where the destination is and then you got to see where it is and if that works for you. With this, you just set up your own algorithm and say I only want rides that start and end within the greater area that I’ve designated. So I think that’s really awesome and that’s the feature I like most about this Area Preference.

What Don’t I Like About Area Preference?

I don’t like that you only get to use it for two hours. When I drive in the morning, usually rush hour starts around six in the morning and goes to 09:30, so that’s three and a half hours. So I could still at six in the morning if I’m not careful, get a ride that takes me across the bridge and that’ll ruin my whole morning. So I’ve only got two hours.

If I had this in my market, I think I would start it at about 06:30 and go till 08:30. And just be really hypervigilant beforehand so that from 06:30 to 08:30 I knew I would just be driving within my market and not getting rides that take me into traffic, into bad traffic areas. But then you got the afternoon commute, so there’s a lot of situations where this could be very, very useful, but you only get two hours per day. So, that’s the biggest drawback about this.

Key Takeaways

This is great. This is a move in the right direction. This is a pretty awesome feature. Even if it is only two hours a day, it just means you don’t have to be so diligent looking at the destination and making sure that you’re within an area that you want to be in. It gives the drivers some control, of course it doesn’t give us all a lot of control, but it gives us a little bit more control over where we go and that will help us to make more money in less time, be more efficient with our driving.

So, thank you Uber, and I hope this expands soon to other markets so that we can all start using it and trying it out. This is Jay Cradeur with The Rideshare Guy saying you all go out and have a great day and be safe out there.