Uber, the San Francisco based startup company that offers city-dwellers the ability to hail private drivers and cabs from their smartphones, has been criticized by New Yorkers and tech bloggers for implementing, then revoking, then re-implementing higher fares in the New York City area in the wake of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy. Uber calls the move “surge pricing” and says it is necessary to keep the company from losing money and to encourage its drivers-for-hire to take to the streets.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, whose public affinity for the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand has been called into question and mocked for the fare hikes, explained the situation on Uber’s blog Thursday:
while we were mostly able to avoid higher prices the day after Sandy, the reality is that under this week’s extreme conditions, raising the price is the only sustainable way to maximize the number of rides and minimize the number of people stranded – by providing a meaningful incentive for drivers to come out in undesirable conditions.
Later this morning we will be reverting back to standard Surge Pricing for riders. It is a hard decision, but one we feel strongly about. Without raising the price, there will be less than ½ the number of drivers on the system with several times more demand on far fewer drivers. Without Surge Pricing, Uber would become essentially unusable this week.
Betabeat has the latest. Meanwhile, it’s worth pointing out that in Washington, D.C., taxis were authorized by the city commission to add an emergency $15 flat rate beginning Monday as a consequence of the storm. That surcharge expired at noon on Tuesday.
