If you are regular Uber passenger, there will be no more pop-ups requesting you to confirm to those shady "2.1x" (or some other "x" amount) surge fares on the Uber app. Very soon Uber will just tell you the price of your ride up front.
Uber told TechCrunch in May that it was not shying away from surge pricing and denied an NPR report stating that it would be killing surge. However, it seems Uber is removing the feature.
Uber pricing will still change with demand as a factor, but this time, now you will know the dollar amount you will be paying for the ride, instead.
Meanwhile, Uberpool newsroom announced that there are over 20% uberPOOL accounts of all rides globally. uberPool introduced customers to exact fares two years ago and the ride-sharing company started to notice that people seemed more likely to take Uber again when how much the ride would cost was tranparent and they were told up front. Moreover, it is less expensive and it is also possible riders returned to Uber because of the lowered costs on POOL, not because Uber told them how much the fare would be before they got in the car.
Uber's product team has been testing the theory of offering the exact cost of the ride in select cities throughout India and the U.S. since April and the team said they believe customers are more likely to take another Uber in the future if they see the exact price upfront, not just because POOL is less expensive.
The new costs are calculated similarly to the old "x" surge pricing so you might still end up paying a costly sum in certain places or times of day where demand for a ride home is going to be at its peak.
The price is based on expected time, distance, traffic, the number of customers asking for rides at that time and the number of nearby drivers with availability, but at least now, Uber customers will know amount that they should pay.
Uber will now allow either the rider or driver to update the app if the customer changes his destination in the middle of the ride. The app will give notification to the driver with the change in cost.
The rideshare company also stated that passengers should not if their Uber driver goes way off the map and tries to charge them more or if the route experiences heavy traffic and they need to change the route. The price that both of the agreed on will still stick as the price that the passenger will pay.
