My latest Uber trip was 10 minutes, 3 miles long and 10 bucks.
Assuming it's a typical trip and also assuming the driver spends half of the time getting to the customer, we have, $30 and 18 miles per hour.
18 miles is one gallon of fuel at $2.00 and, say, another $3.00 in car amortization.
Subtract fees, add tips and incentives and we end up with, give or take, $25.
That seems like a reasonable salary?
Your numbers might work out, but studies indicate less income in practice, and there are plenty of potential sources of error in your methodology, so I'd be inclined to believe there's something wrong with that ballpark estimate.
Please feel free to add your data. I don't think it will change the estimate dramatically. An airport trip takes about an hour and costs $80, which sums up to similar numbers.
> that assumes drivers are able to drive 100% of the time
No, it doesn't. Reread my message.
> it assumes all times of day are equally viable
True. I've ignored surge pricing.
An airport trip for me is usually around $15 and 20min. That's in the same ballpark, but even if we get several people from HN to weigh in that doesn't paint a comprehensive picture or account for local variation.
> that assumes drivers are able to drive 100% of the time
> No, it doesn't. Reread my message.
That was my mistake. In my mind I was assuming it would take a car as long to get to me as it would for them to take me where I'm going -- exactly equaling your $30 estimate assuming 0 downtime. Regardless, both the 5min to get to you and 5min of waiting between rides are potential sources of error. Throwing an anecdote into the mix, I've never waited less than 6min for an uber, and I live in a major city. Answering that conclusively needs more data than just the two of us.
> it assumes all times of day are equally viable
> True. I've ignored surge pricing.
And slow periods where drivers wait an hour, late nights where a driver has a higher chance of getting stiffed and needing to clean vomit from their seats, periods just following surge pricing where many drivers have swarmed to an area but the actual available riders have plummeted, and so on.
Again, your ballpark numbers might actually be close, but extrapolating a single experience into an entire industry's unit economics is error-prone and IMO irresponsible.
Also your next ride is probably not on the same block as your last.
I guess sometimes it may be less. For airport rides it may be more. Do you have a better estimate?