Uber experience in Brazil

They play up the algorithm. Uber sends a lot of garbage gas rides, and they know it. 

Get a steady licensed cab driver, only go to Uber if you are in a pinch.  Their drivers are moonlighters. 

And you never know what you going to get. 

That and the fact Uber ....

1.Takes a chunk of their fares ( about 25% I heard )

2.Can't screen drivers a lick. I have cases of people who were robbed at gun point by Uber Drivers

Licensed Cab Drivers otherwise.....

1.They can ride bus fastlanes on large cities Uber drivers's cant. On rush hour, with gridlocks, this is a big deal. That meter keeps on ticking.

2.They are license holders, and beholden to it. They can lose their license if enough complaints are logged against them.

3.By law, they received substantial discounts on new vehicle purchases. No one besides them can get to their pricing tier on new vehicles.

4.Are fully insured.

Uber drivers in Brasil get upfront trip information with every trip request.

R$ fare they'll earn

PU and drop off location

You got dumped for a better paying trip. Cancel too many trips after you've accepted them however, and your account gets deactivated, and you can no longer drive for Uber.

@Gasparzinho 777

there lies, then, the motivation to game the system.  As for being kicked out, there's not much to lose.

Try that with a cab driver, whose license is not his, and yet, cost him /her hundreds of thousands.

01/19/24    I've been using Uber quite a lot since I moved to Brazil. Lately, I've noticed many drivers accepting a ride, waiting for a couple of minutes, and then cancelling. Do you think this is because they are using multiple apps and a more convenient ride shows up, or are they expecting some sort of quick gain by speculating that users will cancel the ride first?   

    -@martinsan

We ride Uber a lot.  In the past year or so besides Manaus (where we live), we've taken a lot of Ubers in Brasília, Florianópolis, Vitória, and Aracaju.  You can never ask the driver who cancels why, of course, but we often ask the driver that we end up with after a cancelation what s/he thinks.   Here's what we hear:

• problems with the app providing a bad routing (sometimes combined with driver inattention) that puts the driver in a "you can't get there from here" situation, so s/he tries, then gives up.  We've actually watched this happen on the map and told each other "this guy's going to cancel" and he does.  Least common in Brasília, where the street layout is so monotonously regular over vast distances.
• early or late in the day, when we're going to an area where the driver may worry about getting a good trip back.  Especially noticeable in Florianópolis and Vitória, small capitals that are quite spread out.
• longer waits in the smaller cities, probably just because there are fewer drivers.
• sometimes (mostly in Manaus) we'll see a driver stop a few blocks away around the time that surge pricing could be expected to cut in, and then cancel, maybe because surge pricing didn't hit, or because s/he wasn't satisfied with it.

It doesn't have anything to do with cancelations, but I'll just mention that we like Uber drivers generally, but have found the ones in Vitória and Brasília to be especially courteous, friendly, and pleasant overall.

@abthree My wife says its hot as hell in Manuas because its in the Amazon

I agree there might be some cases where they prefer to cancel. I just can't understand why it would take them around 4 or 5 minutes to do it. In many cases, I see their car hasn't moved at all from the point where they accepted. Apart from this, I have had a good interaction with Uber drivers, except in some weird cases, but I can keep that for a separate post.

We used to take uber for over a year in Brasilia. Generally we had no problems, tho we did get the occasional cancelation when we thought that maybe the driver was gaming the system. I agree with both @ martinsan and @ abthree's comments. Additionally, as you all know, Brazilians can be chatty, and we would get the occasional driver would wanted to argue about politics or talk about very personal family crises.  Ah, but that is the pleasures of Brazil. Now a days we rent a car by the month for more flexibility, without having to pay insurance, deal with maintenance, etc. Probably if we lived in Sao Paulo, we would do as @sprealestatebroker suggested to take a licensed cab in order to take advantage of traveling on the bus lanes.

   01/20/24 @abthree My wife says its hot as hell in Manuas because its in the Amazon     

    -@john8670

For me it's like having twelve Julys a year.  July has always been my favorite month, so that suits me to the ground.  Average temps range from 75°F/24°C to 90°F/32°C with little seasonal variation, and it's usually breezy.  The hottest day I've experienced here so far isn't a patch on a Chicago heat wave; the less said about Chicago cold, the better.

The intensity of the equatorial sun, which a lot of people may experience as heat but I experience more as a force, almost like a weight beating down, is impressive, but I've noticed the same thing in every Brazilian city I know from Salvador (around 13° S latitude) north.  Here it's about as strong as it gets, since we're only about 3° south of the Equator.

One notable adjustment to living this close to the Equator is that day and night are the same length -- twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness -- all year long, with very little variation and very little twilight between.

If Uber drivers are "gaming the system", good on them. The price I pay for Uber rides are embarrassingly cheap. And the driver only gets a percentage of what I pay. They must be pretty financially desperate.

I've use Uber a lot in Brazil, and I've never had any serious problems.  Only once a driver let me off a block away from my location, and that was to avoid a one way street; that was the only time I did not give a tip.

The Uber/cab debate is morally tricky, and I feel badly for cabbies. But maybe they are yet another casualty of the modern age

@abthree Thats crazy how it switches fast from day and night. does the humidity ever give you a hard time or are you used to it?

    I've been using Uber quite a lot since I moved to Brazil. Lately, I've noticed many drivers accepting a ride, waiting for a couple of minutes, and then cancelling. Do you think this is because they are using multiple apps and a more convenient ride shows up, or are they expecting some sort of quick gain by speculating that users will cancel the ride first?
    -@martinsan

Uber drivers accepting and canceling a fare is very common as longer trips are more profitable than the shorter ones.

I have noticed that I will have to wait longer when I am making a short trip.  Sometimes it took me longer to catch the ride than to walk there.  The drivers who tend to get those short trips are new drivers who do not have the option of canceling the trip - so tipping will help those new drivers.

@martinsan, do you use the same Uber app that you use in US in Brazil or do you have to download the Brazil version?  I have used the same Uber app in Europe and North America without any problems.

What is your Uber passenger rating everyone? Just curious. Mine is 4.84.

@EricPau Can you tell me more about renting a car on a monthly basis as far as cost and how you found out about it and who you rent through? Thanks

@abthree I know passengers get charged after a certain amount of time if we cancel but do drivers have any type of consequences if they cancel after a certain amount of time? One thing that always happens with us is after they accept they message and ask "onde vamos". I guess they do that because they want to know where they're going because the Uber app doesn't tell them until they get close and pick up the person.

@jasonlovesdogs I  have been using Localiza with good experience. You can download their app and see their prices for each class. I think they are nation-wide in Brazil. Boa sorted!

    What is your Uber passenger rating everyone? Just curious. Mine is 4.84.
   

    -@jasonlovesdogs

5.0 for Pablo.

@Pablo888 wow

The app is the same worldwide. Just open it up and go.

Generally, if your cancelation rate as a driver gets too high, they simply terminate you. Depends on the market you are in obviously

I drive Uber back in Canada to get my butt out of bed every day, othewise, I'd go insane not working. Done over 20,000 trips in 4 years.