Scenic Routes in Ride Shares

Last night, I took an Uber ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan. We drove over the Williamsburg Bridge — one of the three major bridges connecting the two boroughs.

The view was breathtaking. Seeing the skyline lit up at night — and driving toward it knowing that what awaited at the end of the bridge was a bustling city full of people enjoying late dinners, pedestrians walking home, and bikers racing by — made me feel both inspired and grateful. Inspired by the energy. Grateful that I got a peek at this version of New York’s 10pm city.

It also made me think: ride sharing apps should offer “scenic route” options. I’d easily pay a few extra dollars to route through prettier parts of a city, especially when I’m traveling somewhere new. I imagine other folks would, too.

Scenic routes would expand the set of premium options available to consumers. Today, riders can pay more for luxury cars and/or (in some apps) faster pickup times. Luxury services (e.g. Uber Black) usually go for a meaningful markup to regular ride share prices, in part because the operating vehicle is more expensive to purchase and maintain. Faster pickup times have less of a premium assigned, likely because the incremental costs involved are lower.

Scenic routes would fall closer to the latter cost structure. These rides would presumably be longer than a standard ride, so the core incremental costs should be driver time and extra gasoline (and maybe car depreciation, if one wants to get really specific). Uber and Lyft also allocate a portion of each ride’s payment towards a pool of incentives that helps keep drivers on the road longer and more consistently. Lengthier rides might make it harder for drivers to complete the incentivized challenges (e.g. complete 7 rides for an extra payout), so it seems reasonable that a portion of scenic routes’ premiums would go toward driver compensation for the opportunity cost of the longer rides. My guess is that all of the above would only add a few extra dollars to the average ride.

All in all, scenic routes strike me as a desirable feature that could be implemented without breaking the bank. For now, I’m resigned to occasionally asking the driver for a scenic route and promising to give them a nice tip. But hopefully in the future, it’ll just be an option available within ride share apps.