The best cities for rideshare driving

Have you ever wondered what the best cities are for rideshare driving? If you’re a rideshare driver, you’ve probably pondered whether or not you’re in the best spot. You’ve probably imagined the grass is greener somewhere else. Oh, but if only you knew where that somewhere else was!

If you talk to drivers in most any city, you’ll get the sense that they feel like they’re in the wrong place for maximizing rideshare income. Let’s take a look at some data and find out if we can actually pinpoint the best cities.

There have been two major studies that looked at what drivers earn by city: The Rideshare Guy survey and the Ridester.com survey. Both surveys used totally different methodologies and the Ridester survey had about two and a half times more responses. The Rideshare Guy’s survey was conducted in early 2017 while the Ridester survey was conducted in late 2018. Yet, with all those differences they came to remarkably similar conclusions — at least as far as trends go.

The two surveys differ a great deal in the details, such as the actual hourly earnings figure per city, but they agree more than they disagree overall. For instance, both surveys concluded that several California cities made it into the top 10, while cities in Texas and Florida were near the bottom.

The two surveys also had an interesting difference in methodology. The Rideshare Guy’s survey simply asked drivers to tell them how much they earned and relied on drivers’ honesty and good memory.

Ridester felt that memory and honesty were potential issues, so they asked drivers to send screenshots of their actual earnings from the driver apps. They felt this method would give a more accurate picture because there was actual evidence for the drivers’ earnings claims.

The top 10 cities for rideshare earnings

Both The Rideshare Guy’s (TRG) and Ridester’s survey had six cities in common among their top 10. They were:

• New York City (#2 TRG / #6 Ridester)
• Boston (#3 TRG / # 10 Ridester)
• Seattle (#4 TRG / #2 Ridester)
• Chicago (#5 TRG / #9 Ridester)
• Pittsburgh (#8 TRG / # 4 Ridester)

To us the big surprise was that both surveys included Pittsburgh in the top 10. The other cities were kind of expected, but for Pittsburgh to appear in both surveys out of all the medium-size towns in America points pretty strongly to the potential that Pittsburgh is the top-earning medium-size city in the country.

The TRG survey showed four cities in their top 10 that did not appear in Ridester’s top ten. They were:

• Los Angeles (#6)
• Sacramento (#7)
• Portland, Oregon (# 8)
• Denver (#10)

Cities appearing in Ridester’s top ten that didn’t appear in TRG’s were:

• Honolulu (#1)
• Long Island (#3)
• Westchester County, New York (#5)
• San Diego (#8)

Long Island and Westchester County, New York were new markets for Uber and Lyft, after legislation legalizing rideshare in all of New York State had gone into effect after the TRG survey had been conducted.

We were quite surprised that Honolulu came in at #1. We weren’t expecting that! $25.55 an hour was the median income on the screenshots we received from Hawaii — making it the top-earning market in either survey. And not a bad place to live either!

We were so surprised, though, that we weren’t certain if we had received enough responses from Hawaii to have confidence in the result. We reached out to drivers in Hawaii and talked to them personally to see if they thought these figures sounded crazy. They didn’t.

They explained that, as you might expect, a lot of Honolulu’s business centers around airport trips. And those airport trips from the hotel district pay (or at least paid a year ago) around $25. And apparently, they were getting pretty steady back-to-back trips. Hawaii seems to have had a pretty good balance between drivers and passengers, at least at the time the survey was taken. Drivers told us that they weren’t overwhelmed with so many competing drivers that no individual driver could stay busy.

Another key to the success of Hawaii drivers is the fact that, unlike most of the rest of the country, the run from the hotel district to the airport can usually be done in less than 30 minutes. When there’s no traffic, it’s an 18-minute trip (and during rush hour it’s about a 35-minute trip). If they don’t have to wait too long for a return trip, they could get one and a half trips in, in an hour.

A lot of Hawaii drivers also told us they have XL vehicles, so a good deal of their business was made up of airport runs at XL prices, which are significantly higher than UberX prices.

As far as the lowest earning cities, TRG’s survey did not match up well with the Ridester survey. There were only two cities in the bottom 10 that were common to both surveys. They were:

• Houston
• Tampa / St. Petersburg

So, those two cities should definitely be avoided if possible. If you live in either of those two cities and find yourself thinking there might be greener pastures somewhere else — turns out you’re right!

Florida and Texas did not do well overall in the Ridester survey. Neither did Oklahoma, Indiana or North Carolina. In fact, the TRG survey had Charlotte at the very bottom.

Big cities vs. small towns

There are so many combinations of variables that can work together to either make or break a city for rideshare driving that it’s hard to come up with a reliable rule of thumb. Honolulu is a great example. Normally, you’d think a city its size (small — about 350,000 people is all) wouldn’t be a great place for drivers. You’d normally think of large urban centers as the best places to drive because they have huge customer bases, but, because of several unique factors, Honolulu drivers do relatively well.

If size had much to do with it, you’d expect to see New York City at the top of everybody’s earnings list, but it was at the top of no one’s. It was near the top, but not at the top, so we can only come up with rough guidelines.

Generally speaking, big cities are better than small towns, but it’s not as clear cut as you might think, largely because Lyft and Uber’s rates are pretty much the same across the country. It’s not like a $15 ride in high-priced San Francisco would cost $5 in Omaha. They might be off by a couple of bucks, but they’re going to be in the same ballpark.

The one thing that would give big cities a leg up is the fact that with their larger populations, drivers are more likely to be able to keep busy during most of the week.

Take a college town for instance. There, drivers are always going to be busy on Friday and Saturday nights, and probably on Thursday nights as well. Monday through Wednesday, it’s going to be dead — especially during the early morning and daytime hours. Drivers in college towns may have three to four prime driving periods during the week. But drivers in a large city will have at least ten prime periods, which are morning and afternoon rush hours Monday to Friday. They’ll also have the Friday and Saturday night bar business. That’s twelve prime periods. Throw in Saturdays and Sundays during the day and you’re up to 14 prime driving periods each week for drivers in big cities.

They may take home roughly the same money per hour they drive, but they’ll have a lot more hours they can drive.

The key to making your city the top earning city in America — for you

The bottom line is, if you know your city inside and out, if you know its people and their rhythms, you can probably do just about as well as anyone anywhere else. Don’t fret if you’re in one of these cities near the bottom of the list. Put some thought into it and come up with a smart strategy that most other drivers will never think of.

But if you do find yourself sitting around without any passengers for more time than you should, spend that time learning something new that can help you get a better job doing something else.

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