I regularly work the Newark Liberty Airport for Uber trips. After getting two parking tickets from the police for standing the car in the terminal area, I decided to go ahead and park the vehicle in the terminal C garage, and wait for pings in the baggage claim area.
I noticed a lady there had her smart phone out and I asked her if she needed an Uber ride. She said yes. My uber driver app was online and I guided her on requesting an UberX trip. After we put in the destination and showed her the fare estimate, she hit request uberx trip. I waited for the ping but never got it. She told me that she got booked with another uberx driver. I looked at her screen and the drivers car was not even in the close vicinity of terminal C.
How did this happen?
I thought that the driver selection algorithm was based on proximity or distance to the rider. In other words, the closest driver would get the ping first.
This is not an isolated incident. I would wait in the baggage claim area and noticed several people bring up there uber rider app and request a trip and I don't get the ping evn though I am less than 10 ft from them.
My only guess is that when there are many congested uber drivers in a small area such as the terminal area of an airport, the network cannot determine which driver is actually closest to the requester but rather which driver's smart phone is closer to the cell tower. Or maybe there's a waiting queue factored in or maybe its random.
Anybody else have similar issues?
I noticed a lady there had her smart phone out and I asked her if she needed an Uber ride. She said yes. My uber driver app was online and I guided her on requesting an UberX trip. After we put in the destination and showed her the fare estimate, she hit request uberx trip. I waited for the ping but never got it. She told me that she got booked with another uberx driver. I looked at her screen and the drivers car was not even in the close vicinity of terminal C.
How did this happen?
I thought that the driver selection algorithm was based on proximity or distance to the rider. In other words, the closest driver would get the ping first.
This is not an isolated incident. I would wait in the baggage claim area and noticed several people bring up there uber rider app and request a trip and I don't get the ping evn though I am less than 10 ft from them.
My only guess is that when there are many congested uber drivers in a small area such as the terminal area of an airport, the network cannot determine which driver is actually closest to the requester but rather which driver's smart phone is closer to the cell tower. Or maybe there's a waiting queue factored in or maybe its random.
Anybody else have similar issues?
