Six teams in six cities took to the streets to put ride-sharing apps to the test

Wall Street Journal

Sometimes, it’s OK to get in a stranger’s car.

Using apps, tens of thousands of people every day pay for rides in other people’s cars instead of taking cabs. Drivers from services called Uber, Lyft and Sidecar are taking part in one of the most unusual new kinds of businesses enabled by smartphones.

The first time I e-hailed a stranger for a ride in San Francisco a year and a half ago, it felt like the kind of thing I shouldn’t tell my mother. Who is this man with a Prius, I could hear her asking, and how do you know he isn’t a maniac? When I climbed in the car, he offered me a lollipop. Now I’m taking candy from strangers, too?

Let me explain, Mom: Riding with strangers, aka ride-sharing, has become a regular part of how I get around because it’s convenient and often cheaper than a cab.

There are still safety concerns regarding the drivers—not that they’re serial killers, but they might lack comprehensive insurance coverage. But you could argue that these services, which use smartphones and GPS data, are potentially even safer to use than regular cabs.

What’s certain is that all three services are spreading fast, available in many U.S. cities, from Chicago to Charlotte, N.C. UberX, the largest nonprofessional driver service run by Uber, is in 25 U.S. markets.

Like any form of transportation, you need to be smart about using these apps.

To put them to the test, I mustered Journal colleagues in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington and New York. I took each service to work for a week in San Francisco, and in each city, testers embarked on a mini “Amazing Race,” starting the same peak-traffic trip at the same time, headed to the same destination. In most cases, three people used three apps while a fourth hailed a local taxi to compare. (Lyft and Sidecar aren’t available in New York.)

Over more than 30 rides, we had drivers offer us candy, fist bumps, and even meditation coaching. They all got us where we needed to go safely, and almost as quick as a taxi, but not always as cheap.

Some rides were three or even four times as expensive as a cab, because some services raise prices during rush hour. On average, our rides on UberX cost about 20% more than taxi fare. Lyft came in second according to price, costing just a bit more than a taxi, not including tips.

The one app that stood out as a winner is Sidecar. Not only did it cost, on average, about 10% less than the taxi, but it gave us more of a feeling of control. That’s because Sidecar turned its ride-placing software into a marketplace in February. Drivers name their price and riders choose who will pick them up.

As kooky as they sound at first, these apps do simplify the process of getting a ride. Rather than hailing a cab or calling a taxi dispatcher, you launch an app. Your phone tells the service where you are and shows you the nearest potential rides on a map with little car icons crawling around the screen like gerbils.

As your ride comes to pick you up, you can watch its avatar scamper across the map—offering a level of assurance and ETA I’ve never had from traditional taxi companies. With all the services, you use a credit card through the app—no swiping or fumbling for cash.

Lyft and Uber ping nearby drivers and tell you which one will show up. The apps don’t automatically calculate your fare, but they warn you if they’re going to charge rush-hour rates, called “surge” pricing by Uber and “prime-time” pricing by Lyft.

During my San Francisco morning tests, UberX often wanted to double the price, while Lyft wanted to tack on 25%. In Manhattan, UberX once quadrupled the charge.

At non-rush-hour times, both companies’ rates were cheaper than a cab, and UberX—which doesn’t allow tipping—was usually the cheapest. An Uber spokesman said the percentage of trips that charge surge pricing is “in the single digits.” Last week, Uber updated its app to notify users with an alert if surge pricing ends within 30 minutes of looking for a ride, in case they want to wait it out.

Sidecar doesn’t do surge pricing. It asks for your destination so drivers can say how much they’d charge to take you. The app displays bids with estimated time until pickup. Sidecar drivers seem less inclined to jack up prices, especially if they know other drivers might win your business.

Sidecar’s marketplace works best where there are lots of drivers, such as San Francisco, where Sidecar is based. That’s a problem in other cities, where we had to wait longer to get the best deals. During a sunny lunchtime in Boston, one colleague waited 23 minutes for a Sidecar; another in Washington waited 30 minutes. With Uber, waits never exceeded 13 minutes. (Uber, Lyft and Sidecar keep their driver counts secret.)

So how was the ride? Taxis, on average, got us to our destinations via the shortest, quickest routes, but UberX drivers weren’t far behind. Sidecar and Lyft drivers on average took about 20% longer.

Many of these nonprofessionals went out of their way to provide good service because they knew we’d be rating them. Most apps let you, say, cancel a pickup from a poorly rated driver. (I’d avoid any driver with less than 4.6 stars out of five, given Internet “inflation.”) Since Sidecar lets you choose a driver yourself, you can select not just by price but by rating.

If you’re going to try this, remember ride-sharing services each have their own style. UberX drivers act more like chauffeurs, with passengers in the back. Sidecar and Lyft invite riders to sit up front. Lyft even asks drivers to affix pink mustaches to the fronts of their cars, and to give riders fist-bumps when they hop in.

My colleague Erich in Los Angeles had a Lyft driver who said he was a meditation coach and asked Erich to choose a card from a deck that would help reveal his inner desires. Erich chose “serenity” and the driver told him to watch for Saturn to enter his orbit. “I think because of my ethos, I get great reviews,” he told Erich.

Indeed, Erich gave him five stars—for a safe and courteous ride, with a side of serenity.