My Uber Experience

Well, so much for my first (and possibly last) try.

I had a 6AM flight out of Reagan, staying in a hotel in East Falls Church, a ten-minute walk from the Metro. Unfortunately, I learned last night that the Metro doesn’t start running until 5AM, and the first train wouldn’t get to the East Falls Church Station until 5:10, upon which I’d have have at least a 27-minute trip to the airport, not counting time to switch trains in Rosslyn. In other words, I had to find a different way to the airport.

I’ve never used Uber, but it’s, shall we say, been in the news, and a Washingtonian friend recommended it in a DM on Twitter. I signed up last night, downloaded the app, and opened it up to check it out. It gave me a search window, into which I typed the hotel address. It came up on the map, but with no indication what to do next. I tapped on the screen and instead of asking me for a destination, it jumped to a different departure address a mile or so away. I dragged the “pin” back to where it needed to be, and it finally opened a new window to destination. I put in “DCA” and it came up with a reasonable fare and time, and said that there was a car two minutes away, and did I want to go? Since my flight was several hours away, I ignored it, but left the app open in the hope it would still be ready to go in the morning.

OK, come time to leave, I open the app, and it insists on starting from scratch. OK, I’ve got a few minutes, I can do this again. But this time, the map comes up in a smaller scale, not showing me the neighborhood, but most of the district and north Virginia suburbs. I try to focus it with my fingers, and all it does is move the departure point to some random address, without a scale change. Finding the right address with the “pin” is like trying to locate and pick up a single atom with salad tongs. I type in the address, at which point it goes to the right place, but once again without asking me where I want to go. If I touch anything on the screen, it once again changes the address to some random location in northern Virginia. This goes on for fifteen minutes, amidst much cursing (I’ve moved outside of the hotel lobby to spare the ears of anyone else up at that ungodly hour). Finally, panicked, I give up, and ask the desk attendant to call me a cab, which he does.

The cab arrives about quarter after five and gets me to the airport at 5:30. I’d checked in by phone when I got up, but my mobile boarding pass wasn’t TSA pre-check (as I usually get, though I’ve never actually signed up for it). This turned out to be the fatal blow, because the regular line was very slow. I got to the gate just in time to see the plane being pushed away.

Bottom line, had to rebook. Good news: they put me on a non-stop to LA that arrived about the same time as I would have if I’d made my original flight through Chicago. Bad news: I had to pay $75 out of pocket for the changes (I could have stood by for free, but I would have had crummy seats, and not necessarily gotten on the flight at all).

I said I had used Uber “possibly” for the last time. It’s possible that my problems were a result of my flaky phone, so after I’ve replaced it, I may give them another chance. But not before.

12 thoughts on “My Uber Experience”

  1. Well I certainly wouldn’t try something like that for a time critical task, like getting to the airport on time, without trying it out on a non-time critical travel first.

    AFAIK these whole systems rely on goodwill so its a bit like shopping in Ebay for a taxi.

    1. Yeah – Rand you should’ve tried it to go two blocks near home first. Or something like that, rather than diving into the deep end of the pool w/o learning how to swim. So to speak.

      1. For it to be a valid test of the “goodwill” of the local drivers, he would have needed to perform the test at the same hour of the day in the same city where he intended to use the service, and potentially even on the same day of the week. If I were to drive for Uber on the side, I know that my availability is different depending on what meetings I have at my primary job.

        It sounds like most of the issues were with the app itself, not with the availability of drivers. Rand performed what I would have considered a reasonable test by opening the app the night before and testing it out to ensure it had his current position and ensure the mapping would allow him to select his destination point.

        The failure seems to be more a result of a hardware issue, inasmuch as it wasn’t registering multiple fingers at the same time or multi-touch gestures. I believe the app itself is capable, and if Rand knows his hardware is on the fritz, that would appear to be the cause of most of the issues.

  2. For what it’s worth, The Vodkapundit Stephen Green also tried out Uber, but his experience was much more positive.

    One difference; he uses an iPhone. Perhaps that version of the app works better? Also note the comments there from others who have actually used Uber.

    P.S. Just to ask a silly question, did you have your GPS turned on?

    1. I never used that app but I would not be surprised if it just gets your current location from GPS by default and only wants you to input the destination. You know as if GPS actually *worked* well all the time.

  3. I’ve been using Uber on my iPhone in Washington and Baltimore for about a year now, with very good experiences (save one episode, a driver with very poor English who could not understand what I was saying, or find Union Station, of all things).

    I agree with the growing consensus that a time critical task like this may not have been the best way to test out Uber. It sounds like the app itself was the problem, at least it works on Android.

  4. Sounds like the app needs the capacity to bookmark locations, and an ability to book a trip ahead of time would be nice.

  5. Uber worked just fine on my Galaxy S5, driver arrived in the stated 5 minutes and got me to my destination promptly. Agree with your assessment that a new phone may be in order to get the full experience.

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