Did you know that Uber knows when your phone battery is dying and you're willing to pay more for a ride?
This is a major insight on the psychology behind "surge pricing" that Keith Chen, the ride-sharing company’s head of economic research, revealed in an interview with NPR this week.
Do not be surprised: Uber very well knows when your phone battery is running low so its app can get into low-power mode – and, as a result, learn that you are willing to shell out more for your ride home.
"That is one of the strongest predictors of whether or not you are going to be sensitive to surge," revealed Chen to NPR correspondent Shankar Vedantam, adding that the company is not using it to take advantage.
"We absolutely don't use that to kind of like push you a higher surge price, but it's an interesting kind of physiological fact of human behavior."
Chen also shared that Uber riders are more likely to take surge pricing at a multiple of 2.1 than 2.0, primarily out of disdain for round numbers. And that is more expensive.
"I think just like your intuition on negotiations on eBay, that's exactly the same intuition I think that drives the behavior here," he said, citing how "unfair" it appears when people are told their trip will be twice more than usual costs.
Chen highlighted surge pricing as the mechanism through which they "incentivize" drivers to go to places where Uber riders need them, as well as to stay out a bit longer if they can, such as during rainy nights.
A bigger issue here, as Quartz pointed out, is the amount of data the Uber app is collecting from its users' phones. The ride-hailing service has been scrutinized for this in the past: a security researcher back in 2014 noted that Uber gets hold of anything from voice call and message history to data usage details.
This week, Uber announced it will test its self-driving hybrid car in Pittsburgh over the coming weeks. The self-driving hybrid Ford Fusion will be amassing mapping data while navigating the city through the use of sensors, including laser scanners, radars, and high-resolution cameras.
Photo: L.A. Foodie | Flickr
