The number of Uber and Lyft rides in New York City have declined 15 percent over the past few months — while yellow cabs picked up 5 percent more fares, reversing a longtime trend.
New Yorkers took an average of 498,641 Uber/Lyft daily rides in June, but by September that figure slid to 432,581, Taxi & Limousine Commission data shows.
Meanwhile, yellow taxi trips rose from 94,130 per day in June to 98,724 over the same months.
New Yorkers once took about half a million taxi trips per day — until 2014, when Uber and Lyft began to eat away at taxi ridership.
Uber and Lyft executives have admitted that riders face higher fares and longer wait times than they’re used to — at least in part due to a shortage of drivers.
Yellow taxis, on the other hand, are not subject to mercurial “surge pricing.”
In New York, “demand continues to outpace supply and prices and wait times remain above our comfort levels,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on the company’s most recent earnings call.
Lyft faces driver shortages as well, CFO Brian Roberts said on its most recent earnings call — in part due to federal pandemic unemployment benefits.
“To date, riders have been relatively patient with a less-than-ideal prices and service levels since they are faced industry-wide,” he told Wall Street analysts.
