Philly Uber drivers share why it’s become so hard to get a ride home from Citizens Bank Park

During the Phillies-Mets series earlier this month, a 55-year-old Uber driver from Upper Darby parked his Toyota Highlander in Citizens Bank Park’s rideshare lot well ahead of the ninth inning, prepared to drive a fan home.

He waited two hours, hoping for his phone to light up with a trip offering enough fare to justify the expense of getting to the stadium complex and the time spent parked.

When the game ended he watched a crowd of potential riders grow, everyone staring at their phones. Yet only a handful of trips appeared on his screen, each for around $15. He declined.

Out of curiosity, he said, the driver checked how much Uber was charging riders to get from Citizens Bank Park to his home 10 miles away. At one point, he said, it was $70.

Shortly after 11 p.m., the driver finally accepted a ride to Havertown. He would make $24 on the trip. His passenger, he said, told him she was charged more than $50.

“Uber is exploiting all parties here,” the 55-year-old driver said.

As The Inquirer reported last week, Phillies fans have become frustrated with Uber availability after games.

» READ MORE: Phillies fans say it’s suddenly ‘impossible’ to get an Uber from Citizens Bank Park

Uber, which sponsors the ballpark’s pickup lot, said it is increasing fares by $5 on all trips originating from the stadiums in response to The Inquirer’s article.

To better understand pickup problems at the complex, The Inquirer talked with industry experts and half a dozen Philadelphia-area rideshare drivers, most of whom agreed to share their experiences only on the condition their full names not be used. Drivers, who work as independent contractors, said they feared retaliation from Uber, which pairs them with riders via an algorithm and can deactivate accounts.

They corroborated the postgame tales of Phillies fans, concertgoers, and other stadium-complex regulars, who say it’s become almost “impossible” to get a ride home, regardless of whether they’re going to the city or the suburbs.

Riders and drivers said the situation has gotten worse this season, at a time when public transit cuts, including to late-night service and entire Regional Rail lines, are on the horizon. Last week, SEPTA approved a budget that would cut nearly half its service over the next seven months.

Drivers said the situation at the South Philly stadiums is a microcosm of larger issues, including decreased pay, a sudden drop-off in “surge” pricing, and a “black box” of an algorithm, as one driver described it, that seems to favor some drivers over others.

During the Phillies-Mets series, a 42-year-old Uber driver from the Northeast parked his Tesla in Lot T, the Uber Rideshare pickup lot, for hours, he said.

“I sat in there from the fourth inning until the end of the game,” said the full-time driver, an eight-year rideshare veteran. “I got no requests whatsoever.”

The algorithm can penalize drivers who turn down rides by offering fewer requests, said Sergio Avedian, senior contributor at the Rideshare Guy, which covers the industry in-depth.

Uber had disputed these claims, with senior director Miriam Chaum writing in a 2023 post that the new fare system does “account for whether a particular trip is generally more or less likely to be fulfilled by drivers, based on aggregate patterns on similar trips. Individual driver behavior is not a factor.”

Uber also says a surcharge is included in fares in high-demand areas and that the company has not taken a larger cut of driver earnings.

In South Philly, Uber is taking steps to improve the situation, according to a spokesperson.

“Beginning immediately, we are doubling the current $5 surcharge for completed trips starting at the arena,” spokesperson Freddi Goldstein said Thursday in a statement. “Drivers picking up passengers from games at Citizens Bank Park will now receive a $10 surcharge in addition to the rate of pay on these rides through the end of the season. One hundred percent of the surcharge goes to the driver.”

Goldstein said Uber will continue to work with the stadium to address concerns.

While Uber has dominated the rideshare market, some riders reported having a slightly easier time getting a Lyft pickup at the stadiums.

In the past year, the likelihood that a rider in the South Philly sports complex opens the Lyft app and completes a ride has increased by 6%, said Lyft data editor Sarah Conlisk, and wait times are down about 7%.

At least one Lyft driver, however, has struggled to get to riders in the pickup lot.

“I have had trouble getting to the lot if I’m not already there” when a game ends, said Leo Auray, 55, a full-time Lyft driver from West Philly. “Traffic control is moving cars away from the sports complex. We have difficulty getting to our passengers.”

Drivers say some exacerbate the problem by soliciting cash for rides — which scares Avedian, since those passengers are then not covered by a rideshare company’s insurance — or turning down trip requests repeatedly in the hopes of driving up prices.

But most of them, drivers say, are just waiting for the right ride at the right price. Avedian calls this “the unicorn,” he said, because it doesn’t exist.

Some drivers want a ride that is going toward their home, while others wait for a trip to a more bustling area where they are confident they can get another passenger. They all want to earn enough money to make their time and trouble worthwhile.

Said a 70-year-old Uber and Lyft driver from Egg Harbor City: “Everybody is trying to get a fair shake.”

Local drivers’ experiences jibe with the findings of recent research into Uber’s rider pricing and driver pay.

A report published last week by Columbia Business School researchers analyzed millions of trip requests and tens of thousands of driver pay and trip records. The study found that Uber is on track to generate $10 billion in free cash flow this year, adjunct professor Len Sherman wrote, largely due to “algorithmic price discrimination on both sides of its marketplace — enabling the company to raise rider fares and cut driver pay on billions of rideshare trips, systematically, selectively, and opaquely.”

Uber disputed the findings in a statement published with the report, saying “Uber’s pricing is designed to be transparent and fair for both riders and drivers. … Suggestions that our systems manipulate pricing unfairly or discriminate are simply false and not supported by evidence.”

Philadelphia-area drivers, however, say pricing is opaque, with the app no longer showing them what riders are paying (they can only do so on a browser) or how exactly a fare is calculated. And they say their pay is a fraction of what it used to be.

One week earlier this month, the 55-year-old Upper Darby man, who has driven Uber full-time since the pandemic, said he made around $700 driving seven days. A couple years ago, he would have made twice as much in a similar week.

He has a master’s degree in public health, and is applying for full-time jobs. Hopefully, he said, he won’t have to drive Uber much longer.

Earnings can also be wildly inconsistent.

Stan, a 60-year-old Uber driver from the Northeast, said he took two riders from the city to Pottstown. He made $55 on one ride, and $32 on the other.

For Uber drivers and riders nationwide, “every year it gets worse,” especially at stadiums, airports, and other crowded venues, said Avedian, the rideshare expert. “It’s a lose-lose situation.”

But it’s also become an essential service for many.

“It’s a necessity,” Avedian said. “You just had a good time. You had a couple drinks.”

At the same time, “drivers are desperate,” he said. “It closes a lot of people’s budget gaps because their W-2 [full-time jobs] are not enough.”

Uber drivers remain among the highest-paid gig workers, making more than $500 a week on average, according to Gridwise, a virtual assistant for 500,000 independent contractors.

To maximize earnings, Avedian, a driver himself, said he recommends drivers avoid event areas where they are sitting with an empty car for hours. They’d likely be better off going to a place where people are barhopping, and doing several short trips in the same time period, he said.

As for Phillies fans hoping to get rides home, Uber’s $5 fare bump could improve the situation.

“You may not get canceled as often,” Avedian said. “But you’re paying for it, by the way. Now they’re going to charge you $55 instead of $50.”