Taxi Wars: Uber Drops Fares By A Further 15% In Victoria

Uber’s ride sharing platform UberX might already be the cheaper option to taxi’s in Victoria, but today the transport app is aggressively cutting the cost of rides in the state by a further 15%. It’s good news for users, with the more affordable rides beginning as of today!

Uber says that through previous experience in other cities, plus their testing of reduced fees across Melbourne, this price decrease will ultimately help both drivers and passengers.

Ultimately it will increase users on the network and trip efficiency, meaning drivers will wait less in idle and make better earnings for each hour they work.

The plan is essentially to make the ride sharing service an alternative to public transport, particularly when people are running late for something that might just be a few blocks away. As the service becomes cheaper, it seems Uber wants to eventually compete with the cost of buying a full fare ticket, which costs around $ 7-8 for daily use and doesn’t offer the convenience of door-to-door service.

Under the new fees, if you’re in a group of four in the Melbourne CBD and want to make a trip to Chapel Street, you’re each looking at $3 each when splitting the cost in the app. Splitting a fare from the city to the front door of the MCG in a group will be a mere $1.50. Winner!

As a sample, UBER provided this map to its Melbourne members to show the average cost of their service from the CBD:

A map of estimated prices for standard Uber rides around Melbourne

In a blog post on the Uber website, they said,

Pricing is a science, and each city is different – over the years, we’ve learned more about the choices riders make, and how those choices impact earnings for driver-partners.

In the coming month, we’ll be watching closely to see if riders are taking more trips, and if we find that driver-partners aren’t busier as a result of these reductions, Uber will review prices again.

If you’re a driver panicking about how this might impact you, don’t fret. In addition to all this, Uber is introducing a $30 gross/hour guarantee of fares for driver-partners over the coming weeks.