Photo via SherpaShare
Photo via SherpaShare

If you are an Uber or Lyft driver in Seattle, you probably average around $11 to $13 per trip.

A new report by SherpaShare, a tool that drivers can use to track mileage, expenses and earnings, shows that incomes for Uber and Lyft drivers can vary quite a bit based on location: While New York City drivers are clearly on top of the heap, making an average of $29 per trip, driving an Uber or Lyft in 20 of these major American cities isn’t quite so profitable, especially if you’re in Nashville or Baltimore.

Seattle didn’t fare so hot, either. Uber drivers make an average of $13.17 per trip here, and Lyft drivers do worse at $11.21, putting us solidly at No. 13. See the full chart below:

Photo via SherpaShare
Photo via SherpaShare

Why the study?

“Industry-wide trends have been hard to come by,” SherpaShare reports in a blog post. “PR departments at Uber, Lyft and their contemporaries have very little incentive to openly publish data that might lead to speculation harmful to their chosen narratives — especially about how well their drivers are doing financially as ridesharing supply and demand evolve together.

“In the brave new world of ridesharing, there has long been a gap between what the TNC companies say happens, what the drivers feel or think happens, and what actually happens — what drivers actually net after all expenses.”

SherpaShare wrote that Uber’s announcement to lower its mileage rates in January spurred the study, as drivers would have to “increase the number of trips per hour” to offset the lowered rate. From January to March, the company looked at millions of UberX and Lyft trips in the cities with the highest concentration of drivers using its software to deduce the average fare price per trip.

With stats like these, it’s no wonder New York City is the epicenter of the latest Uber battle, according to this article in Business Insider. The city wants to curb the number of drivers that can be added each year, about 1 percent or only 200 drivers, to Uber’s NYC fleet. Last week, Uber took a pretty aggressive approach in its app, showing users how much of wait time they’d have if they new limit was put into play if Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office passes the new regulations.

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