[bharanidharang]

This problem has been there for a long time. Once I had 7 cancellations at the airport at 11 PM ! The home is around 10 mins by cab ! I have switched to prepaid for airport to home runs which are much more expensive but peaceful !

Prepaid have a new problem, the driver expects something extra in hand !!

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by poloman

They don't come to railway stations, residential areas, commercial complexes and what not..

I thought railway stations, airports, malls are high success rate destinations. Never had cancellations for these.

It is not?

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

but if its at night say around 11 PM - 12 AM

I never even tried that late, even from airport. Do you even get one that late? For residence pickup in late nights and early mornings, I feel its more of a risk relying since you don't have any fallback.

who stay abroad and use Uber - is it the same experience?

Most cities still are with radio taxis, like Meru in the generation prior to app taxis

[Vitruvius]

Ola and Uber are super helpful for airport runs. But only one way, to the airport!!

If you want to be picked up from the airport, better take the excellent prepaid taxi service available at airports. The drivers are already there, and it saves a lot of time and hassle not having to argue with Ola drivers after a tiring flight.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by narayans80

I thought railway stations, airports, malls are high success rate destinations. Never had cancellations for these.

It is not?

KR puram is one of the busiest railway stations in Bangalore. I got 4 cancellations for the same. I have no clue what they are looking for. You can factor in min 30 minutes for some one to accept the ride, even in non peak times. Even more surprisingly the drivers who cancelled had ratings like 4.9.

I used to avail cab services extensively 2-3 years back when I was in Gurgaon. The cancellations were extremely rare then. So some thing has changed. May be companies are more lenient to retain staff or plain greed to earn money after pandemic.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by GTO

1. How do you guys handle this?

2. Is Ola better?

3. Why the heck isn't Uber disciplining its drivers? Cancellations from the driver ruin the customer experience. It should impose penalties for drivers cancelling trips after accepting them.

You seem to be lucky. Welcome to terra firma
Only Ola available at my location and it's their SOP now.
Also there is always someone who insists on cash while recently another guy insisted on digital

1. Nothing much can be done, they cancel the ride and someone else is allotted. Zero intents of wasting my time with their customer care.
But now I explore other options and keep Ola as a last resort.
Needless to say my usage has dropped to miniscule levels.

2. It's worse IMO. I thought this was pioneered by Ola drivers.
Used both for 2-3 weeks in Bangalore and Ola had a cancel/ask rate of 3/10 while I didn't face it in Uber for that duration. Needless to say was using Uber after the first few days.

[mayankk]

If you land at T2 Delhi after 7 PM, OLA would provide you 10 drivers who cancel after destination/payment mode queries. Its absolutely horrid. My firm has fortunately started direct cabs for people, waiting before you even land, and its such a godsend after a tiring business trip

[raksrules]

But don't Ola drivers see the approx drop location, before accepting trip? I had asked a ola driver who stays near my home in Borivali and he works in a proper company but has yellow plate vehicles as he does side business of providing vehicles for local / out station trips.

I traveled with him from Borivali to Airoli and he told me that he only accepts trips in morning with destination near Navi Mumbai where his office is (in Vashi). He told that he can see approx location before even he accepts the trip. I also recently read somewhere that ola drivers can now see even more accurate destination which may help in making sure the person who accepts the driver is willing to go there.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by raksrules

I traveled with him from Borivali to Airoli and he told me that he only accepts trips in morning with destination near Navi Mumbai where his office is (in Vashi). He told that he can see approx location before even he accepts the trip. I also recently read somewhere that ola drivers can now see even more accurate destination which may help in making sure the person who accepts the driver is willing to go there.

This is new to me!
I knew that Ola and Uber Auto always got & get to see the exact destination that you have keyed in. All the autowalla in the neighborhood see your desperately plea on their apps and decide if they wish to be merciful or wait for a bigger catch.

But I was under impression that Cabs are auto assigned and that's why they are always eager to know the destination.

And as most people have rightly pointed out - this phenomena of Ola/Uber cab guys asking payment mode and destination is very old one, and not something new. There was a time pre-covid when I could predict with nearly 100% accuracy whether the driver will cancel or not just by the words and tone of his questions.

[NPV]

As @gannu mentioned, it's very common now for the uber/ola drivers to call and check for payment type - cash/online and then cancel the ride, they prefer cash payments.

Just last week, we were unable to find cabs during a peak hour and booked Uber auto. They guy meets us at our location and asks if we're paying cash, when we said no, he cancelled the ride right in front of us

[abhi_ank]

Sad to see this has spread to Bombay too. Came across this for the first time in Kolkata. Where do you want to go, cash or online, no ac cause uber told me so, and opening the door to spit on the road while the car is moving. Every single time in Kolkata.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by GTO

...
3. Why the heck isn't Uber disciplining its drivers?...

Service was great until the carrot was juicy. Generous incentives and target-based bonuses, on top of a good share of the fare. With such favorable terms, no stick was needed. A lot of people signed on and gamed the system as much as possible to make a quick buck. Happy drivers, happy customers, VC cash to burn. Nobody was complaining.

Once incentives/bonus dried out and aggregators started taking increasingly larger chunks of the fare as commissions, drivers just signed onto multiple platforms to offset drawbacks of specific platforms. In Bangalore, I've met more than one cabbie who drives for Uber, Ola and Meru. Some just went back to stable work (contract cabs).

Ones that stayed do just enough to not get banned from a platform, and the platform doesn't give a crap about user experience to begin with, just the pretense of providing service. They don't really have leverage now as most drivers will just unsubscribe if pushed.

[IndieGooner]

I have had cancelled rides multiple times both at Bangalore and Chennai. On the other hand, i have never had an issue while using Uber in Cochin. No cancellations or even reluctance to show up and tidy cabs always. This was my experience till 2018. I'm not sure whether the situation is still the same at Cochin.

[Rajeevraj]

In the last couple of months, have used Uber across multiple cities, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Nagpur.. Have been lucky enough to not encounter cancellations, but the issue has been common in Bangalore for a long time now. I have also stopped relying on Uber for airport runs, especially on the return. Having said that- the quality of Uber Cars- even the so called 'premier' has become so terribly bad that it is an effort to even sit inside.

I fondly remember the initial days of Uber where you eagerly looked forward to a semi luxury ride to turn up.

[shancz]

The fairy/angel tale on the reliability of cabs/aggregators is over, we're back to reality.

IMO we should solve it our own way, LTD

Some topics come to mind :
- The best beater/small car for metro traffic ?
- Is AMT a workable solution in city traffic ?
- Is an EV the best solution to city traffic ?
- Scratch protecting a beater car or is it a lost cause ?

[djjebs]

I feel Ola cabs in Bangalore has improved a bit. Off late I do not gets calls asking for the destination. I was curious and asked the drivers, they mentioned they get the customers drop destination information (approximate area).