Uber Releases Hourly Ride Numbers In New York City To Fight De Blasio

Besides a leaked screenshot of a revenue dashboard in 2013, Uber (like most private startups) has been notoriously secretive when it comes to sharing any data about ride statistics.

Now, as an attempt to rebuff NYC Major Bill de Blasio before the City Council’s vote on a potential new driver cap for ride share companies, Uber is releasing exact ride numbers for the past two months in NYC.

In a 56-page Excel document, the company details numbers of pickups and active drivers (ones currently on the road with the Uber app turned on) for the past two months, all broken down by hour. The company also broke these rides down into ones that originated below 59th Street in New York’s central business district, where NYC’s congestion is the worst.

While de Blasio has argued that Uber and other ride sharing companies are the main reason for NYC’s increased congestion, the data revealed by Uber today suggests otherwise.

Uber’s data shows that the number of Ubers in NYC is actually much less than Yellow Cabs. Over a 24-hour period on July 19th there was an average of 3,198 drivers in New York City on Uber’s platform. On the other hand, there are over 13,400 taxis in NYC, of which anywhere from 67 to 85 percent of those on the road at one time.

Some interesting things from the data release:

The month of June saw 3,492,389 Uber pickups in NYC. While this pales in comparison to the 14,000,000+ trips provided a month by NYC yellow cabs, Uber’s number is still pretty staggering for a relatively new company.

Uber’s busiest times in NYC are almost always late at night, with some days nearing 10,000 trips an hour (over 150 requests a minute) between 9pm – 12am.

Uber has been fighting an aggressive media war against de Blasio and the NYC City Council in anticipation of tomorrow’s vote. Besides the data release today, the company also bought a banner ad that is currently running at the top of the New York Times website.

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Mayor de Blasio has been steadfast in his support of the bill, even as other NYC government officials (Including Scott Stringer, the city’s Comptroller) have publicly supported Uber and other ride share companies.

In an op-ed written in the NY Daily News, the Mayor wrote that “[NYC is] facing the addition of over 25,000 cars to our streets over the next year — the rough equivalent of two times the total number of yellow taxis in all of New York City.”

Notably, records obtained by TechCrunch show that the NYC Taxi Industry has donated over $500,000 to Mayor de Blasio’s campaign, and are the second-highest donor behind the real estate industry. Additionally, the bill capping new driver sign-ups was first sponsored by the taxi industry three months ago.