Uber is Now Congress’ “Private Driver”: 60% of All Rides Less Than $100

This is a true measure of the power of Uber and the reach of the smartphone-driven sharing economy. In the span of four short years, Uber has gone from 0% to 60% of all rides reported by U.S. Congress members according to data from the Federal Elections Commission analyzed by Hamilton Place Insights. (Click here to see the visualizations I built of their data like the one above).

The penetration makes total sense to me because Washington D.C. has long been a smartphone driven place (perhaps highest penetration of Blackberry penetration back in the day when it was still a ‘thing’). Interesting, Uber’s entry into the market has not driven costs down by any significant measure. Rides cost $23 on average in 2010 and cost $24 in 2014. What is of note, though, is that the private ride usage for these small ticket journeys has soared, more than doubling. This probably speaks to two facts.

• Uber is actually growing the market for private car sharing. I suspect this is due to the supreme convenience it offers for people with the app as compared to old Yellow Cab models that rely on middle-men (dispatchers) and analog phone systems.
• Congress is a very busy place. If there is anything that can save you time, it is valuable. So Uber is probably offering significant opportunity cost savings either real or perceived.

Stay tuned for more posts on this topic. I am a huge fan of the sharing economy and am watching it develop.