Mobility-as-a-service platform Uber is ramping up its tech capabilities to increase the reliability of the platform aimed at reducing cancellation rates and maximizing income for the earners on its platform through the ‘One Earner’ program, said Manikandan Thangarathnam, Senior Director , Mobility and Platforms Engineering, Uber.
Thangarathnam told businessline, “We are focused on leveraging technology to make the app increasingly high-performing without any issues. We have done multiple improvements to decrease cancellations and improve completion to request ratio. Uber has now started showing the destination of the ride and payment mode to the earners to reduce the probability of cancellation.”
The cancellation rates for the company went up in the immediate post-pandemic period as the demand shot up and the supply of rides went down. Thangarathnam said the cancellation rates were 1.6 times higher than the normal rate in that period. Later due to the improvement and changes to the development of the software worked on increasing reliability, the rate is now going back to the pre-pandemic level.
integrating partners
In order to maximize supply, Uber is integrating fleet partners into the platform and has also introduced the ‘3P partnership,’ where a company that already has the software of its own can access demand from the Uber platform at the back end.
Uber, given that it has a presence in both ride-hailing and food-delivery businesses, is looking at cross-utilization across functions to enable the earners on its platform to maximize their income. “In order to enable this, we are investing heavily in our ‘One Earner’ programme, where we are trying to provide earners more opportunities to earn,” Thangarathnam said.
Going forward Uber envisions and bringing in more innovations on the platform that will increase the customer base, which will in turn result in growth. Thangarathnam said, Uber aims to introduce a slew of products, that will increase the category and breadth of the customer base that can be addressed.