The same ride-share is double the fare for some
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Rideshare apps can quote two fans heading to the same Kansas City World Cup events very different fares for the same trip.
Why it matters: With stadium parking scarce and able to top $900, some fans will lean on Uber and Lyft to reach matches at Kansas City Stadium and the free downtown FIFA Fan Festival, but the fare often comes down to timing and luck.
- Uneven app pricing is drawing national scrutiny, and a recent investigation put numbers to it.
What they found: A Consumer Reports study had 174 volunteers price more than 40 routes across 18 states last spring, often within the same minute. Every route came back with a spread of fares.
- The KC test was an 18-mile Lyft trip priced by 55 riders. About half paid roughly $40, but quotes ran from under $28 to almost $65, with 29 prices for the same ride.
The other side: In the report, Uber and Lyft said they don't use personal data to set base fares and that prices move only with demand, traffic and other conditions.
- Lyft argued that having dozens of testers check one route at once may have inflated demand and skewed the results.
- Uber said its prices shift nearly every second, so no two requests are ever truly simultaneous.
Yes, but: Experts who reviewed the data weren't convinced. On nearly every other route, some riders landed on the same price at the same moment, which they said points to a real baseline fare underneath.
- "The magnitude of the high/low price differentials is astonishing," Columbia Business School's Len Sherman said.
Zoom out: Nationwide, the median gap between the highest and lowest quote for the same ride was about 42% across 18 states, and Connecticut and Maryland just became the first states to ban some personalized pricing.
What to try: Riders can skip the guesswork with the city's cheaper transit options.
- The $15 ConnectKC26 Stadium Direct shuttle runs round-trip for ticket holders on match days.
- The KC Streetcar and the airport-to-downtown bus are free, and Region Direct passes to the fan zone start at $5 a day.
The bottom line: With two KC matches left, on July 3 and July 11, the surest way to know what a ride costs is to check both apps or take the city's free shuttles, flat-rate buses and streetcar.