When Uber started in 2010, we wanted to solve a simple problem: How do you get a ride at the push of a button? In late 2015, we hit a big milestone: one billion trips. Six months later in 2016, we crossed two billion.
And just a few weeks ago, on Saturday, May 20, 156 trips started simultaneously at 7:29:06am GMT, putting us over the five billion mark.
These trips happened in 24 countries on six continents, in cities like Mumbai, Moscow and Medellin. The shortest trip of the bunch lasted just 2.5 blocks in San Francisco (we won’t judge). The longest lasted 27 kilometres in * drum rolls * Singapore! (that’s pretty far considering our country is just 50 kilometres wide).
On being the longest trip, Aloysius Chong, a full time driver-partner for just 3 months, shared, “It’s great and quite a surprise to know that I’m a part of this 5-billion trip achievement.”
Besides Aloysius, 5 other driver-partners in Singapore were part of this milestone-achieving feat. Full-time driver-partner, Ong Kian Meng, said, “I am very happy to learn that I was one of 156 driver-partners who are a part of this.” He found out about Uber last year from his sister who is a frequent rider, and has been driving from then. “Since joining Uber, my income has been very stable, and I’m grateful for that.”
All of these trips wouldn’t be possible without the dedication and 5-star service of our driver-partners. To say thanks, all 156 drivers, including our 6 driver-partners from Singapore, will receive a one-off incentive of USD$500.
Moving forward, we’re more focused than ever on building features and we will continue to provide reliability and convenience for riders and drivers that will get us to the next five billion.
This is just the beginning…we’ll see you out on the road!
Fun Facts from the 156 simultaneous trips on the road to 5 billion trips:
- Longest Trip: 17.1 miles (27.5km) uberPOOL, Singapore
- Shortest Trip: 0.29 miles (0.47km) uberX, San Francisco
- Longest Tenured Driver: 3 years 6 months (since first trip) – an uberX driver-partner from Atlanta, Georgia, USA who has completed 1,911 trips.
- Shortest Tenured Driver: 0 days (this was their first trip!) – An uberMOTOR driver-partner from Jakarta, Indonesia.
- First Trips that happened:
- 6 rider first trips (Jakarta, Islamabad, Chennai, Guadalajara, and 2 in San Francisco)
- 1 driver first trip (Jakarta – see above)
- Travelers
- 15 riders were using Uber outside their “home city” (defined as the place where they use Uber most often)
- Average rating of the trips
- Riders rating drivers: 4.77 average, 87% of ratings are 5-star
- Drivers rating riders: 4.67 average, 85% of ratings are 5-star
- Compliments given during these trips
- Great conversation, Awesome DJ, Pickup
- How many were shared rides?
- 11.5% were uberPOOL requests
- # of rides in our newest market
- 1 ride in Islamabad, Pakistan