Study: Nearly 60 Pct Of Uber Passengers Never Leave Tips

A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NEBR) shows that the majority of Uber riders don’t tip their drivers.

The Verge said that only 1 percent of riders always tip and more than half (60 percent) never do. On average, a driver will get a tip of 50 cents a trip, but regular tippers give $3 on average. Men tip more than women and women drivers get tipped more.

“Male riders tip 23 percent more than female riders, a result largely driven by the fact that men are more likely to tip than women (approximately 19 percent more often),” the study said. “Further, female drivers are tipped more than male drivers — a fact that is true regardless of rider gender: men (women) tip female drivers nearly 12 percent (11 percent) more than they tip male drivers.”

The paper was written by Bharat Chandar from Stanford and Uri Gneezy from the University of California-San Diego, as well as John List, former chief economist at Uber who now works at Lyft, and Ian Muir, who is the current head of economics at Lyft.

The team has a lot of insight into the issue because it was the one that actually helped Uber to implement its in-app tipping options, and they pulled data from over 40 million rides.

They found that only about 16 percent of drivers are tipped. Part of the reason could be in the implementation of the tipping process. Riders don’t get a chance to tip a driver until after the drive is over, and that could give them less incentive to do so.

“I think Uber drivers are tipped less than taxi drivers because tipping happens after the ride is over and not face to face,” Gneezy said. “In a sense, I think that this is the right way. Riders don’t tip automatically, but only if they are happy with the service. Hence, tips provide incentives to drivers.”