Uber Discriminates Against People of Color and Women: Study

NEW YORK, NY — Ride sharing companies Uber, Lyft and Flywheel are discriminating against people of color — Uber more noticeably than the others — according to a new two-year study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The nonpartisan nonprofit organization tracked around 1,500 rides in Seattle and Boston and found longer wait times and significantly more frequent cancellations for black riders than for white riders.

There have been several recent cases where Uber drivers in New York City were accused of discriminatory practices. In January, a pregnant woman in labor was denied service by an Uber driver. An Uber driver refused to drive a blind 9/11 survivor because he had his guide dog with him.

Then there's the threat (and reality) of sexual assault. A 22-year-old woman said she was raped in Chelsea earlier this month by a man who pretended to be a Lyft driver. A woman said she was left bleeding from the back of her head when an Uber driver in Gramercy sped off leaving her hanging out of his car in July. A woman was sexually assaulted while she was sleeping in the back seat of an Uber going from the Lower East Side to Queens in April 2015.

"My only fault that night was being female," the survivor said.

Kei Williams, an organizer for Black Lives Matter New York City, told Patch in an email he's never experienced discrimination from Uber. But some metrics of the study are under the radar, and customers might not always be aware of discrimination occurring.

The newly released study, conducted by MIT, Stanford and the University of Washington, might shed some light on practices that are going on in New York City yet-to-be documented with numbers.

It was done a bit differently in Seattle and Boston, Jalopnik reported. In Seattle, the researchers gave undergraduate students from the University of Washington phones with three ride-sharing apps and told them to take the same routes. The students were instructed to document when they requested the ride, when it was accepted, when the driver picked them up, and when they arrived at their destination.

In Seattle, black passengers had as much as a 35 percent longer wait time for an Uber ride request, the study found. That could mean a difference between 10 minutes and 13 and a half minutes.

In Boston, the experiment was conducted by giving some riders "African American-sounding" names and other riders "white-sounding" names. Men with ride sharing profiles that appeared to be black had their Uber rides cancelled at a rate twice as high (11.2 percent) as profiles with people who appeared to be white (4.5 percent), the study found.

The disparity in cancellation rates was worse in areas where it wasn't as crowded and harder to get a cab. In those areas, African American-sounding names were cancelled at a rate triple that of white-sounding male names, according to Jalopnik.

In both cities, drivers cancelled trips requested by passengers with "African American-sounding names" more than twice as often as they did with "white-sounding names," the study found.

Ride sharing companies have a bad track record with women too, the study found. Women's routes took around 5 percent longer than men's routes in the study, and female participants often said they were overcharged.

"We are extremely proud of the positive impact Lyft has on communities of color," Adrian Durbin, a spokesman for Lyft, sent in a statement to Patch. "Because of Lyft, people in underserved areas — which taxis have historically neglected — are now able to access convenient, affordable rides. And we provide this service while maintaining an inclusive and welcoming community, and do not tolerate any form of discrimination."

"Discrimination has no place in society and no place on Uber," an Uber spokesperson said in an email statement to Bloomberg. "We believe Uber is helping reduce transportation inequities across the board, but studies like this one are helpful in thinking about how we can do even more."

The study recommended trying out certain initiatives to prevent discrimination, like not including passengers' names, conducting racism reviews of drivers and punishing drivers who often cancel rides after accepting them.

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