We’ve all been there. You’re out at the right time of day for peak rideshare and delivery business, but … you must not be in the right place. The volume you were looking for just isn’t showing up.
Your rideshare and delivery apps probably show where they think the peak places are, but that doesn’t mean they’re accurate – nor does it mean those locations won’t already be swamped with other drivers.
Let’s look at the issue of “where to drive,” and a solution to the problem that you can get from your Gridwise app. In this article we’ll cover:
- What knowing where to drive does for you
- How to get the data you need
- Where to Drive: a great new feature for Gridwise drivers
- What drivers are saying about Where to Drive from Gridwise
How knowing where to drive benefits you
At any given moment, you can scan your app’s map and see where the “hot” areas might be. They’ll be marked as places where the rates are higher, crowds are more dense, and/or where there’s a bigger need for drivers.
This can help you a lot, but surge maps on gig platform apps don’t always offer consistent, reliable information. Drivers who’ve played “chase the surge” can tell you that at best, driving to a high-volume area might work only half the time. All too often, drivers waste time and gas driving to a hot area, only to watch the surge prices evaporate as soon as they get there.
What you really need is historical data that lets you know where high-demand areas are – not just once in a while, but all the time. When you see the parts of town, or your suburban area, get the most traffic and yield the highest earnings on a regular basis, you can count on making your trip to those spots well worth your while.
How to get the data you need
You undoubtedly have a history of where you make the most money on given days, but it’s not easy to compile that kind of information. Unless you’re a whiz with spreadsheets, you probably don’t even think about taking the time to map out where the cash comes from.
No one can blame you for that; drivers have enough to do as it is. Also, just because you get good business in one or two areas consistently doesn’t mean you can keep going back to the same well. Eventually, it’s going to run dry. But what if you could get data from all the areas where you could potentially drive or deliver, right on your phone, so you could look at it while you’re on your shift as well as when you’re planning it? We know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, right.”
We’re not kidding. In fact, Gridwise wants to get that information into your hands where it can be put to good use. How can this happen?
Gridwise anonymously collects data from drivers who sync their driving and delivery apps. Earnings, mileage, and locations are recorded, and … Gridwise compiles all the info that tells us where the action is in your town. You won’t want to miss having it in your information arsenal!
You already know Gridwise as a great resource for information and driver-focused deals and discounts, including:
- Airport information: arrivals, departures, and queue lengths at your location
- Weather: current information and weather alerts
- Traffic: traffic alerts
- Gas deals: join Gridwise Plus and get $.10 off per gallon with Gridwise Gas
- Event information: everything you need to know about local events
- When to Drive: a new feature that tells you the best times to drive in your area for rideshare, food delivery, and delivery of groceries and packages
And there’s more! The whole reason Gridwise collects the information on the best times and spots to drive is to serve drivers. Gridwise tracks your earnings and expenses with very little effort on your part. All you need to do is link your gig apps to Gridwise, and the app will log your earnings stats and mileage automatically. Also, Gridwise makes it easy to record your expenses as you’re incurring them. Then, when you’re ready to see how well you and your driving gigs are doing, you can call up the numbers in helpful graphs like these:
And now … there’s Where to Drive!
Where to Drive: a great new feature for Gridwise drivers
Optimize your driving strategy with this slick new feature from Gridwise. Check out and compare the hot spots in your driving domain and get all the stats:
- Earnings: the combined total earnings from each neighborhood or area
- Trips: the total number of trips from each locality
- Earnings per trip
- Distance per trip
Here’s what it looks like:
Right now, Where to Drive is only available in select major cities. Check to see if it’s available in your area by clicking on the Where to Drive icon on the Home screen:
If you can only see the Nationwide view, that means that we don’t have enough data from drivers in your area to give you accurate information. But, the more drivers that join Gridwise in your city, the more insights we can give you. So if you tell your friends and other drivers about Gridwise, the more useful our app will be; win-win!
And if you’re a Gridwise Plus member, you get even more options. You’ll be able to expand the menu of filters so you can put together a strategy that always wins. Join Gridwise Plus with a few taps, in-app. Your membership is 100% tax-deductible, and will hand you the keys to earning an average of $300 more per month.
- The Where to Drive feature offers Gridwise Plus members the best hourly earnings by neighborhood in your city. All numbers are derived from real-time crowdsourced data, anonymously collected from other Gridwise users. You can customize the information in more ways than you can probably imagine. Look at total earnings, or split them between rideshare or delivery, time, and date. It’s clear and easy to use, too; here’s what the expanded menu looks like:
- You can view data for rideshare, food delivery, or grocery/package delivery, and see earnings by the hour and trip. You can also compare earnings over time by looking back in time.
- We need to tell you that once in a while (rarely), it may be hard to get the full picture because there isn’t enough data. This is part of the problem of using other users’ information, but again, it happens rarely. Most of the time you’re getting the best insight available, with numbers that come from other drivers, just like you.
What drivers are saying about Where to Drive from Gridwise
We value our Beta testers because they tell us exactly what it’s like to experience new features as we add them to the Gridwise app. Here are some of their reactions, after their recent test runs on the new Where to Drive feature:
Long-time Gridwise user Hamilton says:
“I would definitely use the feature more often than the Uber heat map. This would be super-useful if there’s a lull in a certain spot, then the Gridwise app would show me whether or not it’s worth leaving the area to go somewhere else.”
Summer, another driver who uses Gridwise, told us:
“I would change my driving strategy now that the Gridwise app shows me the most valuable times to drive in different areas.”
Tony, a loyal Gridwise driver, said:
“The Where to Drive feature would be useful for me driving food delivery because it would show what suburbs/areas are profitable and where I should be heading for the lunch rush.”
We’d like to know what your experience of using the Where to Drive feature is like, but there’s only one way for us all to find out … download the Gridwise app, and try it today!
