Yes, you are waiting longer for Uber rides, a new study says

You might be waiting longer for your Uber ride to arrive — and paying more for it.

The time between when Uber matched a driver with a rider and when the car arrived grew 19% between the first quarter of 2023 and the same period this year, according to a new analysis by Len Sherman, an executive in residence and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School.

Over the same period, the price per mile that Uber charged rose 53% on average, per the analysis. “You’re charging more for less, for degrading the service,” Sherman told Business Insider in an interview.

Sherman released the wait-time and price findings on Wednesday in a new report. “This analysis relies on a number of inaccuracies, which we’ve publicly refuted,” an Uber spokesperson said.

The spokesperson declined to comment specifically on Sherman’s findings about wait time and per-mile cost.

The spokesperson referred Business Insider to a January blog post from the company, which said it was “false” that “the only reason Uber was able to become profitable was by raising prices while taking an ever larger share” of fares.

The data provide another example of how Uber has changed for riders over the last decade.

Once among startups that burned cash to acquire users, Uber has more recently used its upfront pricing strategy to become profitable.

It is often done by charging riders more and paying drivers less, Sherman has previously contended.

Sherman examined 37,500 trips completed by drivers in six US cities, compiled using data from GigU, an app that shows drivers how much they will make per minute and per mile on a trip before they accept it.

Wait times increased in five of the six cities, including Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston.

In the sixth city — Tampa, Florida — wait times declined slightly.

The data do not include the time that riders spent waiting for Uber to pair them with a driver, Sherman said, since he relied on data from drivers.

Once a rider requests a ride, Uber sends the ride offer to nearby drivers, often at different payout rates.

That process can add minutes to rider wait times, Sherman said. “By definition, it’s an underestimate,” he said.

By increasing wait times and prices, Uber is risking its relationship with customers, Sherman said.

The rise of AI agents means that riders are more easily able to compare prices with rival Lyft or local alternatives, he added.

Sherman’s study also pointed to the 2026 Axios Harris Poll 100, which ranks major companies based on their reputation.

This year’s edition placed Uber 72nd on the list, lower than its position as 58th in 2025, with declines on metrics including trust, character, and ethics. “This is a company that has acted in a way that clearly has lost the trust of their customers, riders, and drivers,” Sherman said.

Sherman’s report is his latest on Uber.

His previous studies showed that Uber increased the share of each rider fare that it kept, known as the company’s take rate, therefore reducing the pay that went to its gig-worker drivers.

Another study earlier this year showed that Uber’s commercial insurance and operational charges varied significantly across seemingly identical trips.

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