Less Ubers on the Road Due to Surge Price Cap

A few weeks ago the LTFRB put a price cap on the “surge” fair being implemented by Uber and Grab here in the Philippines. While a lot of people rejoiced over this, what a lot of us didn’t expect that it would affect their services in a big way. There are a lot of complaints on Twitter of people not being able to book Uber or Grab and the reason being shown on the app is that the amount of vehicles on the road is less due to the price cap implemented by the LTFRB.

Personally I find this alarming because Uber, for me, is a great emergency option to get a car during rush hour. I know there is a premium to pay but at least I can avoid long lines and pointless hours waiting for rude cab drivers for pick-up.

Hopefully this normalizes this January and that this is just an issue due to the holiday rush. It would be great if Uber Philippines were to release data pre and post surge on the decreased number of Ubers and expired request on the road due to the Surge Price Cap policy.

What do you guys think? It looks like it’s a Catch 22 situation (damned if you do, damned if you don’t).