Rideshare Statistics for 2023

Uber and Lyft dominate the U.S. rideshare market, with nearly 100 percent of the market share.

Market Share

From September 2017 to July 2021, Uber held an average of 70 percent of the U.S. rideshare market, while Lyft held the remaining 30 percent, according to data from Bloomberg Second Measure.¹ Data for 2022 is not yet available.

Who Rideshares in the U.S.?

As of 2018, the average rideshare customer in the U.S., whether they’re an Uber user, a Lyft user, or both, is between the ages of 18 and 29 with a college degree or higher and a household income of $75,000 or more.

How Often Do Americans Use Ridesharing Apps?

Most Americans use ride-hailing apps less than once a month, as reported by the Pew Research Center.³

Globally, the rideshare market was worth nearly $86 billion in 2021, the most recent year for which worldwide data is available. By 2026, Markets and Markets projects a market value of $185.1 billion, a 116 percent increase.³

While Uber is available in countries around the world, Lyft is only available in the U.S. and Canada. This is one of many reasons Uber has much higher revenue, market share, and number of riders than Lyft.

Riders

Both Uber and Lyft grew significantly in 2022 — Uber by 14 percent and Lyft by 15 percent. But while their growth rates were similar, Uber⁴ had 528 percent more riders than Lyft⁵, according to fourth-quarter 2022 reports from both companies.

Drivers

In 2017 and 2018, drivers could make more money on average driving for Lyft than Uber. However, that changed in 2019 when Uber lifted its average pay rates by 17 percent. Lyft’s wages, on the other hand, remained relatively stagnant during this time period.⁶

Revenue

In 2022, Uber’s revenue grew by 16 percent and Lyft’s by 34 percent. But while Lyft had a greater increase, Uber made more revenue overall by a margin of 2,717 percent.

People who used Uber in 2022 spent more money on it than Lyft riders by a difference of 349 percent. On average, people spent $234 with Uber and only $52 with Lyft.

Segments

Another reason Uber dominates in terms of revenue, riders, and revenue per rider is its diversification. Uber doesn’t only do rideshares — it also has a delivery service, Uber Eats (which, despite its name, is more than just food delivery), as well as a freight service for commercial trucking. That said, mobility (ridesharing) still makes up the plurality of Uber’s business at 44 percent.

Safety

More than 99.9 percent of all Uber and Lyft trips occur without a safety incident. However, we compared safety data from 2019 to see which company saw more car crash fatalities, physical assaults, and sexual assaults.

Even though incidents were rare with both companies, Lyft had higher incident rates in all categories except physical assault. The most striking difference was with sexual assault: Lyft had 72 more incidents of sexual assault than Uber, the majority of which were non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part.

However, Uber’s physical assault rates are higher than Lyft’s by 46 percent. For both companies, sexual assault was the most common safety incident in 2019, according to each company’s safety report.

Ridesharing disrupted the transportation industry by providing on-demand app-based rides, both private and shared. This affected not only ridesharing services’ direct competitor, taxis, but also public transportation.

Public Transportation

From 2019 to 2020, public transportation trips in the U.S. decreased by 53 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people worked remotely following national stay-at-home orders.

While Uber trips declined during this period as well, they only decreased by 27 percent. And while neither public transportation nor Uber trips returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, Uber’s gains from 2020 to 2021 were higher than public transportation’s, a 27 percent increase versus a 5 percent increase.

Many people switched from public transportation to Ubers during the pandemic to limit their interactions with other passengers. Even though national stay-at-home orders have been lifted and President Joe Biden declared the pandemic “over” in September 2022, many people still choose Uber over public transportation.

Microtransit: On-Demand Public Transportation

Not everyone can afford rideshares, but many don’t have access to convenient public transportation like bus lines or light rails. That’s why a new form of transportation has emerged, an amalgamation of both rideshare services and public transportation: microtransit, otherwise known as on-demand public transportation.

Microtransit is a more affordable version of a rideshare service. It’s popular in suburban and rural areas, as well as smaller cities without larger public transportation infrastructures. Riders pay a fee to ride in a small van or shuttle, first waiting in a pickup spot and getting dropped off near their destination.⁷

While this industry is too new for substantial national data, transit agencies are running microtransit pilot programs in the following cities:

• Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, California
• Austin, Texas
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Los Angeles, California
• Santa Clara County, California

We’re looking forward to seeing if and how microtransit disrupts the rideshare industry, just as rideshares disrupted taxis before it. That brings us to our next point.

Taxis

The most recent data, which is from 2015, shows that in five large U.S. cities, taxis had an average utility rate of 43 percent, while UberX, the standard service Uber offers, had an average rate of 50 percent.

However, while Uber may dominate in metropolises like Seattle, Washington, people who live in rural and suburban areas, disabled people, and people without smartphones still rely on traditional taxis, according to research from the American Economic Review.⁸

If you’re one of the millions of people around the world who use rideshare services, here’s what you need to know to stay safe.

• Call 911 when necessary: If you feel unsafe, call 911 via the Uber or Lyft app. The benefit of going through the app rather than calling 911 directly is that if you use the app, the police will automatically receive your location information and trip details. Additionally, Lyft’s partnership with the home security company ADT means that a security professional from ADT will contact the police for you from their end. With Uber’s service, you’ll have to speak with 911 over the phone, so your driver is likely to overhear you.
• Check the driver’s rating: Review the driver’s rating and prior experience before you enter their car.
• Confirm car and driver information: Make sure the car has the correct license plate number, make, model, and driver. The driver should confirm your name as well.
• Don’t share personal information: While it’s OK to make small talk with your driver, don’t share personal information like your last name, phone number, or home address.
• Don’t use cash: Tip through the app to avoid using cash. Do not share any personal financial information.
• End the ride if you feel unsafe: You are not obligated to complete a ride if you feel unsafe.
• Request your ride and wait indoors: It’s best not to wait outside for your ride, especially if you are distracted by your phone.
• Share your trip: Use the rideshare app to share your trip status with a friend or family member so someone knows your whereabouts.
• Sit in the backseat: While it can be tempting to sit in the front, especially if you get motion sickness, your chances of assault lessen if you stay in the backseat.
• Track your route: Use Apple or Google Maps to track your trip as it’s taking place.
• Wear your seat belt: Always wear your seat belt to reduce your chances of injuries or death in the event of a crash.⁹

Rideshare companies provide insurance for their drivers known as transportation network company (TNC) insurance. However, TNC only covers the periods when there are passengers in the driver’s car. It does not cover the times when the app is on and the driver is waiting for a request or when they’ve accepted a ride and are driving to the pickup location.

A rideshare driver’s personal auto insurance policy won’t cover them during these periods, either, since they’re technically working and not operating their vehicle for personal use. So how should rideshare drivers handle car insurance? Enter rideshare insurance.

What Is Rideshare Insurance?

Rideshare insurance covers the gaps in TNC coverage, protecting rideshare drivers when they’re waiting for a customer and driving to a ride. It’s a commercial car insurance policy the driver can add on to their regular, private passenger auto insurance.

What Does It Cover?

Rideshare insurance offers the same coverages as a personal policy, which include the following.

• Bodily injury liability: If you cause an accident, bodily injury liability coverage will pay for the injuries of everyone outside of your car.
• Property damage liability: Property damage will pay for any property you damage outside of your vehicle.
• Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage: If you get into an accident with someone with no or insufficient insurance, this coverage would pay for your injuries and damages.
• Personal injury protection/medical payments coverage: Known as PIP or MedPay, depending on whether you live in an at-fault or no-fault state, these coverages pay for your and your passengers’ medical bills. PIP also includes coverage for lost wages and childcare.
• Collision coverage: Collision insurance covers your car’s damages in either accidents you caused or accidents where the other party’s property damage coverage limits were too low to cover your car’s losses.
• Comprehensive coverage: This coverage pays for any damages to your car that aren’t caused by collisions, which includes theft, vandalism, inclement weather, and more.

How Can I Get Rideshare Insurance?

A rideshare driver can find rideshare insurance by adding a rideshare endorsement to their existing policy (assuming their current insurance provider offers it). Some companies with rideshare coverage include Allstate, GEICO, State Farm, and Progressive.

Big tech has disrupted a ton of industries, and transportation is one of the best examples. Thanks to new technology, it’s easier than ever for people to get from one location to another without using their own vehicle or public transportation. It’s clear that ridesharing isn’t going anywhere and will likely only grow more commonplace in more areas worldwide. That said, it’ll be interesting to see if microtransit can make a dent in rideshare companies’ profits or if public transportation will ever recover. If you’re wondering how many people still own cars in this age of ridesharing, read our report on car ownership in the U.S.

We used data from the following sources:

• American Economic Review
• American Public Transportation Association
• Bloomberg Second Measure
• Congressional Research Service
• Lyft
• Markets and Markets
• Pew Research Center
• Pew Trust
• The Rideshare Guy
• Uber
• University of Michigan