"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 17:16:08 on Wed, 7 Mar
2018, D A Stocks remarked:

A £5 fare would be (at 20mph) 2.6 miles, £20 11.5 miles. That's a
stupendous amount of "getting lost"

Is Uber any good?

I've not been encouraged by their website. For a journey that we do
occasionally by taxi from our local station to home, it shows a range
of fares from £4 to £16 (a black cab typically costs £5.50).

Once you get outside metropolitan areas the cost per mile is a killer.
Even a short-ish trip to an airport (let's say 50 miles) is grossly
uncompetitive with local minicabs.

I've just got a quote for central Brighton to Gatwick Airport (around 30
miles) that compares reasonably well with a turn up and go fare in a
minicab.

It's not as different as I expected for a trip to Stansted (~1hr on the
road) where I've got an estimate of £75 from Uber, and a fixed fare of £55
from a local minicab firm.

Is the minicab firm a pre-booked fare? Generally these are cheaper - I
assume this is because the firm has a better chance of finding a customer to
pay for the return trip.

I would expect Uber prices to be more comparable with taking a metered taxi
off a rank.

--
DAS