Thinking back to our earliest adventures traveling around the world, when it came to moving from point A to point B within cities we mostly relied on wildly inconsistent taxi services. We remember having to negotiate rates, argue over whether or not we were supposed to tip, and in one specific instance fend off a potential robbery.

But with ride sharing becoming the norm in hundreds of major metros around the world, it has become a lot easier to get a reliable ride while traveling. Because of the ubiquitous nature of these ride sharing services, we wanted to see how much variance there was in the cost of Uber rides in different cities around the world to compare each location’s cost on a similar scale. The difference in price was pretty wild, with the most expensive being around $40 for a six mile ride, while in another city that same distance only costing about $1.50.

Below you will see the map of the 24 cities we selected for this data project, showing the average cost of a 6.2 mile / 10km Uber ride:

cost-of-uber-around-the-world

(click to expand)

METHODOLOGY

  • We pulled a variety of pricing data from Uber’s fare estimation tool in 24 global cities where they operate.
  • In order to find a consistent baseline, we found a report suggesting that the average Uber ride is 6.4 miles / 10.2 kilometers (we rounded down slightly to make it an even 10 kilometers).
  • The same report found that the average Uber ride travels at 27 miles per hour / 43.5 kilometers per hour, giving us a way to calculate the “price per minute” cost of each ride.
  • Uber has a different base fare, cost per minute, and cost per mile rates in every city, so we pulled these for different cities around the world from their estimation tool in order to find the cost of these individual rides.
  • Using February 2018 currency exchange rates, we were able to find a US dollar equivalent cost for every ride.
  • All rides were standardized to UberX pricing or their equivalent.

Here is the breakdown by city in table format:

City
10km Uber Ride In USD
Tokyo $40.86
Rome $27.25
Honolulu $20.59
Munich $18.96
New York $18.74
Sydney $18.07
London $17.55
Anchorage $15.41
Perth $13.17
San Francisco $12.88
Dubai $11.33
Lisbon $11.12
Toronto $10.64
Denver $10.32
Zurich $9.71
Istanbul $9.22
Singapore $8.25
Cape Town $7.17
Rio de Janeiro $5.64
Buenos Aires $5.17
Lima $4.04
New Delhi $3.06
Cairo $1.62
Islamabad $1.57