How Ridesharing Partnerships Can Improve Your Event Transportation

Nick Morpus profile picture
By Nick Morpus

Published
4 min read

Update 6/14/2018: This piece has been updated to reflect changes in event trends and to include current transportation costs and additional benefits of choosing ridesharing as a preferred event transportation option.

Transportation is one aspect of your event that you can't leave to chance. It can make or break your attendance numbers, and it's important as an event manager to explore all transportation options.

Though some attendees will drive and others will rely on taxis, these options aren't always the most reliable and/or economical options for event planners looking to subsidize transportation costs. Why not provide your guests with a ridesharing alternative?

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Since the rise of ridesharing apps, the industry has branched out into the event industry to provide services to event organizers and attendees. In place of offering individual rides to events, companies such as V3Cube, TriSpark, Ridevu, Lyft, and Uber have created systems and partnerships to coordinate ridesharing to all kinds of events.

In this piece I will explore more traditional forms of event transportation, how much they cost, and how they compare to ridesharing. With this information, you can decide whether a ridesharing partnership is right for your event.

Parking is pricey

You can expect to spend a decent amount of money as an event planner if you decide to compensate attendees for their parking costs.

Parking costs are an issue in most cities. And considering that the first ten locations on Cvent's top meeting destinations in the U.S. are major cities, this means that parking costs will be a factor for most events.

The following are the average parking costs for the first five cities on the Cvent list. Prices get only steeper during peak hours and during special events:

How ridesharing partnerships can help

Let's assume that one hundred guests are attending your event. Fifty of those guests live within the area and are opting to drive and park at your event, as long as parking vouchers are issued. Being conservative, let's assume the daily parking rate at the venue maxes out at $8. That means spending $400 for parking for 50 guests.

On the other hand, you could offer those 50 guests an event ridesharing deal that pools three attendees per vehicle. UberPOOL is significantly cheaper than UberX, with rates around $5 per person. This cuts your transportation costs down $300 for those 50 people.

Realistically, you could save thousands of dollars each year by opting for ridesharing at all of your events.

Traditional taxis are expensive too

On average, taxis are far more expensive than their ridesharing counterparts.

Tools such as Taxi Auto Fare give an up-to-date comparison between different transportation options, including different taxi companies and Uber rates.

The tool shows thatUberX fares are at least $6 cheaper in Orlando, Florida, when traveling from Orlando International Airport to the Orange County Convention Center.

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Orlando taxi fares from the airport are not cheap (Source)

How ridesharing partnerships can help

When you multiply these savings with your pool of conference attendees, ridesharing becomes a necessity. With ridesharing, you pay a significantly lower rate while cutting the number of rides needed with scheduled ride pooling.

On both fronts, choosing a ridesharing option is significantly cheaper than taxis.

Should you try ridesharing partnerships at your next event?

As shown above, ridesharing to events is a far more economical choice than covering parking costs or taxis. But what about convenience?

Uber Events and Lyft Events both offer their services as a way to streamline transportation to your event using per guest spending limits and a system in which you pay for only the rides used.

All of your transportation expenses are managed on your end in one application. You don't have to deal with flat rates from other transportation options that end up costing you money for unused parking spaces.

Both services allow you to set a specific total budget for ridesharing costs that is split up equally between each guest. Once the event has concluded, any budgeted money left over is returned to you, and if any guest goes over their allotted amount, the difference is charged to their own personal method of payment.

On the event attendee side, these partnerships also ensure that your guests will have reliable transportation without having to worry about finding parking or when their parking garage closes.

 Our recommendation: 

Ridesharing will save you money if you choose to cover transportation costs. It's cheaper than parking, and the convenience of managing these costs all on one application will save you time as well.

Other event management guides and resources

The trick to event management is putting on the best possible event while simultaneously getting the most out of every dollar spent.

Have you used ridesharing for any of your events? Is there anything about ridesharing that I forgot to cover in this piece? Be sure to let me know in the comments below.

If you enjoyed this piece and want more event management trends, guides, and resources be sure to check out these other pieces from the Capterra event management blog:


Looking for Event Management software? Check out Capterra's list of the best Event Management software solutions.

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About the Author

Nick Morpus profile picture

Nick Morpus is a former Capterra analyst.

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