--- title: Here’s Why Business Travelers Are Ditching Taxis description: New data shows that Uber and Lyft rides make up more than half of business traveler car ride receipts, beating taxis and car rentals. authors: - name: Martha C. White role: Writer url: https://money.com/author/martha-c-white/ education: BA, English, Princeton University at_money_since: 2015 articles: 350 covers: - Business - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology published: '2016-10-26T18:07:50.000Z' modified: '2024-04-17T04:19:19.000Z' section: Business tags: - Lyft - rental cars - ride-hailing - taxis - Transportation - Uber word_count: 501 canonical: https://money.com/business-travelers-ditching-taxis-uber-lyft/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Uber and Lyft cars drop off passengers at the Bradley terminal at LAX, October 20, 2015.](https://img.money.com/2016/10/161025_em_uberlyftpopular.jpg) *Uber and Lyft cars drop off passengers at the Bradley terminal at LAX, October 20, 2015.* Taxi stands and rental-car counters are frequent destinations for business travelers, but road warriors are increasingly avoiding yellow cabs and rentals in favor of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. A new study by Certify, an expense-management platform, finds that the sharing economy had a major breakthrough last quarter: Uber and Lyft are officially now more popular than conventional taxis and rental cars. A combined 52% of ground transportation receipts processed by Certify in the third quarter of 2016 were for these two ride-hailing service. (Uber comprised the lion’s share, making up 48% of receipts, while Lyft generated 4%.) Taxis fell from 14% in the previous quarter to 12%, and car rentals slipped from 37% to 36% of receipts. **Read next:** *Uber Gift Cards Are Now a Thing You Can Buy* Even as recently as a year ago, the landscape was very different: Rental cars were the largest single category, responsible for 44% of receipts, followed by ride-hailing/sharing at 24%, with taxis bringing up the rear at 22%. When taxis and ride-hailing services are compared head-to-head (not including rental cars), it’s clear that Uber and Lyft have taken a big bite out of taxis’ business. As recently as the first quarter of 2014, Lyft’s market share was barely a trace on Certify, and Uber made up just 18% of all receipts, with taxis taking the remaining 82%. Compare that to now: Uber now commands 75% of the market, with Lyft taking 6% and taxis’ share of the market shrinking to less than 20%. Uber has drawn complaints for [surge pricing](https://time.com/3556741/uber/) that can bring the cost of a ride home on busy nights like New Year’s Eve up to an eye-popping $300 or [$400](https://time.com/4165410/uber-new-years-eve-price-surge-rides/), but higher prices don’t seem to be a factor in the traffic that ride-hailing apps are seeing from business travelers. Certify’s data finds that the average Uber ride costs $22.91, compared with the average taxi fare of $35.91. Lyft is even more of a bargain, with an average fare of $21.80. Some of the discrepancy may come from the variety of service tiers Uber and Lyft offer: If you don’t feel like springing for the high-end options (Black and Premier, respectively), you can elect a small car to save a few bucks, or share a ride with strangers and save even more. **Read next:** *[Uber Reveals How Much Its Drivers Really Earn—Sort Of](https://money.com/uber-drivers-wages/)* Uber also [cut prices](https://money.com/uber-cuts-prices-cities/) in 100 cities at the beginning of this year in a bid to goose ridership after the free-spending holiday season was over, the third year in a row it has run these kinds of promotions. Certify dug further into the numbers and found that there are distinct regional preferences. Tech-friendly San Francisco is the top city for both Uber and Lyft, accounting for about 11% and 15%, respectively, of receipts for those services. New Yorkers (or business travelers visiting the Big Apple) are still loyal to their yellow cabs, though: Nearly 20% of taxi receipts come out of New York City. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/business-travelers-ditching-taxis-uber-lyft/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Business Development", "item": "https://money.com/business-development/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Here’s Why Business Travelers Are Ditching Taxis" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/business-travelers-ditching-taxis-uber-lyft/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/business-travelers-ditching-taxis-uber-lyft/", "name": "Here’s Why Business Travelers Are Ditching Taxis", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-10-26T18:07:50.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/business-travelers-ditching-taxis-uber-lyft/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/business-travelers-ditching-taxis-uber-lyft/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-17T04:19:19.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Here’s Why Business Travelers Are Ditching Taxis", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/10/161025_em_uberlyftpopular.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "161025_EM_UberLyftPopular" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Martha C. 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