Define success metrics for Rides serving riders

Problem Statement Description

Product context: Uber is a mobility and delivery platform; its products include rides, Uber Eats, grocery and retail delivery, freight, driver and courier tools, and marketplace pricing.

Uber wants to evaluate how well its Rides product is serving riders in a two-sided mobility marketplace. The focus is the rider experience, from opening the app and requesting a trip through pickup, trip completion, payment, support, and future reuse. Success should reflect not only rider demand, but also whether riders can reliably, safely, and affordably get where they need to go.

In this metrics interview, define a practical success measurement framework for Rides serving riders. Your answer should clarify what “success” means for riders, how metrics should be calculated, what user populations or trip contexts matter, and how Uber should use these metrics to diagnose product health and make decisions.

The experience should consider:

- The rider journey stages: intent, search, request, match, pickup, trip, payment, support, and retention.

- Clear metric definitions, including numerator, denominator, time window, and whether the unit is rider, session, request, or completed trip.

- Marketplace realities such as driver availability, ETA reliability, surge pricing, cancellations, and geographic coverage.

- Important rider cohorts, including new vs. existing riders, commuters vs. occasional riders, airport riders, late-night riders, and market-level differences.

- Instrumentation needed across app events, location data, trip lifecycle events, payments, support contacts, safety reports, and cancellations.

- Guardrail metrics for safety, affordability, driver-side marketplace health, regulatory compliance, and unit economics.

- How to distinguish rider product issues from supply constraints, seasonality, local events, pricing changes, or competitive pressure.

- How the metric set would support decisions such as product improvements, marketplace interventions, pricing changes, or market-level operational action.

The goal is to produce a metrics framework that is specific enough for Uber Rides leaders to monitor rider experience, diagnose problems, compare markets and cohorts, and evaluate whether product or operational changes are improving the rider journey without creating unacceptable trade-offs elsewhere in the marketplace.