Most people in London were only out from 11pm to 2am on New Year’s Eve
Thousands were stuck in an Uber at midnight though
People tend to lie about how long they managed to stick it out on New Year’s Eve, what exotic drugs they took and which party they went to, especially as things start to get a bit blurry after the countdown.
According to Uber who stayed sober for the whole thing, the most popular time to go home on New Year’s Eve was 2am, or at least the most common time to book a ride. Uber said their journeys peaked at 10pm when people first went out and again four hours later.
Comparing this to other cities around the world, LA and Chicago both went home at 1am, while London stuck it out for an hour longer. Singapore apparently went the hardest, but hundreds of people were still booking journeys in London at 5am.
As for the unlucky people who found themselves in the back of an Uber during the stroke of midnight, 150,000 passengers worldwide were left wishing the driver a happy new year instead of their mates.
If you want to stay out late on NYE, you have to be ready to pay for it
Then there were the inevitable prices surges. Uber admitted their demand went up by 250 per cent after midnight, despite the underground running all night for one special time only.
While surges mostly managed to keep under two times the normal amount, some people were hit with charges as big as four.
One of the biggest victims spent £201 on a huge Uber surge. The Edinburgh student was travelling 29 miles from Cirque De Soul in Forest Hill, South East London, to a house party in the north east at Finchley.
They told The Tab: “‘I woke up the morning after New Year’s Eve, and remembered I’d been in an Uber. I checked the receipt and saw it came to £201 and it made me feel sick. I’m never drinking again.”