"Disappearing" Surges and the Heatmap

I see a lot of similar posts about surges like this, complaining they got baited. Thought I would share what I have learned as a nearly 6 year vet and dispell some of the mystery.

We can debate about the intention of Uber and if it's malicious or not, but all you really need to understand is the Heatmap and Surges are about 5-10 minutes behind on your Driver map versus reality.

That's why you might see surge offers before a surge has popped up on the map, or the surge disappears by the time you go online or drive to it.

Some actions, like toggling a Preference (i.e. turn UberX on/off/on), going online, going offline, refresh the map immediately. Looks like that's what happened in this recent post: https://www.reddit.com/r/uberdrivers/s/G9xWg6mngA

Even if you refresh as described above, your map will still be a little out of date by ~5min.

The conclusion is the similar to hat others often say but slightly less cynical:

1. Don't chase the surge because it's probably already gone by the time you get there (unless it's a massive surge and you know it will persist for at least 20-30 minutes minimum, like a large event)

2. Checking the customer Uber app can sometimes help you find if a surge is still going on in a given area sooner than the driver app will tell you. Look at the pricing even 60 seconds or so (reinput the destination in the customer app) - is the price going up or down? If it's going down, the surge is disappearing immenantly.

3. Refresh the map by toggling one of your Trip Preferences to get a better idea if the surge is growing/fading

Hope this helps someone.