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Estimationstandard
How many Uber rides happen in New York City on a weekday?
How to approach it
Start with the population of the city and the share of residents and visitors who take a ride-hail trip on a typical weekday.
How a strong answer opens
“I'll start with the people in New York on a weekday, residents plus commuters and visitors, then estimate the share who take a ride-hail trip and Uber's share of those.”
Outline of a strong answer
Try answering out loud for a few minutes before you open this.
- Clarify: all of NYC, one weekday, Uber only
- Use a round city population, about 8 million, plus daily commuters and visitors
- Estimate share using ride-hail on a given weekday
- Estimate rides per user per day
- Apply Uber's share of ride-hail as an assumption
- Sanity-check against drivers: rides per driver per day
Where this question usually goes wrong
Forgetting commuters and visitors, or assuming every ride-hail trip is an Uber, then never checking the answer against how many drivers it implies.
Learn the method
Top-down and bottom-up in Module 3, Estimation.
The full kit has worked answers in full, start to finish, for every round type. $129 once.