Lyft unveils improved pay measures to attract more drivers

By Akash Sriram

(Reuters) -Lyft is looking to make its ride-hailing platform more attractive to drivers by rolling out measures such as higher pay for longer-than-estimated trips and prioritizing members with a safe driving record.

Lyft is in fierce competition with Uber for both drivers and passengers. The two companies are trying to stay ahead of each other in their race to grab a bigger market share by offering a range of promotions, incentives and benefits on their platforms.

"We have about 1.3 million or so drivers over the last year that have been on the platform. We've seen pretty tremendous growth year over year ... Our goal is to continue to grow that," Jeremy Bird, EVP of driver experience at Lyft, told Reuters.

In its latest move unveiled on Tuesday, Lyft is introducing a "preferred drivers" program, where members with a higher safe-driving score will receive more ride requests, a new earnings dashboard and electric vehicle rides that are linked to battery range.

Drivers will also be able to see the estimated hourly rate for each ride to help decide if a ride is worth their time and will get paid more for trips that are at least five minutes more than the estimated time.

In the three months ended June, Lyft added most new drivers in any quarter since 2019, including 34% more women and non-binary drivers, compared with the year-ago period.

Earlier this year, Lyft had assured drivers that they would earn at least 70% of fares each week, a first for the U.S. ride-hailing industry.

The company also said on Tuesday it had partnered with Merit America to enable drivers to take on free courses and with Stride Health to help them find lower-cost health insurance.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)