Redesign Uber Rides to and from 10,000+ Attendee Events for Riders and Drivers

Uber's rider app was shaped around routine trips in cities and suburbs, such as commuting between home and work or getting around on vacation. Large gatherings like concerts, sports games and festivals are a different situation, and the standard experience often falls short there. You are the product manager asked to make rides to and from events with 10,000 or more attendees feel magical for both sides of the marketplace: riders and drivers. Walk through how you would decide what to build, what you would ship first, and how you would know it worked. ```hint Find the moment that breaks Before brainstorming, compare an event trip with an ordinary one: where and when demand appears, what the pickup spot looks like, and what a driver experiences on the way in. Anchor your answer on the moment where those differences hurt riders and drivers most. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should the answer cover both getting to the venue and leaving it, or is one direction the priority? - Can we count on cooperation from venues and organizers (dedicated pickup areas, staff, ticketing integrations), or must the design work with no partner involvement? - Which event shapes matter most: a stadium game or concert with one fixed end time, or a multi-day festival where people leave gradually? - Does the scope also cover citywide one-night peaks such as New Year's Eve, when crowds spread across many streets and there is no single venue or organizer to work with? - Is the main business goal completing more trips at these events, improving rider and driver satisfaction, or winning attendees who currently drive, take transit or use another ride app? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A diagnosis of why the everyday request, match and pickup flow fails at large events, covering drivers as well as riders. - A deliberate choice of which segment and which phase of the event trip to solve first, with the reasoning stated. - Concrete solutions tied to specific pain points, prioritized by impact and effort, with dependencies such as venue partnerships made explicit. - Success metrics scoped to the event window, plus guardrails on price perception, driver earnings, safety and cancellations. - Risks and trade-offs, including how surge pricing, local congestion and the one-off nature of each event shape the rollout and how it is tested. ### Follow-up Questions - A venue will only allow pickups in a lot that is a long walk from the exits. How does your design change, and how do you stop riders from requesting from the nearest curb anyway? - How would you set pricing and driver incentives for the post-event rush so enough drivers show up without riders feeling exploited? - Events cannot be A/B tested like a feed change because each one is a one-off with shared supply. How would you pilot this and decide whether to expand to more venues? - Suppose surge pricing has already been tried for the rush after big events: it did not clear the backlog of requests, and the price spikes drew negative press. Which interventions beyond surge would you rely on, and how does your plan change? - The interviewer narrows the prompt to a single football match at a stadium and asks how you would improve Uber for riders and drivers getting to the game and home afterward. What carries over from your broader redesign, and what is specific to a match? - In another version the question is a problem-solving and analytical exercise about one moment only: an event ends, a crowd requests rides within minutes, and the drivers nearby cannot keep up. There is no attendee threshold and no ask to redesign trips to and from the venue. How would you diagnose what is failing and solve it?