AMHERST — On a typical Friday night Zach Stone is parked in downtown Amherst, sitting in his car waiting for a map on his phone to flash. A University of Massachusetts senior, the 23-year-old Stone said he began working for the ride-share service Uber as a flexible way to earn money.
His phone pinged and he drove around the corner to where Emma Roberts, 22, of Belchertown and Mohamad Barham, 21, of Amherst were waiting. They were headed back to Roberts’ place for a night in, planning to watch the previous night’s Republican debate.
“It’s just very convenient, especially for Belchertown,” Roberts said, explaining that she uses Uber on a regular basis.
Since Uber came to western Massachusetts last April, demand has continued to grow. There are now about 1,000 drivers and 17,000 “active riders” — users who have taken a trip in the past three months, spokeswoman Kelly Smith said.
Much of Uber’s local activity centers in Amherst, where many UMass students use it to get home after a night out drinking with friends.
“In college towns the demand for Uber is a little louder than in other communities,” Smith said.
The company, whose mission statement says its goal is making transportation “as reliable as running water,” used Amherst as a case study in a report published last month to show its reach extends beyond the metropolitan hubs where it began.
“We really expanded across the U.S. and what we’ve seen is that in small cities and towns like Amherst, there’s even more of a need for alternative transportation,” Uber New England General Manager Cathy Zhou said.
As of last December, company data show users in Amherst waited an average of three minutes for a ride, down from its launch in April, when wait times typically hovered just under six minutes. Demand spikes around midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.
A ride from downtown Amherst to the Southwest Residential Area costs between $5 and $9, according to an online Uber fare estimator. A ride from Springfield to Northampton costs between $15 and $32.
Among the handful of licensed taxi companies in Amherst, where taxis must use meters, a ride from downtown to the Southwest Residential Area would typically cost between $7 and $10. Students traveling around Amherst also have the option of taking Pioneer Valley Transit Authority buses for free. The Route 30 bus leaves the downtown Amherst post office for its last run at 1:26 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
Though much of Uber’s activity in the area centers around Amherst, Northampton and Holyoke, it’s available in the hilltowns, too. Ninety-five percent of cars in western Massachusetts arrive within 20 minutes, Smith said.
But many of the trips are short, local rides, not long hauls. From October 2015 to February 2016, 92 percent of Uber rides beginning in Amherst ended within the town limits, according to the company.
In the state as a whole, there are about 20,000 Uber drivers, most of whom work less than 10 hours a week, Smith said. In the past four years, since Uber came to Boston, the company’s drivers have served over 1.75 million riders in Massachusetts.
Stone said he first considered working for the ride-share service because he was looking for a flexible part-time job.
“One of my buddies told me I should apply for Uber because you can basically work whenever you want and make your own schedule,” he said.
Stone typically works three nights a week – on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays – and schedules it so he’s on call when Uber is busiest. Surge pricing goes into effect when demand is high, meaning riders pay above the normal fare, and he can earn more per ride.
He generally starts to work around 10 p.m., when students are on their way out, and stays on until 2 or 3 a.m., when people are headed home. Stone said he makes an average of about $300 a week.
When Stone was a freshman, he said he and his friends would typically walk home from house parties at fraternies to the Southwest Residential Area. Now, he said, he uses Uber.
“It was probably one of the best things to happen to a big college town where there’s a big nightlife,” Stone said.
Stephanie McFeeters can be reached at smcfeeters@gazettenet.com.