It’s been over 18 months since the last major tube strike in London – and just how difficult it would be to get around caught many of us off guard.

The London Underground does such a good job getting us where we need to go that we forget how much we rely on it – and just how many of us Londoners depend on it. But, with around 4 million journeys taken on it every day, it’s no surprise that, when the tube goes out of action, London’s transportation system cracks under the strain.

Here at Uber, we believe it’s our job to help keep London moving. Our mission is to ensure that everyone can get a reliable ride when they need it – and we’re proud that, unlike some private hire operators or taxi companies, even during a tube strike we succeeded.

Of course, we did everything we could to encourage every partner-driver using the app to be available and online during the strike – and yesterday almost 25,000 partners came out to help Londoners get where they needed to be. Since the strike started on Sunday night, we helped more than 140,000 people get across London. Londoners did their bit too, travelling together with uberPOOL to ensure as many people as possible could get a ride or splitting the fare between friends and colleagues. But it still wasn’t enough to meet the incredible demand.

No one has to travel when surge pricing is in effect – it’s entirely your choice. But it does give you the choice.

We’ve seen complaints about surge pricing – our dynamic pricing model, which comes into effect when demand massively outstrips supply- on social media, in the news and from our riders. Of course, no one wants to pay extra but dynamic pricing does mean that we can get you a ride when you want it. The increase in prices encourages more partner-drivers, who drive with Uber on a fully-flexible, non-exclusive basis and as much or little as they want, to come out to drive and ensures that those already on the road know where they are needed most. And, of course, those who don’t really need to travel will likely wait until prices have dropped.

Since the last tube strike, we’ve done more to make the extra cost as upfront as possible so no one can be caught off guard. With our new app, once you enter your destination, you’re given a fare estimate for your journey which includes any increases. We’ll also let you know the multiple and ask you to confirm that you accept the higher fare.

We’ve also introduced uberPOOL, a service that matches riders heading in the same direction so they can share the car and save up to 25% on their journey compared to a similar uberX trip. It means the cars already on the road can serve more people – perfect for a situation like yesterday.

Believe us when we say we would rather have a car for everyone than have people pay more – and we’d been preparing for days to ensure as many partners were on the road as possible. But in extreme cases this, there can never been enough cars on the road to satisfy demand. It’s in cases like these that dynamic pricing is most effective: it lets us give you the option to get a car when you really need it – something that our competitors didn’t seem to be able to offer.

We tried to get a pick up from four competitors yesterday morning at peak commuting time:

Addison Lee

Even in central London, pick up times were nearly an hour, rising to an hour and a half if you lived outside zone 1. Not great if you’re trying to make a 10am meeting, let alone a 9am start.

Hailo

Hailo didn’t fare much better. Despite the huge driver promotions they’ve been running over the festive season, we couldn’t get a car – understandably, they were all busy.

Gett

Gett cut right to the chase: despite suggesting an ETA of 3 minutes, all black cabs were busy with other passengers. No matter how many times we tried again, it was the same old story and we gave up.

Kabbee

Kabbee struggled to give us a quote – seems like the companies they work with were experiencing the same high demand as the rest of our competitors. No luck getting to work with Kabbee yesterday…

Uber

Yes, dynamic pricing came into effect during the rush hour and prices rose. Between midnight and 5pm on Monday, 37% of all trips had some multiple of surge – on average 1.99x the normal price. But taken across the day, Uber was just 1.36x more expensive than normal. But with that increased price, we’ve been able to ensure that Londoners have only had to wait, on average 4.5 minutes to get a car.

No one has to travel with Uber when surge pricing is in effect – it’s entirely your choice. But it does give you the choice: whether you pay for a car that will get you to work, to that meeting you can’t miss or home to your loved ones. Or whether you negotiate the buses, walk or stay put.

We’re here to ensure you can get a reliable ride, when you need it. We’ll always give you that option – the choice is 100% yours whether you take it.