Uber has introduced a new Uber Driver API that provides programmatic access to identity, trip details, earnings, reputation/ratings, and other driver profile data. The Uber Driver API is currently available to a limited group of developers; however, developers can view the API documentation online and apply for access if they have an innovative application idea.
Uber launched the first of its APIs, the Uber Rides API, back in August 2014. The Uber Rides API can be used by developers to build applications that can make ride requests on behalf of Uber riders. In March the following year, the company released a Ride Request endpoint which allows developers to incorporate the entire Uber experience into applications.
The company released the Uber Trip Experiences API and the Uber Deliveries API (UberRUSH API) in January and June of this year, respectively. The Uber Trip Experiences API allows developers to build applications that include contextual features based on real-time information (e.g. destination location, pickup location, etc.) about the User’s trips with Uber. The Uber Deliveries API can be used by developers to build applications capable of tracking the exact location of a delivery from the UberRUSH on-demand delivery network.
The newly released Uber Driver API features three endpoints at this time:
- GET /partners/me– Returns information about the Uber driver such as name, rating, picture, and active status.
- GET /partners/trips– Returns information about trips such as duration, distance, starting city, pickup time, and dropoff time.
- GET /partners/payments– Returns payment information for a specified Uber Driver such as payment category, amount, fare breakdown, service fee, and tolls included in the fare.
It should be noted that Uber driver-partners permission is required before developers can use the information provided by the Uber Driver API in applications.
Uber processes data for millions of trips in more than 400 cities and there's a wealth of insights that could be obtained from that data. In January 2015, Uber provided the city of Boston anonymized trip-level data to help with city planning e.g. traffic planning, congestion reduction, etc. When asked if Uber plans on releasing a public data API in the future (similar to Twitter’s aggregated, anonymized data a.k.a. Twitter firehose), a company representative stated that "we have nothing to announce at this time."
The company is keeping the Uber Driver API under limited access for now and will learn from the developer ecosystem and evolve the product over time. Developers interested in the Uber Driver API can view the API documentation online and can request access if they have an innovative application idea.
"We want to be bold about providing utility to developers with the Driver API, and more broadly, we view this as another step we are taking to be transparent about the capabilities of our APIs," Chris Saad, Head of Product, Uber Developer Platform, told ProgrammableWeb.
Several Uber partners including Jobcase, Sears, Sherpashare, Stride, and Activehours have integrated the Uber Driver API with applications. You can find links to information about these integrations in the announcement post.
For more information about the Uber Driver API and other APIs provided by Uber, visit https://developer.uber.com