Uber exposes an extensive API for interacting with their service. ubeR is a R package for working with that API which Arthur Wu and I put together during a Hackathon at iXperience.
Installation
The package is currently hosted on GitHub. Installation is simple using the devtools package.
devtools::install_github("DataWookie/ubeR")
library(ubeR)
Authentication
To work with the API you’ll need to create a new application for the Rides API.
- Set Redirect URL to http://localhost:1410/.
- Enable the
profile,places,ride_widgets,history_liteandhistoryscopes.
UBER_CLIENTID = Sys.getenv("UBER_CLIENTID")
UBER_CLIENTSECRET = Sys.getenv("UBER_CLIENTSECRET")
uber_oauth(UBER_CLIENTID, UBER_CLIENTSECRET)
Identity
We can immediately use uber_me() to retrieve information about the authenticated user.
identity <- uber_me()
names(identity)
[1] "picture" "first_name" "last_name" "uuid" "rider_id"
[6] "email" "mobile_verified" "promo_code"
identity$first_name
[1] "Andrew"
identity$picture
[1] "https://d1w2poirtb3as9.cloudfront.net/default.jpeg"
Clearly I haven’t made enough effort in personalising my Uber account.
Designated Places
Uber allows you to specify predefined locations for “home” and “work”. These are accessible via uber_places_get().
uber_places_get("home")
$address
[1] "St Andrews Dr, Durban North, 4051, South Africa"
uber_places_get("work")
$address
[1] "Dock Rd, V & A Waterfront, Cape Town, 8002, South Africa"
These addresses can be modified using uber_places_put().
History
You can access data for recent rides using uber_history().
history <- uber_history(50, 0)
names(history)
[1] "status" "distance" "request_time" "start_time" "end_time" "request_id"
[7] "product_id" "latitude" "display_name" "longitude"
The response includes a wide range of fields, we’ll just pick out just a few of them for closer inspection.
head(history)[, c(2, 4:5, 9)]
distance start_time end_time display_name
1 1.3140 2016-08-15 17:35:24 2016-08-15 17:48:54 New York City
2 13.6831 2016-08-11 15:29:58 2016-08-11 16:04:22 Cape Town
3 2.7314 2016-08-11 09:09:25 2016-08-11 09:23:51 Cape Town
4 3.2354 2016-08-10 19:28:41 2016-08-10 19:38:07 Cape Town
5 7.3413 2016-08-10 16:37:30 2016-08-10 17:21:16 Cape Town
6 4.3294 2016-08-10 13:38:49 2016-08-10 13:59:00 Cape Town
Product Descriptions
We can get a list of cars near to a specified location using uber_products().
cars <- uber_products(latitude = -33.925278, longitude = 18.423889)
names(cars)
[1] "capacity" "product_id" "price_details" "image"
[5] "cash_enabled" "shared" "short_description" "display_name"
[9] "description"
cars[, c(1, 2, 7)]
capacity product_id short_description
1 4 91901472-f30d-4614-8ba7-9fcc937cebf5 uberX
2 6 419f6bdc-7307-4ea8-9bb0-2c7d852b616a uberXL
3 4 1dd39914-a689-4b27-a59d-a74e9be559a4 UberBLACK
Information for a particular car can also be accessed.
product <- uber_products(product_id = "91901472-f30d-4614-8ba7-9fcc937cebf5")
names(product)
[1] "capacity" "product_id" "price_details" "image"
[5] "cash_enabled" "shared" "short_description" "display_name"
[9] "description"
product$price_details
$service_fees
list()
$cost_per_minute
[1] 0.7
$distance_unit
[1] "km"
$minimum
[1] 20
$cost_per_distance
[1] 7
$base
[1] 5
$cancellation_fee
[1] 25
$currency_code
[1] "ZAR"
Estimates
It’s good to have a rough idea of how much a ride is going to cost you. What about a trip from Mouille Point to the Old Biscuit Mill?
estimate <- uber_requests_estimate(
start_latitude = -33.899656, start_longitude = 18.407663,
end_latitude = -33.927443, end_longitude = 18.457557
)
estimate$trip
$distance_unit
[1] "mile"
$duration_estimate
[1] 600
$distance_estimate
[1] 4.15
estimate$pickup_estimate
[1] 4
estimate$price
high_amount display_amount display_name low_amount surge_multiplier currency_code
1 5.00 5.00 Base Fare 5.00 1 ZAR
2 56.12 42.15-56.12 Distance 42.15 1 ZAR
3 8.30 6.23-8.30 Time 6.23 1 ZAR
Not quite sure why the API is returning the distance in such obscure units. (Note to self: convert those to metric equivalent in next release!) The data above are based on the car nearest to the start location. What about prices for a selection of other cars?
estimate <- uber_estimate_price(
start_latitude = -33.899656, start_longitude = 18.407663,
end_latitude = -33.927443, end_longitude = 18.457557
)
names(estimate)
[1] "localized_display_name" "high_estimate" "minimum" "duration"
[5] "estimate" "distance" "display_name" "product_id"
[9] "low_estimate" "surge_multiplier" "currency_code"
estimate[, c(1, 5)]
localized_display_name estimate
1 uberX ZAR53-69
2 uberXL ZAR68-84
3 uberBLACK ZAR97-125
The time of arrival for each of those cars can be accessed via uber_estimate_time().
uber_estimate_time(start_latitude = -33.899656, start_longitude = 18.407663)
localized_display_name estimate display_name product_id
1 uberX 180 uberX 91901472-f30d-4614-8ba7-9fcc937cebf5
2 uberXL 420 uberXL 419f6bdc-7307-4ea8-9bb0-2c7d852b616a
3 uberBLACK 300 uberBLACK 1dd39914-a689-4b27-a59d-a74e9be559a4
For example, the uberXL would be expected to arrive in 7 minutes, while the uberX would pick you up in only 3 minutes.
Requesting a Ride
It’s also possible to request a ride. At present these requests are directed to the Uber API Sandbox. After we have done further testing we’ll retarget the requests to the API proper.
A new ride is requested using uber_requests().
ride <- uber_requests(
start_address = "37 Beach Road, Mouille Point, Cape Town",
end_address = "100 St Georges Mall, Cape Town City Centre, Cape Town"
)
Let’s find out the details of the result.
names(ride)
[1] "status" "destination" "product_id" "request_id"
[5] "driver" "pickup" "eta" "location"
[9] "vehicle" "surge_multiplier" "shared"
ride$pickup
$latitude
[1] -33.9
$longitude
[1] 18.406
ride$destination
$latitude
[1] -33.924
$longitude
[1] 18.42
Information about the currently requested ride can be accessed using uber_requests_current(). If we decide to walk instead, then it’s also possible to cancel the pickup.
uber_requests_current_delete()
Future
For more information about units of measurement, limits and parameters of the Uber API, have a look at the API Overview.
We’ll be extending the package to cover the remaining API endpoints. But, for the moment, most of the core functionality is already covered.
Also Relevant
A nice blog post by Simon Jackson who used ubeR to plot his recent trips.