TX: Ride-hailing companies prepare ahead of the World Cup, discuss pricing

With the World Cup less than a month away, ride-hailing services are finalizing plans to serve an influx of tourists in the Dallas area ahead of the matches.

The city of Arlington will have designated pick-up and drop-off lots for fans near AT&T Stadium. Between an expected rise in toll road prices and increased congestion, along with a strained public transportation system, demand is likely to be high for ride-hailing services around the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including to and from the stadium.

But what does that mean for pricing?

Ride-booking services such as Alto, Lyft, Uber and Waymo all use surge pricing. Fares are adjusted in real-time based on marketplace conditions such as traffic, time, distance and driver supply. As demand goes up, so does the price of the ride.

Uber says to just wait it out.

"One piece of advice I would give riders leaving a stadium as large as [ AT&T] Stadium is sometimes, the best thing to do is wait a little bit," said Javiero Correoso, Uber's senior director of federal affairs and policy. "Wait for the traffic to die out a bit, wait for the roads to be clear. Wait a bit for these large crowds to clear out and then prices will stabilize after that."

Lyft, another ride-hailing service, uses a "Prime Time" pricing feature geared toward rewarding drivers and paid for through increased surge prices for riders.

"[The feature funds] driver incentives, encouraging more drivers to get on the road when demand outweighs supply," Lily Ecos-Zahn, Lyft's communications manager, said.

Similar to Lyft, Uber views surge pricing as a "critical lever" providing financial incentives for drivers. As a brand serving riders around the world, Uber currently has more than 200 million active monthly users across its various apps, including its ride-hailing option. Correoso said there is an increased demand for "thousands of drivers in Dallas for the World Cup."

Uber's partnership with Avride, an autonomous vehicle service, was launched in Dallas last December. While Avride does not go to Arlington, it will serve riders in the Dallas area during events such as the FIFA Fan Festival at Fair Park near downtown Dallas.

Most ride-booking services such as Alto, Lyft and Uber will be providing rides to Arlington. Alto is a luxury electric vehicle ride-booking service, employing its own drivers and operating its own fleet to "control the experience end-to-end."

"We focus on a hospitality-driven model where riders know exactly what to expect on every ride," Will Coleman, the founder of Alto, said.

Another Dallas-only option is Waymo, an autonomous vehicle ride-booking service. Covering 50 square miles of Dallas, Waymo has served major events such as the Super Bowl and Austin City Limits in other cities but has no plans to expand its fleet to Arlington yet.

"We've taken an incremental approach to rolling out our technology," Waymo's Product Communications Manager Chris Bonelli said. "We'll gradually expand our service and fleet with safety and the needs of local communities in mind."

While Lyft maintains that being "human-centric is core to [its] business," the company is investing in autonomous vehicles for future fleets.

"We believe the future will be hybrid, with a mixture of AVs and human-driven vehicles," Ecos-Zahn said. "We're investing in an AV future that continues to keep humans front and center."

© 2026 The Dallas Morning News. 
Visit www.dallasnews.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.