Uber removes the surprises from ride pricing

When booking a ride with Uber, you know approximately how much you'll pay in the end, but not the exact amount. That's going to change soon: On Thursday, Uber announced it's expanding its upfront fares globally, meaning you'll know the exact price before you request your ride. 

Uber initially launched upfront fares with uberPool in 2014, and the company has since been slowly expanding the feature to uberX in some cities in the U.S. as well as India. 

"Upfront fares are calculated using the expected time and distance of the trip and local traffic, as well as how many riders and nearby drivers are using Uber at that moment," Uber product managers Arundhati Singh and Dennis Zhao wrote in a press release. 

Upfront fares will work even when surge pricing is in effect — instead of seeing a price estimate and a multiplier, you'll just see the ride price with a notice that surge pricing is on. 

According to Quartz, Uber's upfront pricing will first become available in Miami, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Seattle. More markets will follow over the next couple of months.