One passenger, four addresses, an afternoon to get through them. It sounds like a minor variation on an ordinary journey and it is not — multi-stop is the scenario where London’s three ways of getting a car separate most sharply, because each of them handles waiting time in a completely different way.
Key takeaways
- Apps: price stops as add-ons, and long waits work against the driver’s incentive
- Meter: charges for waiting openly, which makes short stops simple
- Hourly pre-book: the only option that guarantees the same car all day
- The deciding number: total waiting time, not total distance
Why apps struggle once you add stops
App pricing is optimised for point-to-point work: collect, drive, drop, move to the next fare. Additional stops are supported, but the driver’s economics reward completing trips quickly, so a long wait outside stop two is pulling against the incentive that brought the car there in the first place. Add the possibility that the vehicle you had grown attached to is reassigned by the time you return to the kerb, and a chain of app rides becomes a chain of separate gambles rather than one arrangement.
Where the meter is the fairer instrument
A taxi meter has no opinion about whether you are moving. It charges for time regardless, which sounds worse and is actually cleaner: waiting is priced out in the open instead of being quietly discouraged. For a compact circuit of central stops with short pauses — bank, chemist, dry cleaner, home — the metered taxi is often both the simplest and the most honest option, and the driver’s route knowledge earns its keep when the stops refuse to sit in a convenient line.
When to book a car by the hour
Once total waiting time runs past roughly the half-hour mark, or the itinerary spans a whole morning, the sensible instrument changes again. An hourly pre-booked car gives you the same vehicle and driver for the duration, coats and luggage stay where you left them, and the price is agreed before anyone sets off. It is the standard arrangement for property viewings, roadshows, wedding-day logistics and any day where being separated from your car halfway through would be a real problem.
The number that decides it
Not the mileage — the waiting. Short pauses and a handful of stops favour the meter. Zero waiting and a clean sequence favours the app. Long dwell times, awkward geography or a schedule you cannot afford to redo favour booking the vehicle for the period rather than the route. It is the same logic as the wider cab versus app versus pre-book decision: work out how long the car will spend stationary and the right answer tends to declare itself.
Which option for which itinerary?
| Your itinerary | Reach for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Three central stops, five minutes each | Metered taxi | Waiting priced openly, no re-hailing |
| Two stops, no waiting at all | App | Cheapest for clean point-to-point chains |
| Half a day of viewings or meetings | Hourly pre-book | Same car and driver throughout |
| Luggage staying in the car between stops | Hourly pre-book | Nothing gets unloaded twice |
| One stop, off-peak, no deadline | App | Add-stop pricing is fine at this scale |
| Awkward cross-town geography, right now | Metered taxi | Route knowledge earns its fee |
Questions readers ask
Can you add multiple stops to an Uber in London?
Do black cabs charge for waiting time?
What is best for a day of several appointments?
Prefer certainty over roulette?
For any itinerary with real waiting time in it, a car quoted by the hour in advance takes the arithmetic off your hands entirely.