ORLANDO, Fla. – If you’ve found yourself waiting a while to get an Uber or Lyft from Orlando International Airport (MCO), it might’ve been because of a traffic jam in one of the rideshare waiting parking lots at the airport.
Last December, News 6 uncovered Uber and Lyft drivers were cramming into one lot - the North Transportation Network Companies (TNC) lot - because the cell service was terrible in the South TNC lot.
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Especially at night when a high volume of flights arrive, rideshare drivers were stopped bumper to bumper trying to enter the North TNC waiting lot. Once inside the lot, video showed drivers honking, drivers double-parked, and no available parking spots.
Over the past year, to ease the traffic jam in the North TNC lot, MCO promised to improve cell coverage in the South TNC lot and add Wi-Fi coverage.
Why do rideshare drivers need two lots? Because there are so many of them.
Plus, in order for drivers to pick up a ride at the airport, they must be on airport property in either the North TNC lot or the South TNC lot rather than circling the airport or parking off-site somewhere. Only then will the geofencing built into the rideshare apps place the drivers into the queues to pick up a passenger.
Rideshare drivers said only Verizon cell phone coverage was occasionally strong enough in the South TNC lot to make the Uber or Lyft app function. In fact, some drivers said they were so fed up with fighting traffic in the North TNC lot they switched from other cell phone carriers to Verizon.
Earlier this year, MCO added wifi coverage in the South TNC lot but drivers claimed it wasn’t reliable and needed a strong cellular signal from all major cell carriers.
Now?
“Beautiful!” one driver said.
AT&T and Verizon cell signals are now equally strong in the South TNC lot. Even Wi-Fi reliability has improved, drivers said.
“Yeah it’s better now,” another driver said. “Before we had to go to the other lot because nothing was working here.”
On Monday, dozens of drivers were using the South TNC as well as the North TNC lot, filling most of the available parking spaces.
MCO acknowledged it is still working with T-Mobile to improve coverage in the South TNC lot.
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