Which Canadian Cities Leave the Most Stuff Behind in Uber Rides?

Lethbridge, Kelowna, and Victoria are Canada's most forgetful cities when it comes to leaving things in Uber cars, according to Uber Canada's 2025 Lost & Found Index. The data shows that western Canada has a particular problem with passengers forgetting their belongings.

Uber tracked this information by looking at items people reported missing through the app in 2024 and early 2025. They counted how often items were left behind in each city compared to how many total rides happened there.

Western Cities Lead the Forgetfulness List

British Columbia cities dominate the rankings. Victoria and Kelowna, both in B.C., landed in the top three, joined by Lethbridge in Alberta. This western pattern holds across the region—more items get left behind in rides on the west coast than in central or eastern Canada.

A few things might explain this. Lethbridge has about 100,000 people, making it smaller than cities like Toronto or Montreal. Kelowna and Victoria are similar in size. In smaller cities, the length and frequency of Uber rides might be different than in bigger cities. Victoria and Kelowna also see lots of tourists during summer months, which could mean more visitors using Uber in places they don't know well.

How Uber Counts Forgotten Items

Uber's data comes from their internal tracking of lost items reported through the app. But there's a catch: these numbers only count items that passengers noticed were missing and actually reported. If someone leaves something behind and never realizes it, it doesn't show up in the data.

The index compares lost item reports to the total number of completed rides in each city. A city with fewer rides but many reports of lost items will rank higher in forgetfulness than a city with lots of rides and fewer reports.

Seasonal changes matter too. Cities like Victoria and Kelowna get many more visitors in summer. These travelers might be more likely to forget things in an unfamiliar car in a new city than locals would be.

The Practical Side: What This Means for Drivers

When passengers forget items more often, it creates extra work. Drivers have to photograph the forgotten items, upload the photos, and coordinate getting the items back to passengers. This takes time away from driving and earning money, especially in smaller cities where there may not be many drivers available.

Larger cities usually have smoother systems for returning lost items because more drivers are handling these situations regularly. Smaller cities like Lethbridge might not have those organized networks yet.

What This Pattern Tells Us

The concentration of forgetfulness in western Canadian cities raises an interesting question. Is this telling us something about the region itself, or is it just random variation in how often people forget things? It's hard to say from the data alone.

In another context, when public transit systems started tracking lost items in the 1990s and 2000s, cities with newer public transportation networks also showed higher rates of forgotten items. The theory was that passengers were still getting used to unfamiliar routines. Ride-sharing might follow the same pattern—people forgetting things in private cars they're only using once might be different from forgetting items in a place they use regularly.

Opportunities for Uber and Drivers

These hot spots where people forget more items could be useful to Uber. The company might use this information to train drivers better in these regions or to remind passengers to check for their things when they exit the car.

Uber could also change how they pay drivers in high-forgetfulness cities. Right now, drivers don't get extra pay for the time they spend coordinating lost item returns. That might frustrate drivers in places like Lethbridge, where this happens more often.

The western clustering also suggests that Uber could try different approaches in different regions instead of using the same system everywhere. What works in one market might not work in another.

The bigger picture is this: how people behave in Uber rides reflects how we're adapting to new ways of getting around. These forgetfulness patterns are a window into that adaptation.