I can see some abuse here. If I live in a suburb, set it as my home zone, then just work downtown.
Perhaps limit the "home area" designation at the end of the day. So before someone is "ending" their day, they can click a button and service only in their home area.
That way, the usefulness of the service is not compromised as much.
If the service instead allowed drivers to designate a "home zone" where the base price is payed, and then trips to successive neighboring zones have a multiplier applied, this would probably work better.