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Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

fivethirtyeight.com

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Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#21

Post by _delirium »

exstudent2 wrote: post #7
fjordames wrote: post #3

I think the word "earning" is what the author meant.

Yes, why "taking"? What Uber is doing is obviously working. Pre-Uber days, getting a cab in NY was painful. You can't call them to come pick you up. More often than not, the cabbie will complain about taking a credit card or just say the machine is broken. Rides TO the airport are a mixed bag of using the fixed fare vs the cabbie encouraging you to go off of it. Are there are legitimate complaints about Uber that don…

Cabs in NYC have in-seat, self-service CC machines for years now. I don't visit NYC often, and when I do I almost always take the subway, but the few times I've needed a cab, I've never had a problem swiping my card.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#22

Post by ilaksh »

jessriedel wrote: post #15

The author takes pickups as a measure of congestion, but as they (sort of) admit much later on in the article, this is a bad measure. The argument of regulators is that, in the absence of proper congestion pricing for cars on the road, the market equilibrium for number of taxis per inhabitant will be higher than is efficient. That's how they justify a cap on the number of cabs. (It increases wait times but, they argu…

I doubt the numbers are accurate. It seems like that's a tough thing to measure accurately.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#24

Post by ar0b »

mizchief2 wrote: post #10

Just like the movie industry it hasn't occurred to taxi companies to build their own app to make it easy for people to get a ride through their service. With a little forethought the taxi companies could have snuffed out Uber before they picked up steam, but they ran to their paid for government officials and lawyers instead.

I don't really know much about how Uber works, but is there something in place to stop taxi drivers from using it while driving their cab?

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#25

Post by jdminhbg »

dsjoerg wrote: post #20
jessriedel wrote: post #15

The author takes pickups as a measure of congestion, but as they (sort of) admit much later on in the article, this is a bad measure. The argument of regulators is that, in the absence of proper congestion pricing for cars on the road, the market equilibrium for number of taxis per inhabitant will be higher than is efficient. That's how they justify a cap on the number of cabs. (It increases wait times but, they argu…

TFA addresses that: "The average number of Uber cars in Manhattan’s central business district between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays is 2,000, Mohrer said in a telephone interview."

But that doesn't address whether those 2000 cars displace 2000 personal cars that would be on the road, or whether they just add 2000 extra cars, or whether it's somewhere in between.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#27

Post by Spooky23 »

jessriedel wrote: post #15

The author takes pickups as a measure of congestion, but as they (sort of) admit much later on in the article, this is a bad measure. The argument of regulators is that, in the absence of proper congestion pricing for cars on the road, the market equilibrium for number of taxis per inhabitant will be higher than is efficient. That's how they justify a cap on the number of cabs. (It increases wait times but, they argu…

It's more than that. There's a finite number of people seeking a ride, it's a zero sum market where the supply of rides will crash, and Uber will jack up the rates.

Uber ultimately will have enormous leverage to submarine any meaningful competition and even to displace public transit. Their national scope will make them a force to be reckoned with.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#28

Post by [deleted] »

jawjay wrote: post #8
gregwtmtno wrote: post #2

What I find interesting is that Uber doesn't seem to be having an effect on private car use. From the article, in the busiest part of New York, "Uber gained 3.10 million pickups, while taxis lost 3.09 million." I read this to say that almost every Uber ride would have been a taxi ride if Uber did not exist. It doesn't seem to be replacing private car use at all. If it were, we'd see Uber rides increasing faster than…

You are forgetting to account for the other ride sharing services, which most likely have gained more than 10,000 pickups as a whole.

[deleted]

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#29

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gregwtmtno wrote: post #2

What I find interesting is that Uber doesn't seem to be having an effect on private car use. From the article, in the busiest part of New York, "Uber gained 3.10 million pickups, while taxis lost 3.09 million." I read this to say that almost every Uber ride would have been a taxi ride if Uber did not exist. It doesn't seem to be replacing private car use at all. If it were, we'd see Uber rides increasing faster than…

> It doesn't seem to be replacing private car use at all

Until Uber launches calendar integration there will be an advantage to having a private driver reliably waiting outside and knowing where to go next. Many peoples' drivers also double as ersatz admins.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#30

Post by CodeSheikh »

I would take Uber over rude Manhattan cabbies any day. My personal experience with Manhattan taxi drivers after living in NYC for last two years.

1) They drive as if they are on a rally track. I have had never experienced motion sickness before until I moved to Manhattan.

2) If you ignore the tip or tip them in the range of $1-3 you get snarky remarks from them.

3) If you try to hail a cab and (regrettably) ask the taxi driver to drive you to a place where their chances of hailing a passenger back are slim then they will rudely turn you away (Tip: First hop in then tell the direction. It is a NYC law).

I can go on and on but point being Uber is the much needed necessary evil in scarce resource cities like Manhattan.

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