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Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#81

Post by jdauriemma »

bbarn wrote: post #10
mikeash wrote: post #5

Obvious in hindsight. This sort of thing is inevitable any time you have dumb software on one side and humans on the other side. I'm mostly a fan of these non-taxi "taxi" services, but it seems like they are slowly and painfully rediscovering why taxis ended up so regulated in the first place.

Yeah, I'm mostly not a fan, now that we're a few years in. Waves of people inexperienced, untrained in shuttling people around a major metro have resulted in downtown Chicago being an utter mess compared to only a few years ago. Chicago forced cab drivers to go through a training and certification course that at least forced them to understand the major routes and grid system we're on, and every time I've been in an…

So true. Good luck getting a driver to pick you up around Wacker. Upper/lower confuses the heck out of the uninitiated.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#82

Post by neonhomer »

toast0 wrote: post #18
bbarn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm mostly not a fan, now that we're a few years in. Waves of people inexperienced, untrained in shuttling people around a major metro have resulted in downtown Chicago being an utter mess compared to only a few years ago. Chicago forced cab drivers to go through a training and certification course that at least forced them to understand the major routes and grid system we're on, and every time I've been in an…

I used to think cabs were terrible drivers, but most of them (especially in heavily regulated markets) are very experienced drivers and simply disregard rules of the road that are inconvenient for them. In contrast, 'ride sharing' drivers seem to have no sense of direction, and are genuinely oblivious to the rules of the road. In short, when in either type of car, I fear for my life.

My anecdotal experiences are not the same. The majority of taxi drivers and ride-sharing drivers have been good, with a few exceptions of actual bad drivers.

And I think the disregard for rules applies to a lot of public drivers. The Port Authority buses in Pittsburgh think they own the road.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#84

Post by 8ytecoder »

mikeash wrote: post #21
toast0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think cabs were terrible drivers, but most of them (especially in heavily regulated markets) are very experienced drivers and simply disregard rules of the road that are inconvenient for them. In contrast, 'ride sharing' drivers seem to have no sense of direction, and are genuinely oblivious to the rules of the road. In short, when in either type of car, I fear for my life.

That's interesting. I wonder if this is a regional thing, or just different personal experiences. For me, I've never had a particularly bad Uber driver, but I've had incredibly bad taxi drivers. (My favorite was the guy who decided that driving down I-395 in Arlington was a good time to catch up on some paperwork. He kept the cab on the road, but only by using all three lanes. Thankfully it was about 2AM and nobody e…

There's also the other side of the problem that you don't get to see as a passenger. Uber/Lyft drivers in a rush to get to their pickups drive like maniacs here in SF. I'm from a developing country and I'm used to drivers who disregard rules but even those pay attention to the surroundings - you can read them and know if they are going to yield or not. But having gotten used to the polite driving of SF a few years ago, I find it quite dangerous to walk my dog out now. I stick to interior roads and wait till I know for sure that the car would yield for me before I cross. Driving and Biking have become usually miserable as well.

My only request is that passengers don't encourage this by blindly rating everyone 5 stars. Take at least two star off for unsafe driving - not stopping at a stop sign, not yielding to pedestrians, not giving enough space while passing a bicyclist and at least one star for not following the rules - driving on the bus lane, double parking in the middle of a busy road, driving too fast on a 25Mph zone, not waiting long enough for the pedestrians to pass safe ...etc.

If the economics don't work out for the drivers, the fare has to go up. By keeping the fare artificially low and pushing drivers to accommodate too many trips Uber and Lyft are ruining the experience for everyone and in doing so are perpetuating the need for more people to use them instead of considering alternate transport modes. This, sooner or later, will ruin it for everyone.

Take it from me, America cannot handle a developing country style traffic. It requires a different set of skills. People here are used to predictable traffic.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#85

Post by EGreg »

abakker wrote: post #63
EGreg wrote: post #51

I am currently talking with Warren Mosler about implementing Unconditional Basic Income in local communities (Hi @sama! :) Cartels is the main danger with unconditional basic income. If you make sure everyone can eat, you create a moral hazard, where the insured are not sensitive to price anymore. Having said that, we already have means-tested welfare and food stamps, and cartels of fruit stores don't spontaneously a…

Competition in this case is really a proxy for choice. UBI should rationally be about promoting the ability for consumers to choose how to spend money, rather than being constrained to have no choices due to lack of resource. to solve the problem you are describing, people still need to have the self-interest to make good decisions, and the willingness to carry them out. If consumers won't shop around, or make price…

The problem with UBI versus, let's say, single payer, is that buyers compete and therefore drive up price. In short they "defect" from the price the other buyers pay.

Think about patio and his posts in the past about increasing your rates. That's how it happens.

When you have insurance, then the buyer and seller can join forces to raise prices - that's called a moral hazard.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#86

Post by criddell »

overcast wrote: post #22
mikeash wrote: post #5

Obvious in hindsight. This sort of thing is inevitable any time you have dumb software on one side and humans on the other side. I'm mostly a fan of these non-taxi "taxi" services, but it seems like they are slowly and painfully rediscovering why taxis ended up so regulated in the first place.

Yeh, this unpopular view is now becoming popular. I've said it from the start, there is a reason for regulation. We just needed the awesome software to manage real taxi services. The price isn't sustainable, people want the on demand taxis.

> there is a reason for regulation

Uber coming along has been a good reset for the regulations. There were a lot of ineffective and counterproductive regulations in place and I think wiping them out and starting over is a good thing.

Sarasota, FL is an interesting case to study. The traditional taxi companies complained about Uber in the city and rather than fight Uber, the city removed the regulations on taxi companies. So far, I don't think much has really changed.

As for the gaming of surge pricing, I think that's fixable. Uber just needs to think more carefully about driver incentives.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#87

Post by GlickWick »

dawnerd wrote: post #37
johnhenry wrote: post #29

The article implies that this is an active, coordinated effort; but I have to wonder if any of this is/could be an emergent phenomenon based on the existence of the surge pricing algorithm.

I think some of the surge times are built in. At WDW it's on the dot when the parks close. There will be tons of drivers on the map too. Uber (and Lyft) know that a all the people they shuttled in for cheap in the morning will need a ride home and didn't plan an alternative.

I suspect it's less hard-coded and more a case of the algorithm realizing that there's a huge influx of riders every day at X location at Y time, and just auto-surges until there are a number of days without said influx. It's important to build a surging algorithm this way, as otherwise you'll have an awkward period of low prices with high demand that ends up losing you money in the long run.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#88

Post by toast0 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #74
mabbo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simply disregard rules of the road that are inconvenient for them. There is a bit of a natural selection process to it. If you're a cab driver, and you keep getting into accidents, you won't be a cab driver for long. If you take no risks and are constantly late, you won't be a cab driver for long. If you have a poor sense of direction, or spacial awareness when driving, you probably won't be a driver for very long.…

> Everyone's a newbie. Not really. A newbie at being paid to drive, but in many cases, not new to driving. In my area, I can predict to the minute when I'll arrive at my destination, and what route is best at that time of day, even for a 20 mile trip and without software support. That's because I've been driving 24k miles+ annually here for nearly 30 years. Not to mention, the driver's app has the same real-time mapp…

Are you driving for Uber/Lyft? I was hoping I would get more drivers like you, with deep experience of the area, etc; but the drivers I've had, at least during normal working hours seem to be people who don't have a lot of experience driving in general, and for example have a hard time navigating around the mountain view train station, despite google maps giving them reasonable directions.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#89

Post by jbob2000 »

cpsempek wrote: post #75

During a fare, an uber driver told me that when he goes to an area with lots of drivers, he will turn off his app for a minute or so to artificially decrease the number of drivers in the area. If this is practiced by multiple drivers repeatedly, the result can cause a surge. He told me that he does this, and, that he holds training sessions where he teaches this practice to other drivers, among other things. I do not…

This is easy for Uber to fix. The surge (or the calculation of drivers) just needs to be delayed by 15mins or so. He can still turn off his app, but now he'll have to do it for more than 15mins, thus potentially losing 1 or 2 rides.

Re: Uber drivers gang up to cause surge pricing, research says

#90

Post by rectang »

aianus wrote: post #12
erikb wrote: post #8

edit Supporting comment apparently wasn't appreciated. No delete button.

I drive part time and it definitely covers costs and then some. I gross something like $0.90/km and my costs including gas, maintenance, and depreciation are around $0.30/km. Net is something a little more than minimum wage ($11/h).

Until you get in an accident. The rideshare companies have offloaded lots of aggregate risk onto individual drivers. What would be a line-item cost to the umbrella company is now often a life-wrenching crisis for a driver.
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