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Waze Carpool

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Re: Waze Carpool

#291

Post by empath75 »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #88
_m8fo wrote: post #19

Why isn't there a service that says: 1. Hey this is my route every morning. 2. Lets you see people's routes and "join". This doesn't need to be a centralized service. People could organize things among themselves. There are carpooling sites, but it requires a critical mass to be useful.

Why don't we hire a bunch of experts to figure out what the most common and efficient routes are for the most people and then hire people to run those routes regularly? Oops I just invented buses again, just the rest of these transportation startups eventually end up doing. The extremely boring answer to our transportation problems is to properly fund public transportation. We've known the solution for ages, but it's…

What’s amazing is that rural parts of Guatemala have a better public transport system than some of the wealthiest cities on earth. The chicken bus system is a marvel of low tech, self organizing systems.

Re: Waze Carpool

#292

Post by robotresearcher »

jimmaswell wrote: post #176
darksaints wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The extremely boring answer to our transportation problems is to properly fund public transportation. We've known the solution for ages, but it's kept down by the wealthy class who don't want to pay for public works that would benefit everyone. I'd say the middle class are the real problem. You see, the primary reason why transit costs so much in taxes is because few people ride it. Few people ride it because drivi…

You'd be destroying a culture of independence in the US punishing car drivers so much, and I don't think it would be nearly worth it. I greatly appreciate being able to just go where I want without having to be beholden to public transit schedules and share the space with a bunch of strangers, and have my own temperature controls etc. The "cost" cars have to society and how "subsidized" they are is ridiculously overb…

Nothing gives the feeling of independence more than stop and go traffic. Ah, freedom.

Re: Waze Carpool

#293

Post by rdiddly »

sneak wrote: post #273
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #99

The number of private tech companies that reinvent the BUS and think they're geniuses is staggering. But god forbid we just fund public transportation. We wouldn't want poor people using our service.

This isn’t some class warfare thing. Busses have terrible service. They don’t even have seatbelts. Knock off this old trope.

Second person I've seen on this thread, and maybe the fiftieth in my whole life experience, who heard "Let's fund public transportation!" and offered, as a counter-argument mind you, "No, public transportation is terrible."

Analogy:

Wife: "Hey let's buy a new toaster!"

Husband: "No way, have you seen how shitty our toaster is?"

Re: Waze Carpool

#294

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #164
24gttghh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the bus is really slow (many stops, multiple bus changes to get to a final destination, infrequent runs) compared to driving, and you don't get to choose who your fellow riders are. These are not my qualms, but the ones I hear most often as the basic reason why people hate on riding the bus. Money is certainly a factor, but it's not the whole story here.

These are implementation details tied to low funding and car oriented infrastructure. For example a bus route becomes significantly faster when it has dedicated lanes and doesn't need to share the lane with cars.

> These are implementation details tied to low funding and car oriented infrastructure

No, it’s fundamental to the technology. The deadweight cost of the driver mandates a minimum economic size. If you have a big bus, you need a route with lots of people. My long and skinny Cupertino —> Mountain View 6AM/9PM will ne inefficient, or the system will be inefficient—no other options with big buses.

A derogatory comparison to Uber is appropriate; it’s amortising the same driver across fewer people. Comparing busses to carpooling is not; I get from and to my precise destination, minimal walking or transferring, and take up no deadweight driver. If you want, think of carpooling as mutualised modularised busses.

Re: Waze Carpool

#295

Post by emodendroket »

Retric wrote: post #146
pron wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. It's not so simple. Normally people, at least in cities, rarely hitchhike or take up hitchhikers. The goal here is to make it acceptable, and naturally greatly increase the frequency this is happening. This can be reasonably taken as an endorsement by Google to the driver/passenger, because it is -- they want this…

Read up on DC slug lines. We are talking 10,000's of people doing this daily with very minor government support for the last 15+ years. Mostly awareness and signage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging

I have to think that putting it into an app is meant to encourage people who would otherwise never do this to do so -- the same way people happily use Uber who would never dream of using a gypsy cab under normal circumstances (and passengers then get upset/surprised/complain if Uber doesn't satisfy the expectations their implicit endorsement creates).

Re: Waze Carpool

#296

Post by warkdarrior »

robotresearcher wrote: post #286
nugi wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and think of the caliber of car and driver that would appeal to.

'Calibre'? People without spare money are of the wrong 'calibre'? We weren't all born with latte money to spare. A CEO, brain surgeon or astronaut might have had a shitty car and been happy for an easy $5 when they were in grad school. Calibre my ass.

If the carpooling passengers could be "randos" that someone may be worried about, the carpooling drivers could be "of the wrong calibre" that someone may be worried about as well.

Re: Waze Carpool

#297

Post by zaidf »

dwightgunning wrote: post #85
nerdponx wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how Uber turned into a taxi service. They tried ridesharing, it turns out that people in cars do sketchy things and piss each other off, or worse. I would rather see local grassroots organizations take on this project.

Any references to stories/articles about their ride sharing efforts? Was it prior to their incorporation as UberCab or an experiment from further along?

ZimRide preceded UberCar. They largely targeted college campuses. Universities would pay them an annual subscription fee to enable ride sharing on their campus.

Re: Waze Carpool

#298

Post by mulmen »

C7H8N4O2 wrote: post #112
nerdponx wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how Uber turned into a taxi service. They tried ridesharing, it turns out that people in cars do sketchy things and piss each other off, or worse. I would rather see local grassroots organizations take on this project.

Lyft started as an offshoot of Zimride[0], a long-distance ridesharing platform. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimride

Funny, just yesterday my Lyft driver pitched an idea exactly like this.

Re: Waze Carpool

#299

Post by dumbfounder »

Retric wrote: post #146
pron wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. It's not so simple. Normally people, at least in cities, rarely hitchhike or take up hitchhikers. The goal here is to make it acceptable, and naturally greatly increase the frequency this is happening. This can be reasonably taken as an endorsement by Google to the driver/passenger, because it is -- they want this…

Read up on DC slug lines. We are talking 10,000's of people doing this daily with very minor government support for the last 15+ years. Mostly awareness and signage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging

"In practice, slugging involves the creation of free, unofficial ad hoc carpool networks"

Unofficial is the operative word here.

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