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Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

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Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#51

Post by CydeWeys »

jcims wrote: post #47
inferiorhuman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I understand the math correctly, BART claims about 126 million rides (2015) and cost $906M (~$7 a ride, comparable to some uber pool fares) Scaling a mobile app is trivial compared to running a transit company. BART owns/maintains infrastructure (including an underwater tunnel) and vehicles, provides benefits (health, retirement, etc) to their drivers, and operates a multi-jurisdictional police force. Uber meanw…

I'm no Uber fanboy, but the app provides on-demand, door to door transportation service for (more or less) the entire BART market area.

The point the commenter is making is that Uber is just providing access to it. They aren't training all those drivers, buying and maintaining all those cars, building and maintaining all the roads, etc. BART does all those things for their rail system.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#52

Post by dannyw »

tvanantwerp wrote: post #28

I've frequently used Uber Pool, and have noticed that it's started forcing a waiting period of a minute to "find the best match". I've also noticed that I'm getting matched with drivers further and further away from me, frequently waiting up to ten minutes. The matching algorithms sure don't seem improved, so maybe they're just covering up a decreasing number of drivers in my area.

Uber most likely thinks you're a habitual user, so it gives priority for newer riders. Uber dynamically prices rides based on the person and your ride history[1], as well as factors like your battery percentage.

[1]: https://therideshareguy.com/uber-is-ripping-off-frequent-rid...

[2]: https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/20/11721890/uber-surge-prici... - while it was only a study in 2016, in 2018 this is definitely true. Your upfront fares are hiked if your battery say 5%.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#53

Post by smt88 »

always_good wrote: post #31
ReverseCold wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Apple do some tricks based on WiFi to fix GPS in dense urban areas. Raw gps is basically unusable in these areas.

Since you have to set a pickup pin explicitly, how does GPS matter at all, here?

In my experience, the location I choose is often lost in translation between my Uber app and the driver's maps app. Sometimes the difference is egregious.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#55

Post by smt88 »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #35
kemitche wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same breath you complain that they don't pay their drivers enough and that their service is too expensive. Drivers aren't going to get more than a few percentage points increase without increasing the price to the end user.

> Drivers aren't going to get more than a few percentage points increase without increasing the price to the end user. But they should. Perhaps the pay scale is too top heavy. Uber's operational expenses should be trivial (hell, they straight up stole the most expensive bits -- the self-driving car IP). Instead they squeeze the drivers (passing along rate cuts) and riders (surge pricing during shootings, etc) pretty…

Uber's driver and rider acquisition costs (marketing, promotions, ads, etc.) are astronomical.

They can't easily scale these efforts back because the value of the service plummets for all parties if they lose their economy of scale.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#56

Post by magic_beans »

chrisabrams wrote: post #7

Based on my rides recently I have seen the quality of drivers plummet on both Uber and Lyft. I'd be much more willing to wait (and maybe even pay) for a higher quality driver. Having a driver who cannot follow a GPS and takes you in a circle 3-4 times around the airport or does not speak English well enough to understand your request to stop on the right instead of the left like the GPS shows can be quite frustrating…

Once I had an Uber driver get me from manhattan to Williamsburg with no GPS and I was SHOCKED.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#57

Post by dvtrn »

chrisabrams wrote: post #13
tomsthumb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers should pay a premium for the driver to not park a block and a half from them at pickup?

If you're in a suburb that should never happen. If you are in the NYC area for example, the GPS just really struggles between all the buildings. What's more frustrating is when you are on the other side of a busy street, you wave to the driver or even call them to let them know you're on the other side of the street, and they just sit there...

For the first time in 11 years I'm thinking of switching off T-Mobile after relocating to Chicago. Much of my day is spent in the loop and despite their best claims buildings are a bane.

Can anyone recommend a carrier with better QOS here or is this just inherent to my new life in a giant city? I'll get over it and adapt, just keeping my options open.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#58

Post by chrisabrams »

jessriedel wrote: post #30
chrisabrams wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are located out of curiosity?

Mostly Toronto, plus some Santa Barbara lately.

Nice. I don't recall having a bad experience with ride sharing in Toronto :)

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#59

Post by eli »

magic_beans wrote: post #56
chrisabrams wrote: post #7

Based on my rides recently I have seen the quality of drivers plummet on both Uber and Lyft. I'd be much more willing to wait (and maybe even pay) for a higher quality driver. Having a driver who cannot follow a GPS and takes you in a circle 3-4 times around the airport or does not speak English well enough to understand your request to stop on the right instead of the left like the GPS shows can be quite frustrating…

Once I had an Uber driver get me from manhattan to Williamsburg with no GPS and I was SHOCKED.

Probably a former cab driver...

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#60

Post by askafriend »

CydeWeys wrote: post #51
jcims wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no Uber fanboy, but the app provides on-demand, door to door transportation service for (more or less) the entire BART market area.

The point the commenter is making is that Uber is just providing access to it. They aren't training all those drivers, buying and maintaining all those cars, building and maintaining all the roads, etc. BART does all those things for their rail system.

The commenter almost certainly has no idea (or more likely, chooses to ignore) the operational infrastructure and excellence it takes to scale a marketplace like Uber's to 4 billion rides, as fast as Uber did it.

Any hot-take that centers around "It's just an app that a couple of guys wrote in an afternoon with some underpaid drivers doing all the work" is someone arguing in bad faith (and I suspect the person is well aware of it). There is a ton that goes into scaling a marketplace in general - let alone an on-demand one with thousands of corner cases, real time demand forecasting, real time fare calculations, real time capacity planning, customer support operations, etc.

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