151–160 of 198 posts
Uber is becoming more and more like public transit. Just took a few billion dollars and lots of hype for us to realise that...
Regardless, its impact has been way bigger than any public transit. That impact also has been both positive and negative.
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Singapore's public transit system is run as a for profit (two competing companies, in fact), and it's one of the best and cheapest in the world.
Considering that you can't just buy a car in Singapore and need to get a permit to buy one, it better should be the best in the world.
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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.
Uber is nuts for letting drivers use their own maps app.
The Uber native maps app is almost invariably incorrect, at least here in Brooklyn. It does insane stuff like trying to put you on the BQE (interstate) to go like 800 yards or route you from Brooklyn to Brooklyn by transiting Manhattan and two bridges.
Until they figure out how to fix that they pretty much need to let drivers flip over to Waze or something.
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Uber is nuts for letting drivers use their own maps app.
I was careful not to say "third-party" maps app. They may have been making excuses for their own mistakes, but drivers have told me that sometimes the built-in Uber maps also get the wrong location. I have no idea if that's true and have always been confused about whether the driver app even has maps built into it.
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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...
Why use GPS, just walk to an intersection so you know where you are, and set the needle there. If driver comes on the other side of street, maybe cross the street. A tiny bit of effort goes a long way...
Whenever I called a rideshare, I very explicitly set the needle to exactly where I was. It's amazing how frequently I'd have a driver park across the street and a block away, and get angry when I didn't come to them.
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Even the best funded public transit services are substantial money losers. Paris covers 70 cents of every dollar, Madrid 60 cents, and even in Berlin and Munich its 30 cents. But that covers 100 percent of their expenses. If Uber had to shell out to fix the streets that they use, I bet it wouldn't be so cheap.
Singapore's public transit system is run as a for profit (two competing companies, in fact), and it's one of the best and cheapest in the world.
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Uber is nuts for letting drivers use their own maps app.
Yeah no. The Uber native maps app is almost invariably incorrect, at least here in Brooklyn. It does insane stuff like trying to put you on the BQE (interstate) to go like 800 yards or route you from Brooklyn to Brooklyn by transiting Manhattan and two bridges. Until they figure out how to fix that they pretty much need to let drivers flip over to Waze or something.
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…
This has always been the Uber experience for me in the UK - drivers who cannot speak English, and when the road is closed for repairs(which google maps doesn't know about, because it seems incredibly poor in this country) they have no idea where to go and now suddenly it's up to you to tell them where to go. I've had maybe 1-2 good competent and friendly Uber drivers, but whenever possible I go with any local taxi co…
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You know Uber builds it's own mapping services right? And in fact, the guy who helped lead those efforts is the guy responsible for creating Google Earth which later formed the basis for Google's entire mapping efforts (which he led). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon He's a great guy by the way, in addition to being super smart. Your others points are not well thought through at all - I urge you to spend…
> But this isn't just about Uber. This is about ride-sharing in general, which completely changed what transportation in cities means. It is absolutely innovative in every sense of the word. I think you are overstating it somewhat. Ride Sharing is just a doublespeak name for owner-driver minicabs, which have been around for ages.
But when all these services end up doubling in price, as they're going to inevitably have to do (and the autonomous vehicle cavalry isn't going to charge in to save the day), it will be interesting to see what happens. My own experiences suggest there are a lot of people who don't want to get sweaty walking 3 blocks or to mingle with the masses on mass transit.
I just wanted to drop a note to say I think Uber is doing a good job, all things considered. Many public transit companies have been around for decades and haven't figured out how to scale up to the kind of service Uber is providing. 4B rides in 2017 is pretty amazing. 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)
>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) I think a better comparison than total cost is how much money they are losing. The difference between what I'm paying and what I feel like I'm getting with uber feels like... a lot, and that lines up with everything I've read of their financial situation. If you are willing t…
hence why we have taxi services, why all cities across the world have taxi and similar services. transit cannot go everywhere nor can it quickly adapt to changes in public needs. buses are the best bet for adapting but services need both rolling stock, drivers, and usage cases, to move whereas taxi and ride sharing services react on need.
plus in the current meta where "soon" there will be self driving cars and buses all which are EV it will completely transform public transit. I just hope to be there will it does.