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Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

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Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#31

Post by ekianjo »

ginko wrote: post #8
needle0 wrote: post #3

I've used JapanTaxi (mentioned in the article) a fair number of times, and while there's nothing wrong with the experience of the app, oftentimes the biggest competitor to these ride-hailing apps is the fact that Tokyo's roads are so densely populated with taxis cruising everywhere that it's often faster to just hail one passing by than to open an app on your phone. I feel the Uber service itself has a sort of a 'pre…

> feel the Uber service itself has a sort of a 'premium' feeling around it in Japan, with the cars/staff/pricing being higher-class than the run-of-the-mill taxis you can hail. Isn't the average Japanese taxi some big Toyota Crown sedan already? How much more premium than that can you go?

> some big Toyota Crown sedan already

No, it's not that great nor that comfortable, but most of the time a Taxi ride is less than 10 minutes so it does not matter very much.

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#32

Post by ekianjo »

tfw5012 wrote: post #26
CPLX wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve only been in Tokyo once ten years ago but I remember the regular taxis there being staggeringly expensive. Are app based rides really more expensive than that?

No, they're actually slightly more expensive than a regular taxi. The growth limiter for Uber in Japan is the strict regulation around transportation vehicles, partly due to the government's close ties with the taxi industry, and partly because I think the government wants to disincentivize car use in its bigger cities (this makes a lot of sense, since in Japan's large cities, public transportation is quite good). Be…

> the government wants to disincentivize car use in its bigger cities

No need to do that, most people don't use cars to commute already - It's probably fair to say that car usage is only for the weekend shopping or driving out of the city - that's why car rental is a thing in Japan for a few years now, you don't need a car every single day of the week.

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#33

Post by roystonvassey »

citruspi wrote: post #17
ginko wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> feel the Uber service itself has a sort of a 'premium' feeling around it in Japan, with the cars/staff/pricing being higher-class than the run-of-the-mill taxis you can hail. Isn't the average Japanese taxi some big Toyota Crown sedan already? How much more premium than that can you go?

> Isn't the average Japanese taxi some big Toyota Crown sedan already? How much more premium than that can you go? Toyota Century :) https://www.wsj.com/articles/japans-new-emperor-picks-his-ri... Edit: Super short TL;DR from the article > Introduced in 1967, the Century isn’t for the flashy or hasty. Prospective customers can wait months because Toyota hand-builds each one. Background checks ensure the buyer is of a…

Wow. That’s a fine looking car.

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#34

Post by ekianjo »

Vizarddesky wrote: post #6

Doesn’t matter, nobody will use it. Taxi service in japan is good enough to where this won’t be a big factor. Ride hailing services are much more expensive than taxi’s.

> Doesn’t matter, nobody will use it

Yes, that's the same thing I felt when I saw the article. It seems like an app for the wrong time and place.

Now if they had something to reduce the cost of a taxi, like a group taxi app where you may have to book in advance but you pay 1/5th of the normal fare since you share the cab with other people, that may be somewhat interesting. Such services exist but not as an app, as far as I know.

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#35

Post by ekianjo »

nihonde wrote: post #15
Vizarddesky wrote: post #6

Doesn’t matter, nobody will use it. Taxi service in japan is good enough to where this won’t be a big factor. Ride hailing services are much more expensive than taxi’s.

Completely agree. In Kyoto, where I live, taxis are everywhere and cheap. That’s true even though I’m picky and try to use an MK cab whenever possible (top class of service, IMO). Cab drivers in Japan usually take pride in their work. It’s not uncommon to see one waiting outside a home and scrambling to meet the passengers at their front door with an open umbrella. Having said that, in Kyoto, more than anywhere else,…

> Cab drivers in Japan usually take pride in their work. It’s not uncommon to see one waiting outside a home and scrambling to meet the passengers at their front door with an open umbrella.

Nothing to do with "pride in their work". When there is competition usually what makes the difference is the quality of service or the human touch. A cab ride is pretty much the same from one cab company to the other, so they try to differentiate with other things, such as knowing their regular customers.

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#36

Post by beatgammit »

ekianjo wrote: post #4
rado wrote: post #2

Interesting, as Sony is usually very bad at UX (PlayMemories, choppy PS4 dashboard etc).

Sony is not "one company", they have tons of independent branches/divisions working separately on different projects, so the failure of one group does not infer the failure of another.

Then why is it that every Sony product I've used feels clunky? Perhaps it is an issue with their approach to QA than any of the individual teams. If so, I don't expect this app to be any different.

Regardless, if people associate your brand with "clunky", they'll find reasons to dislike even a quality app. You really need to be consistent across your product lines to benefit from brand recognition.

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#37

Post by hi5eyes »

needle0 wrote: post #3

I've used JapanTaxi (mentioned in the article) a fair number of times, and while there's nothing wrong with the experience of the app, oftentimes the biggest competitor to these ride-hailing apps is the fact that Tokyo's roads are so densely populated with taxis cruising everywhere that it's often faster to just hail one passing by than to open an app on your phone. I feel the Uber service itself has a sort of a 'pre…

>Uber service itself has a sort of a 'premium' feeling around

therein lies their brand proposition

>I come into contact with the brand much more often from the context of Uber Eats.

ubers worth is their international recognition as a premium service

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#38

Post by untog »

hi5eyes wrote: post #37
needle0 wrote: post #3

I've used JapanTaxi (mentioned in the article) a fair number of times, and while there's nothing wrong with the experience of the app, oftentimes the biggest competitor to these ride-hailing apps is the fact that Tokyo's roads are so densely populated with taxis cruising everywhere that it's often faster to just hail one passing by than to open an app on your phone. I feel the Uber service itself has a sort of a 'pre…

>Uber service itself has a sort of a 'premium' feeling around therein lies their brand proposition >I come into contact with the brand much more often from the context of Uber Eats. ubers worth is their international recognition as a premium service

That's certainly how they started, bit if you get in an Uber in a random city (particularly one where drivers are not required to be licensed by the city) your experience has no guarantee of premium (unless you book UberBLACK of course, but that's a minority of trips)

Re: Sony launches a taxi-hailing app in Tokyo

#39

Post by pmjordan »

hi5eyes wrote: post #37
needle0 wrote: post #3

I've used JapanTaxi (mentioned in the article) a fair number of times, and while there's nothing wrong with the experience of the app, oftentimes the biggest competitor to these ride-hailing apps is the fact that Tokyo's roads are so densely populated with taxis cruising everywhere that it's often faster to just hail one passing by than to open an app on your phone. I feel the Uber service itself has a sort of a 'pre…

>Uber service itself has a sort of a 'premium' feeling around therein lies their brand proposition >I come into contact with the brand much more often from the context of Uber Eats. ubers worth is their international recognition as a premium service

> ubers worth is their international recognition as a premium service

Anecdotal perhaps, but that's not my impression among friends & family. (based in Central & Western Europe) Unless you consider "less likely to be totally ripped off" as "premium". Which I guess it is to some extent, but taxi drivers in many western countries have set the bar so extremely low in terms of service that competing services such as Uber just need to meet the bare minimum of expectations customers would have in other industries.

In Japan meanwhile, as has been said by others, you literally get the white glove treatment in any run-of-the mill taxi and screwing people over totally goes against the grain of the local culture, so it's hard to see how other services might differentiate themselves. Plus of course, public transportation in the cities is fantastic and reasonably priced.

(We recently did a trip to Japan with our then-9-month-old, which meant we had more luggage than we'd normally like. So we ended up taking a few taxis instead of dragging it all the few hundred metres from the train station to whatever next hotel/apartment we were staying; in Europe, many taxi drivers would probably not even have stopped to pick us up if they'd seen us with all our stuff.)

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