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Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

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Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#111

Post by darkwizard42 »

londons_explore wrote: post #77
dylan604 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible that those shitty tips you've been leaving are adding up in other ways? I live in a neighborhood that borders a part of town that is accepted as a "bad" part of town and is often confused as being part of that part of town. I have only ever not had the "finding another driver" twice from my house, and originally assumed it was location location location. I had a guest stay with me last summer, and they never…

It would make perfect sense to have some ML model which predicts which customers will be most profitable, and treat those guys well to improve retention amongst that client set.

Forget ML, Lyft can tell if you are a more profitable / more engaged customer through your usage of Lyft Pink, which explicitly offers Priority Pickup. They are transparent about getting you a driver sooner, for cheaper, and I guess the subscription you pay for drives the value.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#112

Post by mvdtnz »

londons_explore wrote: post #63
KMnO4 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a ride from YVR airport where no less than 30 drivers[0] cancelled on me. I would get the notification that the driver was on their way, tap it, and then catch a brief one second flash of the driver before they disappeared and I was back in the queue. [0]: I’m sure it would be much more, but I gave up and took the train instead

At airports, its often much better to walk just outside the boundary of the airport. Airports often have special rules, pickup fees, etc. Drivers don't want to pay an $8 fee just to make a loss on your journey. As soon as you're a few yards out of the airport, none of that applies and a driver will be happy to take you.

> At airports, its often much better to walk just outside the boundary of the airport.

Even easier to use one of the many taxi cabs waiting at the curb right by the terminal.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#113

Post by balderdash »

sushisource wrote: post #17
bri3d wrote: post #3

Does anyone know if Lyft plan to contribute their map corrections back to OSM? They mention other companies doing so in this blog post, but don't make it clear whether or not they, too, intend to. I'm curious to see how good Lyft Maps is, too. Uber Maps is, frankly, a disaster in my area, frequently suggesting illegal and/or impossible turns. I try to submit map feedback every trip (very hard as a rider, as most form…

I also find it consistently obnoxious that there is essentially no way to say "My driver was fine, but your platform did something stupid" when leaving feedback. At least, not without jumping through a million hoops. The arrogance of our industry is tiresome. I took a ride in SF a while ago and it predicted a 3 minute pick up time which turned out to be 25 minutes - no fault of the driver, and the only way I could co…

This - I find 2/3rds of my issues are platform vs driver. And there is no way to penalize the platform vs the driver + the driver then deals with the aftermath of a pissed off customer even if they were great. It would be as easy as having two star ratings, “how was your driver?”, and “how was your whole experience?”.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#114

Post by balderdash »

ryandrake wrote: post #27
sushisource wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find it consistently obnoxious that there is essentially no way to say "My driver was fine, but your platform did something stupid" when leaving feedback. At least, not without jumping through a million hoops. The arrogance of our industry is tiresome. I took a ride in SF a while ago and it predicted a 3 minute pick up time which turned out to be 25 minutes - no fault of the driver, and the only way I could co…

Pick up time predictions are garbage, because ride shares allow cancelations. Last time I used a ride share, I had eight drivers accept and then cancel on me. The predicted departure time was always "8 minutes away" and then "looking for another driver" over and over. I probably waited an hour.

I feel like the ride shares need to commit to firm pricing and pickup times at booking, ride is discounted $1/min for every minute over the estimate.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#115

Post by sahila »

ghaff wrote: post #89
dylan604 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>its often much better to walk just outside the boundary of the airport are you serious? what airports do you visit where you can do this as a suggestion without laughing. It's like telling the freshmen that there's a pool on the school roof. even something as small like a Bob Hope in Burbank would be difficult. Most airports do not consider pedestrian traffic to the edge of their properties. I've done it once at tha…

Walking out of an airport of any size (and even many/most smaller commercial airports) is between impossible and taking your life in your hands given that sidewalks/crosswalks/etc. are largely lacking. Most commercial airports just don't contemplate pedestrians walking in and out. It might be possible to walk to East Boston from Logan airport though I'm not sure how--and that's an airport that's basically right in th…

Take a shuttle to car rentals or a hotel, and then you'd be out of the airport area; doesn't have to be a "walk" walk.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#116

Post by eklitzke »

generativeai wrote: post #82

Sound like the company has not invented here syndrome. Maps is largely solved problem. Mapbox has a great product that is customizable. Perhaps the company could better spend their R&D to focus on products that directly imoroves it's market share and revenue.

They likely do use mapbox for rendering maps, as their SDK is really customizable, is designed to work with the OSM data format, and you don't need to pay mapbox to use it (at least for older versions). But mapbox is not necessarily a good solution for all of the routing requirements Lyft has. For example, at SFO ride hailing drivers are required to wait in a special parking lot outside of the airport, and then dispatching for rides is done based on which driver has been waiting in that lot the longest. You could probably make this work with mapbox, but it isn't necessarily a matter of just plugging it in and calling it done.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#117

Post by balderdash »

KMnO4 wrote: post #58
ryandrake wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick up time predictions are garbage, because ride shares allow cancelations. Last time I used a ride share, I had eight drivers accept and then cancel on me. The predicted departure time was always "8 minutes away" and then "looking for another driver" over and over. I probably waited an hour.

I had a ride from YVR airport where no less than 30 drivers[0] cancelled on me. I would get the notification that the driver was on their way, tap it, and then catch a brief one second flash of the driver before they disappeared and I was back in the queue. [0]: I’m sure it would be much more, but I gave up and took the train instead

I don’t understand why I shouldn’t receive a $5 cancellation fee when drivers cancel if they are choking to charge me $5 for cancelling…

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#118

Post by balderdash »

KMnO4 wrote: post #58
ryandrake wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick up time predictions are garbage, because ride shares allow cancelations. Last time I used a ride share, I had eight drivers accept and then cancel on me. The predicted departure time was always "8 minutes away" and then "looking for another driver" over and over. I probably waited an hour.

I had a ride from YVR airport where no less than 30 drivers[0] cancelled on me. I would get the notification that the driver was on their way, tap it, and then catch a brief one second flash of the driver before they disappeared and I was back in the queue. [0]: I’m sure it would be much more, but I gave up and took the train instead

I feel like the regular taxi stand is now often much faster (and often cheaper) at many airports as a result of these dynamics

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#119

Post by balderdash »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #45
sushisource wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find it consistently obnoxious that there is essentially no way to say "My driver was fine, but your platform did something stupid" when leaving feedback. At least, not without jumping through a million hoops. The arrogance of our industry is tiresome. I took a ride in SF a while ago and it predicted a 3 minute pick up time which turned out to be 25 minutes - no fault of the driver, and the only way I could co…

I think for users who comparison shop between Uber and Lyft, the pickup ETA is part of each app’s bid. Putting a lower price costs them money, while putting a lower ETA is free.

100% massively detracts from my willingness to pay for their services …

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#120

Post by twelve40 »

sushid wrote: post #104
ccooffee wrote: post #4

> By late 2019, Lorimer and Justin Moore, then the head of engineering, were ready to form a team to “do the impossible” — create a home-grown mapping system. THE IMPOSSIBLE: A "home-grown" mapping system built on OpenStreetMaps? Lyft seems to really lack any imagination if _that_ was considered impossible.

What's more shocking is that they decided using 250 high paid EPD workers to not pay a Google Map licensing was the way to go. They could have incubated at least 10 different products during this critical time.

it's not about not paying Google Map licensing. There are, as mentioned, geo features like pickup ETA, trip ETA and cost, drop-off location photos and features that Google doesn't provide at all.
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