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Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

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Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#71

Post by seattle_spring »

sshine wrote: post #66
lxgr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US airport rideshare model (if you even want to call a largely emergent phenomenon that) must be one of the most wasteful things in transportation ever. Why do I have to wait for, and find, my specific Uber/Lyft out of a sea of otherwise identical ones that are all in each other's way, all while idling and wasting tons of fuel? (I know that the legal answer is "taxi medallions"; that doesn't make it any less absu…

What. I've never heard anything this stupid. I've only encountered the following two airport systems: 1) There's a queue of taxis and people coming out go to the first one. 2) There's a queue of people, and an airport person tells you when you can go to the next taxi. Depending on whether there's too many people or too many taxis.

> I've never heard anything this stupid.

I may be misunderstanding your comment, but you're saying you've never heard of online rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft?

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#72

Post by lxgr »

paxys wrote: post #67
lxgr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. You pick the kind of car you want (sedan, SUV, luxury, with a child seat, pet friendly, EV). I'd be willing to pay extra to just get whatever car is right there . I really couldn't care less about most of these modes, and I doubt that the vast majority of other passengers do either (maybe with the exception of a child seat). > It is a perfectly efficient model. You've clearly never been to JFK then.

JFK is a mess because it cannot accommodate the amount of traffic it gets. And you want to add thousands of Ubers standing at the gate waiting for passengers? > I'd be willing to pay extra to just get whatever car is right there So then just go to the taxi stand? Why even call an Uber?

What would be so hard about allowing a new Uber/Lyft in for each leaving one, physically or logically?

Uber/Lyft could allocate the "new car in" slots using whatever mechanism they currently use to match riders to drivers.

Having to find "my" car is just completely backwards in the airport scenario, at least at times of high usage.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#73

Post by lxgr »

paxys wrote: post #69
sshine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What. I've never heard anything this stupid. I've only encountered the following two airport systems: 1) There's a queue of taxis and people coming out go to the first one. 2) There's a queue of people, and an airport person tells you when you can go to the next taxi. Depending on whether there's too many people or too many taxis.

Uber/Lyft's system is that taxis wait in a (virtual) queue in an airport parking lot, and when you request one they come to the terminal to pick you up.

Yeah, and that's arguably absurd. It creates dozens of people and dozens of cars all in each other's way. It's complete and utter chaos I've not experienced in any other country.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#74

Post by paxys »

lxgr wrote: post #72
paxys wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JFK is a mess because it cannot accommodate the amount of traffic it gets. And you want to add thousands of Ubers standing at the gate waiting for passengers? > I'd be willing to pay extra to just get whatever car is right there So then just go to the taxi stand? Why even call an Uber?

What would be so hard about allowing a new Uber/Lyft in for each leaving one, physically or logically? Uber/Lyft could allocate the "new car in" slots using whatever mechanism they currently use to match riders to drivers. Having to find "my" car is just completely backwards in the airport scenario, at least at times of high usage.

Because cars aren't allowed to idle at the terminal. They wait in a queue in the parking lot until they are matched, and then come pick you up. Yes this means you have to wait a couple minutes extra, but airports enforce this rule for a reason.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#75

Post by lxgr »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #70
lxgr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US airport rideshare model (if you even want to call a largely emergent phenomenon that) must be one of the most wasteful things in transportation ever. Why do I have to wait for, and find, my specific Uber/Lyft out of a sea of otherwise identical ones that are all in each other's way, all while idling and wasting tons of fuel? (I know that the legal answer is "taxi medallions"; that doesn't make it any less absu…

I think the answer is more that Uber has externalized the cost of all that waste. Why do they care about increased traffic and increased pollution if they aren't the ones hiring extra staties to manage the chaos?

Given that Uber isn't charging (and by extension isn't earning anything) on the time drivers spend to get to the pick up point, I doubt that they don't have any economic interest in doing something better than the status quo.

I think this really is an artifact of the taxi medallion system which regulates private car transportation differently depending on the way you hail it, for largely historical reasons. (Taxis that you can just flag down used to be much more profitable, to the point where a license for that used to go for more than a million USD in NYC.)

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#76

Post by lxgr »

paxys wrote: post #74
lxgr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be so hard about allowing a new Uber/Lyft in for each leaving one, physically or logically? Uber/Lyft could allocate the "new car in" slots using whatever mechanism they currently use to match riders to drivers. Having to find "my" car is just completely backwards in the airport scenario, at least at times of high usage.

Because cars aren't allowed to idle at the terminal. They wait in a queue in the parking lot until they are matched, and then come pick you up. Yes this means you have to wait a couple minutes extra, but airports enforce this rule for a reason.

> airports enforce this rule for a reason.

What is that reason, and why are things handled so differently for taxis?

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#77

Post by xethos »

paxys wrote: post #33

Drivers have creative ways of getting around rules in most markets. In India when you get a ride assigned the driver will first call you and check where you are going, and cancel the ride (or ask for extra money) if the amount or destination is not to their liking. This happens here in the US as well. Especially for food delivery apps, the driver shown on the app will rarely be the person who actually does the delive…

> the driver shown on the app will rarely be the person who actually does the delivery

Some will get around this with fake IDs, or at one point, simply setting their own photo on the driver profile page that doesn't match the drivers license photo.

https://www.wired.com/story/priscila-queen-of-the-rideshare-...

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#78

Post by lxgr »

seattle_spring wrote: post #71
sshine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What. I've never heard anything this stupid. I've only encountered the following two airport systems: 1) There's a queue of taxis and people coming out go to the first one. 2) There's a queue of people, and an airport person tells you when you can go to the next taxi. Depending on whether there's too many people or too many taxis.

> I've never heard anything this stupid. I may be misunderstanding your comment, but you're saying you've never heard of online rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft?

Maybe GP has just never taken one to/from the airport? It's really not that common to do that in many places outside of the US. In many European cities, public transit is often the fastest way to get to/from the city center from an airport.

Elsewhere, Uber is just not great compared to taxis, and supply can be minimal:

I've had to take an Uber recently for work [1] , and I effectively had a choice between one driver that would ask me to please cancel from my side because they didn't want to go to the airport, and another driver already at the airport (with Uber blatantly lying that they'd be here to pick me up in "10 minutes", when the ride takes 30 without traffic).

[1] Expensing a taxi invoice is more of a hassle. On top of that, often the card terminal mysteriously and completely unexpectedly breaks down at the end of the ride in taxis in some places, and expensing cash payments is even harder.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#79

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

paxys wrote: post #55
Analemma_ wrote: post #39

It's not Kenya, it's everywhere. Ubers in the US are increasingly doing a lot of the same things (canceling your booking if they don't like where you're going, e.g.) and becoming indistinguishable from the pre-Uber status quo. From an economic perspective it's kind of fascinating that lying and cheating drivers appear to be the natural equilibrium state of the taxicab market; Uber temporarily disrupted this dynamic b…

> and becoming indistinguishable from the pre-Uber status quo As long as you can (1) tap a button on your phone and have a taxi show up in front of you in minutes and (2) pay by credit card and not have the driver rip you off by taking a longer route, it will continue to be infinitely better than the pre-Uber status quo.

Except your (1) is already slipping away - many drivers are now canceling on you if they don't like your destination.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#80

Post by paxys »

lxgr wrote: post #76
paxys wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because cars aren't allowed to idle at the terminal. They wait in a queue in the parking lot until they are matched, and then come pick you up. Yes this means you have to wait a couple minutes extra, but airports enforce this rule for a reason.

> airports enforce this rule for a reason. What is that reason, and why are things handled so differently for taxis?

Have you tried writing to your local airport authority and asking them the reason? Or are you automatically assuming that there's a grand conspiracy at play against you?

In most cases it's a simple capacity problem. Taxis have to be hailed physically, and there are already reserved taxi stands at every airport. There's no reason for that to change.

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