Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lyft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 181 posts

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

#61

Post by londons_explore »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #36
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.

Talking to a driver about this I was told that the platform is always re-routing drivers to maximize revenue for lyft, so when the app says "finding you another driver", it's not the driver that canceled, it's the platform decided that driver was better off, revenue wise, to complete a different fare. The fact that this is opaque to the end user just means we get mad at the workers and not the corporation, classic.

The fact that OP can see "finding another driver" 8 times suggests that perhaps there is some prioritization system, and OP was low priority - such that if any other request came in before him, then the driver would be re-routed.

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

#62

Post by mistrial9 »

uneekname wrote: post #56
bri3d wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this the driverless car team, vs. the ride-mapping team? Regardless, it's good to see that they are contributing back to OSM. I agree that overall the use of OSM by anyone "lifts all ships" as long as users continue to contribute back. OSM is one of the most positive projects around lately in terms of taking something that used to be extremely expensive and highly restricted and democratizing it.

That may be true. But as a whole, it is worth noting that Lyft hires a significant number of people to edit OSM. Here is an interesting 2021 post by Jennings Anderson discussing paid edits on OSM, and how companies compare in their contributions: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings%20Anderson/diary... I agree about how successful OSM has been recently. In an age where Wikipedia for example seems relatively ma…

Jennings Anderson is a lead on Digital Twins standardization now

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

#63

Post by londons_explore »

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

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.

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

#64

Post by itake »

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.

Grab has been using OSM for years and they contribute back. I don't see where the innovation is here?

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Grab

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

#65

Post by londons_explore »

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.

This... As soon as you click "reserve", you're locked in...

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

#66

Post by bsimpson »

throwaway049 wrote: post #9
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've submitted a correction for an illegal turn instruction twice on Google maps. No reply. But my other corrections have been accepted.

I don't understand how Maps verification works.

I've added sidewalk vendors to the map with names like "coconut cakes lady," and had them approved instantly.

I've also tried to rename streets, including the news article about the name change, and had them unceremoniously ignored. Same for adding a new bar to the map with a photo of the menu, even though other places I've added have had hundreds of thousands of views.

There doesn't seem to be an underlying system. There's a famous traffic stop in Muine, Vietnam listed as something like "social security office." The photos are all of the traffic stop. The reviews are about the traffic stop. If you run the name on Maps through translate, it comes back "traffic stop." I've tried repeatedly changing the category to "traffic police" and been silently denied.

There's a bar in downtown SF at the wrong address. Comments are about the address being wrong. There's even a photo that says "our address on Maps is wrong." Try to fix it in Maps? Denied.

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

#67

Post by yellow_postit »

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…

Lived near a bridge and both Lyft and Uber would endlessly try to have drivers end the drive on the bridge instead of routing off it.

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

#68

Post by nharada »

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…

Totally agree, I just had this happen to me two days ago. The Uber app bugged out and left me with a fare that was double what I was quoted, and there was basically no way to get in touch with Uber about it. You know how often support chatbots offer a "talk to a human" option? Not Uber. Just links to articles about how I'm holding it wrong.

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

#69

Post by mistrial9 »

acslater00 wrote: post #40
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…

Yes - Lyft contributed the overwhelming majority of the new data back into OSM. The only exceptions were layers that didn't meet OSM community standards for various technical reasons. Source - I led this team

your team contributed more OSM changes than .. who? everyone else in the whole world?
Post reply on HN