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UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

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Re: UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

#71

Post by tptacek »

gojomo wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong; the city medallion systems are evil. I'm just saying they're a necessary evil. If we could replace them with something sane, I'm onboard!

You're quick to dismiss all prospects for a mobile-device-assisted reputation system based on v1; assume instead that it iterates a number of times and eventually chiefly helps the dispatchers identify bad actors, rather than customers. With digital cameras and other low-cost person and location tracking technologies, it's not easy for drivers to take riders on any ride other than that which was contracted, nor for p…

Try it out in San Francisco. San Francisco cabs are horribly broken.

Unfortunately for your argument, while the medallion system does unjustly restrict competition for cab driving jobs in Chicago and NYC, it does not in fact appear to harm consumers. Cabs work in Chicago and NYC. The potential harm of deregulating and devolving controls to unproven technology far outweighs the benefit.

Re: UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

#72

Post by jfager »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #67
jfager wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, just so I follow, your proposal is to impoverish cabbies and drive the skill level of the average driver down as low as it can go while increasing the number of vehicles on the streets in a city where it already takes an hour to go a mile? May that you never be in charge of taxi service.

Yes, my proposal is to reduce the wages of current cabbies, increase the wages of future cabbies (the people currently making $25k/year, or perhaps who are unemployed, who would take jobs as cabbies at $35k/year) and lower the cost of taxis to consumers. As for the number of vehicles, that's an issue not primarily caused by cabbies. A congestion charge (levied on cabbies and drivers alike) and eliminating free parkin…

Yes, my proposal is to reduce the wages of current cabbies, increase the wages of future cabbies (the people currently making $25k/year, or perhaps who are unemployed, who would take jobs as cabbies at $35k/year) and lower the cost of taxis to consumers.

Which in NYC, with its existing low cost subway and bus alternatives, basically translates to "helping rich people by eliminating the lower-middle-class jobs their fares currently support". You would expand the pool of people who choose cabs over the subway down from the top a little bit while pushing the actual service workers further out from the city.

As for the number of vehicles, that's an issue not primarily caused by cabbies.

Perhaps because the current medallion system restricts the number of operating cabs?

A congestion charge (levied on cabbies and drivers alike) and eliminating free parking seems like a solution to that

I'm all for a congestion charge (though my version actually wouldn't apply to medallioned cabs) and eliminating free parking. But you said the point was to lower costs for consumers by increasing competition. We're getting to the point where we actually have to do the math to see where everything falls, but if you don't tweak the parameters right, you could easily find yourself in a situation where consumers are right back to paying today's fares (because there aren't actually more cabs on the road) but instead of the money going to the cabbies, it's going to the city in fees.

it works pretty well in London.

London, where cab drivers are probably the best paid, most skilled, and most stringently regulated in the world?

Re: UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

#73

Post by jfager »

tptacek wrote: post #68
jfager wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, just so I follow, your proposal is to impoverish cabbies and drive the skill level of the average driver down as low as it can go while increasing the number of vehicles on the streets in a city where it already takes an hour to go a mile? May that you never be in charge of taxi service.

Having read 'yummyfajitas closely for awhile now, can I take the liberty of predicting that he will acknowledge the NYC congestion problem, but suggest that we should be addressing it with a market-based solution that targets it directly, instead of as a side effect of regulations? I agree with you not him , because I don't trust the process that will generate the market-based solution, and I think the medallion syst…

I suppose I don't understand how reducing congestion can be seen as a "side-effect" of the medallion system. That's one of the explicit reasons it exists: to cap the supply of cabs on the streets.

Re: UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

#74

Post by tptacek »

jfager wrote: post #73
tptacek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read 'yummyfajitas closely for awhile now, can I take the liberty of predicting that he will acknowledge the NYC congestion problem, but suggest that we should be addressing it with a market-based solution that targets it directly, instead of as a side effect of regulations? I agree with you not him , because I don't trust the process that will generate the market-based solution, and I think the medallion syst…

I suppose I don't understand how reducing congestion can be seen as a "side-effect" of the medallion system. That's one of the explicit reasons it exists: to cap the supply of cabs on the streets.

The problem isn't the number of cabs on the street; it's the number of cars on the street. So charge a congestion tax. Even if there are 10,000,000 cabs, if the congestion tax is set appropriately, they won't all be clogging the streets, since they won't be able to make a buck doing it.

Re: UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

#75

Post by gojomo »

tptacek wrote: post #71
gojomo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're quick to dismiss all prospects for a mobile-device-assisted reputation system based on v1; assume instead that it iterates a number of times and eventually chiefly helps the dispatchers identify bad actors, rather than customers. With digital cameras and other low-cost person and location tracking technologies, it's not easy for drivers to take riders on any ride other than that which was contracted, nor for p…

Try it out in San Francisco. San Francisco cabs are horribly broken. Unfortunately for your argument, while the medallion system does unjustly restrict competition for cab driving jobs in Chicago and NYC, it does not in fact appear to harm consumers. Cabs work in Chicago and NYC. The potential harm of deregulating and devolving controls to unproven technology far outweighs the benefit.

Totally agree SF is where this should be tried first -- it's the US city where cabs are both needed and broken, and smartphone adoption is very high. And the great thing is: that's where UberCab is in fact starting.

However, I expect that if the service becomes popular, both the cab and MUNI lobbies will attempt legislative sabotage, and the SF supervisors are so enamored of paternalistic reasoning it's a real threat to the business.

Re: UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

#77

Post by mkramlich »

what I like about this is the rider has an iPhone so while the cabbie is transporting him the rider can see the Google Maps routing path, and compare that to the actual position and route the cabbie is taking. If they differ significantly the rider can know he's getting scammed. Technically the rider could do this without UberTaxi as long as he has an iPhone, but since UberTaxi depends on the rider having an iPhone app, it comes along for free.

Re: UberCab to disrupt the Taxi/Limo business

#79

Post by kscaldef »

tptacek wrote: post #57
jfager wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say people wouldn't leave reviews, I said they wouldn't have the same social incentive to do so as with other things that get reviewed. Other incentives (revenge) of course still exist, but the result is probably a heavy bias towards negative reviews, which can still make the system pretty unusable. And this isn't necessarily the eBay problem, if you have to provide a driver's license or some other set of cr…

Nope: (a) There will be more than one of these dispatching services, so you'll just hop. (b) There's an inherent TOCTTOU problem, since they're only checking licenses when you sign up, not every time you pick up a fare. You'll just "rent" someone else's license; there are presumably tens of thousands of people who don't care what their cab dispatch reputation is.

There are probably not tens of thousands of people with the correct license endorsement. Those who do have a commercial driver endorsement are probably not so keen to rent it out.
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