91–100 of 520 posts
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It sounds like you've never been to London? Who says 'TFL train'?
I live in London mate, I was making a distinction between a train that is operated by TFL and a train that is not. I also didn't call it a tube because I was referring more to the overground.
The Overground has always worked well for me, it’s unreliable for you?
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> you can see your trip, its aproximate cost, the driver's rating Here's the thing: I don't want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party that all available drivers are punctual and competent. It is not a choice I want to make. Too much responsibility is already dumped on consumers under the guise of choice. Quality control of services I utilize is something I expect to pay for.
> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 star…
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Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere? Our "grand old" taxi company in my town who advertises for being the only reliable option with professional drivers failed on me five times on a row. On successive rides I got a standard neo-nazi lecture about immigrants, my Visa credit card was refused apparently for transaction costs, two of my drivers got lost and one tried to drive to my destinati…
“ Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere?” From what I hear.... London !
Here in New York we don't have the same kind of unusual taxicabs, but we do strictly regulate taxi and Uber drivers.
I personally find taxis here insufferable. I live in Queens and regularly had to help them "remember" where Queens is. Or remember the TLC regulations about accepting a credit card.
I've not had the same song and dance with Uber.
If this is the quality that the regulations enforce, count me out.
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/black-cabs-taxis-a...
I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…
"exploiting THEIR workers." - The UK has full employment right now. If they're working uber, they're doing it because they like working for Uber.
I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…
"exploiting THEIR workers." - The UK has full employment right now. If they're working uber, they're doing it because they like working for Uber.
You could pay the whole country a penny a day if all you cared about was boosting a number metric. It wouldn't somehow translate to worker satisfaction.
I don't usually use Uber —we live in a place where it just doesn't exist— but I've been exposed to it a couple of times this last weekend. It's private hire but worse. A family member booked. A driver committed. The wait got shorter. Then it got longer. And longer. And then our trip was cancelled without reason. Another was booked. Same gig. We had no opportunity to 1-star those drivers for being dicks. The third arr…
It sounds like you had a bad experience. Almost everyone I know uses Uber regularly and almost every experience is positive. If it's 3am sometimes it takes longer, if you just got out of a bar and there's 50 other people next to you trying to get an uber you might have to walk a bit, if you're in a remote place sometimes they cancel. It's annoying. But mostly I can have a taxi outside my house in 3 minutes. I know ex…
>A driver committed. The wait got shorter. Then it got longer. And longer. And then our trip was cancelled without reason
has happened to me a lot too. I wish they would fix that some how. I'm not sure what it's about. You'd think the drivers would either come get you or not rather than say they are coming and then flake.
"Only in the last few months it has been established that 14,000 Uber journeys have involved fraudulent drivers uploading their photos to other driver accounts - with passengers' safety potentially put at risk getting into cars with unlicensed and suspended drivers." This seems, from a technical perspective, an easy problem to solve with the resources of a public company. Is it the desperation of people who need the…
I wonder what we could do, let's think...maybe...a taxi medalion with a public exam ? :D They tried to solve the problem from the wrong angle, and it turns out that the high cost of taxis, while suboptimal for sure, might not be entirely for no reason.
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> you can see your trip, its aproximate cost, the driver's rating Here's the thing: I don't want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party that all available drivers are punctual and competent. It is not a choice I want to make. Too much responsibility is already dumped on consumers under the guise of choice. Quality control of services I utilize is something I expect to pay for.
> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 star…
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I can agree with you on worker treatment but I take issue with "So many years of labour rights fights being attacked by these startups that do not invent anything but base their business model on lower wages." The only reason ANY of the taxi companies have improved service with new apps and lower prices is because of the competition introduced by ride sharing companies.
Let's not conflate Uber with ride sharing/app-taxi in general. Uber wasn't the first company of its type, it's only the one that became most known. It also wasn't like all the other ride share companies, it was well-known for utter disregard for laws and deeply sociopathic management. And it's not like this behavior was necessary to bring in all the innovation; disruption of the taxi space by private companies was ha…
The government granted a cap on drivers to guarantee its buddies got to earn a lot of money off the backs of taxi drivers.
Here in NYC, drivers rent a medallion to be allowed to drive. They start off the day in the hole.
If we're going to judge Uber for breaking this monopoly, let's also turn that same critical eye on the monopoly it broke.
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It sounds like you had a bad experience. Almost everyone I know uses Uber regularly and almost every experience is positive. If it's 3am sometimes it takes longer, if you just got out of a bar and there's 50 other people next to you trying to get an uber you might have to walk a bit, if you're in a remote place sometimes they cancel. It's annoying. But mostly I can have a taxi outside my house in 3 minutes. I know ex…
I agree it's better than the old way although the >A driver committed. The wait got shorter. Then it got longer. And longer. And then our trip was cancelled without reason has happened to me a lot too. I wish they would fix that some how. I'm not sure what it's about. You'd think the drivers would either come get you or not rather than say they are coming and then flake.
Not sure what their penalities are, though.
I've had to be aggressive with drivers sometimes to get them to cancel to avoid charging me.
This is particularly common around airport trips for me. Not sure why.