Uber Is Serving New York’s Outer Boroughs More Than Taxis Are | Hacker News Reader

Uber Is Serving New York’s Outer Boroughs More Than Taxis Are

fivethirtyeight.com

162 pointssvtrent110 comments

This is good to know, but not very surprising. NY Taxis are known to refuse rides to outer boroughs. A decade ago, one had to jump into the cab, tell him that the destination is some fancy neighborhood, and then once he flags the meter you tell him the real destination (Queens - gasp; Bronx - sheer cursing). And often when the driver threatens to drop you off midway, you call the authorities while in the cab.

For readers who think this is traumatic, it was, especially in winter nights and your destination is not served by Subway.

In fact, some friends of mine that are Black had to dress extra nicely for an otherwise casual dinner on Friday nights, just so that the cabbies would think (wrongly) that the fare would be for some nice neighborhood. And one had to make sure, he stands on avenues that are not pointing towards Harlem. It was a done thing for a white buddy to hail the cab, and the black friend gets in (There is a certain choreography that goes into this - the black person had to stand close but not-too-close and in a location where he can apparate after the cab has come to a halt but not in a way that gives him a chance to rev up and scoot).

Here is a recent article from Huffpo and Washpo that talks about this in detail:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/23/...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-larosa/nyc-cab-drivers-bl...

I don't think that's the problem so much as simply that Uber's model is more effective at serving the outer regions.

Out of curiosity can one not order a regular cab by phone to come and pick you up at a destination and the dispatcher already knows the destination?

Where I live that's pretty normal and only costs a tiny bit more.

In many neighborhoods you can get a car service to do so yes. It's not feasible in all situations however.

Yes, a shady car service that in many cases does not have a price before hand, that does not take credit cards, that always tells you it will be there in 5 minutes (even if you'll be waiting 30+ minutes).

Never had a problem with our car service in Manhattan Beach. You get a price from the dispatcher right away and usually their cars are on time. If they're busy the dispatcher will tell you right away. And price wise they're much cheaper (50%) than Uber. Also I like the new lexuses that the car service uses.

Their location is few blocks away from us, so you need to do research to make sure that the car service is around you.

I live in Queens and the only complaint of yours I can qualify is that they don't take credit cards.

Car service cabs are plentiful and cheap in my area. Many of the drivers directly communicate with you by phone and have GPS.

They also charge a lot more and sometimes never show.

Cabs are hail only. Car services in NYC are either pretty shady or expensive.

The cheap reliable ones used to be focused on specific ethnic groups. Now they have green cabs that work the boroughs and take calls as well.

There are car services that are generally reliable. The problem is, this is on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. I know who to call to get me to the airport from my apartment, but if I'm in an unfamiliar part of town and I don't know someone who lives there, all bets are off.

Car services in NYC are either pretty shady or expensive.

Going to have to disagree with that. Almost all car services I've used in the city have been fine, and much cheaper for things like airport travel than a yellow cab.

Is it illegal for a cab to refuse a fare in NYC?

Yes

So why do we hear stories like the parent comment of people being refused a fare, or have to go through this elaborate theatre of getting the begrudging cab driver to take them to their desired destination

Unless the authorities don't give that much of a crap when people report it? Seems like a failure of the law enforcement tbh. Although granted, being refused a cab fare is hardly top priority in the grand scheme of things

Because not everyone follows the law. And not everyone reports it when it happens. If you're trying to get home and the first cabbie says no - and you don't insist - you'll probably forget about it once you get in another cab taking you home.

Reporting, getting into an argument with someone who has your safety in their hands, getting authorities to confirm… That takes a lot of time when you are late for diner.

And after that, you forgot the cab plate number, or even the driver's face.

Behavioral details like that matter a lot for web or mobile-based services.

A decade ago? Hell, that still happens with frequency. I don't know how many times since I moved out to Brooklyn that I've pulled the "hop in back and misdirect" strategy. I'll sit in a cab and call 311 and put the phone on speaker, that usually gets them moving.

And the black person thing? I've _definitely_ flagged down cabs and then stepped back so that a black guy who was getting ignored could get a ride. It's infuriating.

I think you've really hit on one of the reasons that cab driver protests fall on deaf ears: nobody likes cabbies.

In my experience, Uber's cars are cleaner, I have a lot less trouble paying (had a card declined once, but I was informed after my ride - no awkward interaction with the driver) and - let's be real - most modern cab drivers use the same GPS the Uber guys do.

On the other hand, anybody I know who's taken cabs regularly has had issues with them. I've had drivers try to rip me off in Greece, America, Poland and Austria. Not turn on meters, switch meters to a higher rate, cranked up meters. I've had cabs that stank so bad we had to drive with the windows open in the winter. Cabs that put out black smoke behind me. Cabs that canceled 2 minutes before they were supposed to show, leaving me in a panic. A few years ago here in Poland, if a driver made up to some amount, he had a simplified (easier to cheat) tax code. So lots of drivers stopped driving in late November... which meant getting a cab around Christmas was almost impossible. Who the hell would want to catch a cab around Christmas/NYE anyway, right? /s

With Uber I take my ride, get out, get an email with the route and price I paid. I can dispute the route (never had to), I have some sort of evidence, even if me and the driver get in an argument. Thing is, I've never had that issue with them. Ever.

This is such a good point. Uber has normalized the taxi experience. Hailing cabs in different cities across the world can be stressful. I remember the streets in Abu Dhabi being huge and getting a taxi was pretty competitive at certain times of the day and hoping that one would even come by. I love that I don't have to deal with dispatchers and how wildly inaccurate they were (almost always on the late side).

In fact if a city had Uber service I would be potentially more likely to visit knowing that getting around would be that easy and not creepy like you mentioned.

I was in NYC a couple weeks ago. Uber driver told me his brother drives a cab.

I asked if the cabbies were mad at Uber. He said Uber is good for them because it reduced competition among cabbies for cabs. Apparently, before, you'd go pick up your cab for the day and they'd tell you there were none left. And if you did get a cab, the dispatchers would demand money in exchange for sending you good fares.

Seems like Uber is good for cabbies, but not necessarily the medallion holders.

The TV was also full of anti De Blasio ads from Uber.

A couple of Las Vegas cabbies have indicated to me that they were hoping Uber would arrive in full force, because the deal they get from the incumbent operators is so bad.

Boston Globe had particularly good coverage of the cabbies' plight.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/01/spotlight/IkU7k...

Planet Money did a piece on one of the larger medallion holders, that had the same conclusions.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/31/428157211/episo...

I live in Virginia and have been getting those anti De Blasio ads... I'm not sure why.

I'd guess because there's a lot of commuting between NYC and the DC area.

Earnings for Uber Driver = (timeDriving - timeLookingForFares) * payRate

Earnings for Cab Driver = (timeDriving - timeLookingForFares) * payRate

As a taxi driver, timeLookingForFares is heavily dependent on the amount of people hailing cabs per block driven. As an Uber driver, since you are routed to fares automatically the timeLookingForFares variable is dependent on both how far away other cabs are and the density of riders.

Clearly cabs should clump in higher density areas.

Serious question: are there no taxi apps in the US? You would think cabs would also be routed to the next customer automatically?

There are. But, they are inherently limited. Via fixed supply and fixed pricing.

Exactly what is Limited by supply and price? Surely not the app? Perhaps the dispatcher charges a fee for access to the API?

The cabs themselves. There are a limited number of licensed cabs, and prices are preset.

I don't see how that would negate the convenience of an app.

You need a variable supply to accomodate for varying demand. Uber would not be able to deliver 10min and under pickups if their supply was limited.

I'm not sure what stops EasyTaxi from working in the U.S. I use it in South/Central America and it routes regular taxis, you pay in cash like usual but get the convenience of the Uber experience of knowing a cab is on the way, and who the driver is.

http://www.easytaxi.com/cities/

At a guess, it's because it's a Rocket Internet company and the group generally does not like operating in the US for a variety of reasons (chief amongst which is that their business model is to execute ideas in emerging markets, not developed countries).

NYC is a special case - yellow cabs are not allowed to be prebooked in any way, shape or form. Street hails only.

(they're piloting an e-hail scheme, but it's far from done)

I talked to an Uber driver who said he previously drove a cab for 15 years (in NYC). His biggest complaint was the medallion rental fee, it comes out to over $100 per day (around $150 at peak I think?), even when you're sick or you want to take a vacation. You just can't, you can't afford it.

He shared a cab with a rented medallion with a friend, they would each do a shift each day. One week there was some serious engine trouble, and the cab was in the shop for a week, neither of them could drive it. He called the medallion owner to ask for leniency, and was told that if he wanted, the medallion would be removed and he would be out of a job. Otherwise he can continue paying over $100 per day.

Apparently the accounting with uber doesn't penalize you to the same degree when you need to take a day off, even with car payments and such for maintaining a nicer car.

This isn't true in the usual case, they don't usually pay unless they drive except in the weekly case (and are paying lower per day cost). Most companies charge about $125/day or $500ish/week. If they do the day rate, they get paid the same day for CC transactions (unlike cities like SF which take comparatively forever). Yes, this is still seemingly high cost, but when you consider the medallions cost $600k (which is down from the million plus pre Uber) and the fact that drivers don't own the car and also don't pay wear and tear on it, it's not so crazy.

I take Ubers and cabs every day and usually talk to the drivers about their experience if they are friendly. Both systems have their ups and downs and I can assure you neither has the interests of the driver in mind. It's simply up to the driver to decide which of the two evils hurts them less.

Why is it not so crazy to pay $600K for an item of no value, simply to be allowed to provide a service?

It is not a credential, so it can't be compared to the cost of a degree or similar in other fields.

It is not and has never been awarded based on merit. The first were given to those who happened to be taxi drivers/owners at a time when taxi service providers when the same convinced the municipal government to limit their competition.

It costs money because it's a durable capital expense that generates revenue, and can later be sold for as much or more than you initially paid.

Now as to why have medallions - taxis cause congestion, and a lot of it. You drive your privately owned car to work and park it, a taxi keeps circling the block all day and pulls to the curb to pick up fares. A single taxi causes as much congestion as 40 private cars [1] - and New York is notorious for gridlock already. You gotta limit congestion somehow, and it makes sense to limit the most congestion-causing vehicles first. And when you're talking about a limited revenue-generating asset then the price spirals upwards.

I personally think medallions should be auctioned on a yearly basis or something, to minimize the financialization.

[1] http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/01/20/more-taxis-...

It is not a capital expense in the same way that a vehicle is. It is physically impossible to offer taxi service without a vehicle. It is merely illegal to offer certain types of taxi services in some areas without a medallion. I am asking why a medallion is reasonable in the first place, a question we wouldn't have to address regarding a vehicle.

As to congestion, that is a post hoc justification of medallions that were intensely lobbied for by taxi companies as an anti-competitive measure.

Would you say that pollution allocations (eg SO2 or CO2 credits) are also not a capital asset? I mean sure, you can buy them and sell them or take out an option against their future value. But you could just break the law and pollute without one perfectly fine.

I fundamentally disagree with that assertion. Legal compliance is just as valid a consideration as physical necessity. Just because you can dump toxic waste in the river doesn't mean that should be the baseline behavior. Congestion is basically a form of pollution - pollution of our traffic system.

The existence of taxi medallions is no more or less valid than the existence of liquor licenses. Societies regulate things that they deem to have negative externalities, film at 11. It doesn't matter that they have roots that you dislike (eg prohibitionism), what matters is the role we assign them in the present time.

Even if the need for limiting a service is true, why auctioned? Just give them for free in a lottery, and tie them to the recipient so they can't be sold or exchanged. If the recipient doesn't want it anymore the medallion reverts to the Authority and a new lottery is called to re-assign it. This is done for example with public housing in a lot of places.

At the end of the day they are a scarce, highly demanded, revenue generating asset and as long as people are renting them, someone will price them appropriately (i.e. whatever the market will bear). It should be the city capturing that revenue instead of Mario's Medallion Rentals [1]. There are externalities to having a bunch of taxis clogging up traffic - $500 million per year in wasted time alone. The city is the one who spends to improve mobility.

At the end of the day taxi service is a business. Nobody goes homeless because of the scarcity of medallions for roaming taxicabs. Driving for a dispatch service or doing other work - yes, homeless - no. If you're suggesting that we do it as a subsidized public-works jobs program, I can think of much more deserving projects than driving a taxi. I'd rather have them driving subway trains instead, for starters.

[1] Note: the current system does not capture revenue for the city very effectively, but it should.

Doesn't Uber solve the wandering empty cab problem? Uber cars don't need to drive around to find fares.

I'd say it's some better, but not all better. The problem isn't just the finding fares part, it's the fact that they are on the roads all day. When you drive a private car to work you spend 8 hours parked, and the car is off the roads. Commercial vehicles like Uber drivers will do back-to-back runs for hours.

It's better than inching around the block all day though. And to their credit they are all driving using GPS guidance. That probably does help throughput somewhat vs Mark 1 Intuition by routing you away from congested routes, avoiding hesitation and missed turns, etc.

> can later be sold for as much or more than you initially paid

If the price is down by over 40% since pre-Über, that's questionable.

Past performance does not guarantee future returns and all that.

That's good in my book, I'm not a fan of the way they've been financialized. I'd rather see them auctioned off on a yearly basis to avoid institutional investors running the price up. So a big drop in medallion value is just fine with me.

I never said it wasn't crazy for the medallions to cost as much as they do. I just said it's not crazy that the person who was wise/foolish enough to pay that shouldn't be allowed to try to recoup the cost from someone using it.

It seems I brought some of my priors into this discussion.

Apologies for the misrepresentation of your position.

I took a look at the monthly revenues of Yellow Taxis and the # of total fares with the NYC TLC data set that was released last week.

   SELECT LEFT(DATE(pickup_datetime),7) as month,
   SUM(fare_amount) as total_revenue,
   COUNT(*) as num_fares
   FROM [nyc-tlc:yellow.trips_2014], [nyc-tlc:yellow.trips_2015]
   GROUP BY month ORDER BY month

Here's the quick-and-dirty output: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NVcScdHtcWvF9oSZGE3_...

If Uber is eating the TLC's lunch, why isn't there a dramatic shift in revenue loss? (trendline has only a slight decline) However, it does appear the # fares are on a downward trend.

It's important to note that Uber also created a brand new market. Many of my friends, and myself included, would've never considered using taxis "back in the day" when doing errands or day-to-day activities. Alternatives would've been to just drive ourselves or take public transportation. Uber and Lyft have made it frictionless and convenient enough for everyday use.

What I'm trying to say is that Uber isn't only cannabilizing the market share of taxis. Yes, they are definitely taking some of that, but more importantly they are differentiating themselves enough to cater to a whole new crowd that wouldn't have ever used taxis in the first place.

>Many of my friends, and myself included, would've never considered using taxis "back in the day" when doing errands or day-to-day activities

Absolutely. I would NEVER use a cab to get to/from the airport. But I will use Uber. Doesn't even have anything to do with pricing - far more to do with service.

... which is interesting, because while it demonstrates that cabs are perhaps not as damaged by Uber's business model as they claim they are, it plays into DeBlasio's arguments that Uber increases congestion.

Intuitively, I'd say Ubers spend less time driving around looking for a fare, and a more intelligent dispatching/routing model would decrease fareless miles driven. That said, if it causes a shift from subways, it would increase congestion.

I don't think this is a reason for the government to attack Uber. If traffic is a problem congestion charge type systems would be more effective, as it would 'penalize' all players equally; Uber, Taxis, and private vehicles.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons for them to attack Uber already; the contractor model, the beg-for-forgiveness model, etc.

I've never been to NY, but in other (European) cities that I've lived in, the main issue with congestion are parked cars: commuters have to leave them wherever they can, including at corners where they block traffic a lot more. About half to two thirds of Paris drivable area are taken with parked cars (most streets are one-way three lanes with cars on both sides).

If car commuters use Uber, you relax that source of problem. Not sure how much Uber substitutes for car commuters, though.

The existence of Uber literally changes my business travel planning. Previously I'd always pick a hotel within walking distance of the primary purpose of the trip (company office/conference/etc). Since Uber exists, I get to pick any hotel in the city. I literally ran up more in Uber bills in 2 weeks than I've spent on American cabs in 33 years and couldn't be happier with it.

(Anecdata: I actively avoid American cabs because I seem to have a sign printed on my forehead "Please try scamming this kid. He will not escalate and call the cops." Including, relevantly to this article, twice getting into a cab in Manhattan and told that the cab did not service Brooklyn.)

Not all cabs in the US are that terrible, but a lot of them are. To add to the fun, taxicab regulation/licensing is done by the municipalities, which is okay for somewhere like NYC, but in the Valley, Sunnyvale cabs are different from Mountain View cabs or San Jose cabs or Palo Alto cabs. In Boston, Boston cabs are different from Cambridge cabs or Somerville cabs or Brookline cabs or Watertown cabs, and they're all not allowed to pick people up on the street in "foreign" territory. Having one single company to deal with no matter where you are in the metro area or the country or indeed the world makes things so much easier.

Last time I was in the Bay area, I took cabs. Oh what horrible experiences!! I finally took the plunge and used Uber. I was very satisfied until I encountered "surge pricing" when going to the airport at 5am. I'm still a fan but am a bit mixed about relying on it.

For long distance trips from the airport (hour long), I still think Uber is pricey. On my last trip from an airport, a black car would have costed 120-150, with a driver in a suit or an Uber (90ish). Since surge pricing is not predictable (by me), I would go for the black car option since it is certain.

The whole discussion makes me realize there are multiple markets for cabs. Uber definitely rocks the "hail a random cab for an impromptu ride" market. The "planned trip to the airport, etc." is a different market that has yet to be cracked.

Because of stupid protectionist laws as I mentioned above, your (I presume) 40 mile trip to the airport is actually an 80 mile trip for the driver. Because the airport belongs to the City and County of San Francisco, only San Francisco taxis (and now Uber as well) are allowed to pick passengers at SFO, so the driver has to drive back to his home town with no passengers. As for surge pricing... well, presumably the conventional-taxi alternative is no cabs available at all, but its unpredictability does sound annoying.

I think this is the biggest point taxi companies fail to grasp. I NEVER consider taxis. I would sooner walk than take a taxi. Uber doesn't have the same grody, sketchy perception that taxis do. I have never had to call Uber on an Uber driver, while it seems like I nearly ALWAYS had to threaten to call the cab company on the cabbie ("Cash only", taking some idiotic route, etc). It is WAY too much work to get a ride home from a taxi.

I ran a quick year-over-year comparison on your data, for Jan 2015 -- June 2015 (compared to Jan 2014 -- June 2014), and the average reduction is -7.8% of revenue and -9.7% of trips.

IMO, that's quite significant for a 1 year drop.

Ah, that's probably a better way to look at it than from the straight linear trend.

Another observation is that taxis will also have their own place too. Taxis have the benefit of being in the right place at the right time. They're distinctly marked and you don't even need an app to use one. Just raise your hand and you're good to go. There will always be impulse purchases when it comes to needing to get a ride. Perhaps it's raining, you have no shelter, you need to get into something, anything. Or you've just arrived at an airport, full of luggage, after a long flight, you just don't want to deal with calling an Uber.. oh look, a line of taxis ready and waiting. Ride share services and taxis both won't go away because they each have their own distinct advantages and use cases. And as the population grows, there will still be a large enough market for both to exist and profit.

I'm not so sure... even at the airport, with a traditional taxi I have to worry about whether they will take my credit card (or take it but complain about it), if the taxi is clean, if the driver is some weirdo, will I get attitude about my destination, figuring out the tip etc.

I recently used Uber at the San Jose airport and it was a glorious experience. The app switches to a different UI specially for the airport, I select the exit number I'm standing next to and the ride shows up in about 2 minutes, the driver already has my destination on his GPS before I get in (no more sightseeing tours), no fussing with payment at the end and I get a nice receipt emailed to me with the drivers details and the route taken. Taxis are going to have a hard time competing once more airports allow Uber properly. And they've got no one to blame but themselves.

I live in Europe and for the last 15 years taxis prefer to be hailed via phone/sms rather than hailed on the street. If you hail a cab on the street you will get a higher rate plus a hailing fee. Cabs near airport/railway station that are parked there are a tourist trap since they charge almost triple price plus drive you a longer route. Basically a taxi company strikes a deal with city council so only their cabs are allowed to park there and then make their "hail from the street" rate as high as local laws will allow.

an old business professor of mine from college, who took a company public at one point, taught us that "if you're not growing, you're dying". the same mantra is now repeated here in silicon valley in the form of "move fast and break things" and "grow as fast as possible",etc.

regarding your spreadsheet, it doesn't take into account seasonality. factors such as weather and tourist activity certainly affect revenue.

if you take the total revenue in months Jan-June 2015 and compare them to the same time period in 2014, the delta is -8%. if you look at the last datapoint and compare to the first, you get a drop of 1%.

They're not eating the yellow/green cabs lunch, but they are taking jobs from livery cars. Unfortunately we don't have data on their earnings.

They are livery cars.

Yes, I meant other livery cars. They're cornering the market.

But what do you mean they are taking jobs from livery cars?

I don't understand. It's very different in NYC, where all the Uber drivers have proper professional licenses and license plates and are bonafide livery drivers, from other cities where what are essentially random people with cars are now competing with professional drivers.

I have many reasons to be very critical of Uber but this doesn't seem one of them. They are taking business away from car service companies, many of which were little neighborhood storefronts around the city, but I don't see how they are taking jobs from livery cars really, as they are not.

Probably because of the TLC stronghold in Lower Manhattan. I think it goes without saying that most of the hottest, quickest fares can be made on the island. If Uber can penetrate those fares, the slope would be more dramatic.

Time will tell is my guess.

Uber is serving Oakland CA waaaaaaay more than taxis ever would.

And South Peninsula - Getting a Cab in Redwood City, or Cupertino used to be a minimum 30 minute way (Which I never understood - how can it always be 30 minutes, why would there never be a cab 10 minutes away) - and, late at night, Cabs would sometimes just not show up at all.

Uber is typically a 5-10 minute call away during the daytime in Redwood City/Cupertino, and later at night, around 9:00 PM, you can get an Uber in < 20 minutes, which is awesome compared to the way it used to be.

By coincidence, I just did a hackathon in Redwood City this weekend, and on Friday ~11pm I was able to get one at an office park that arrived just after I made it outside from the 2nd floor.

Whatever forces stopped this kind of thing from working before were destroying a lot of value. I know there's always the talk of what cost Uber most be socializing with this service, but even at a 50% fare increase that would have been an extreme improvement over the previous options, so you can't really explain it away as pure cost hiding.

Do you remember if you paid surge pricing? i would guess thats probably the reason. i'm from NYC but am currently in SF. both cities have surge pricing late at night, or when its raining in NYC. taxi regulations artificially depress prices but Uber may have created a fair (?) way of pricing things properly. hence service becomes faster. i'm sure surge pricing creates incentives for more uber drivers to drive at night over time, hopefully it will even out.

There was no surge. It was ~$7 for an 8 minute trip. (!)

Some people don't like the surge - I love it. It means that 100% of the time when I take out my mobile phone, and open up the Uber App, I'm going to get an Uber in a major metropolitan area. I then get to decide for myself whether I'm willing to pay that surge price.

With Taxi's, the decision is taken out of my hands. There are just no taxi's available during rush periods, and I'm left stranded.

"Taxis." In English, we use a plain S for plural nouns.

If you're gonna be so delicate about it, at least get it right.

I think there are a bunch of different ways of pluralizing English nouns. Oxen and geese think so too...

Apologies. Normally I catch stuff like that when I read it (but quite often not when I type it) - and it's incredibly frustrating to see. I have an increasing tendency to confuse where/were, there/their, its/it's when I type, and I have to insert a 60 second delay before hitting submit and confirming I haven't blown it. Particularly annoying is the use of 's when it's not needed. Thanks for pointing it out.

No worries. Thanks for fixing it.

HN plz stop making certain comments nearly impossible to fucking read on my phone. Thanks.

I am not surprised. Last time I was in New York, I wasn't in downtown and it was so hard for me to get a taxi. There are so many taxis in NYC but most of them stay in the same area. As soon as you are not in a populated area, it's close to impossible to grab a taxi. I am pleased that Uber is making things move.

Isn't Uber really replacing calling a car service or taxi then?

The title of this article is a little misleading. In absolute terms, medallion cabs are still about 10x more active in outer boroughs than Uber. (~1M rides for Uber vs ~12M rides for green/yellow cabs).

It seems like it would be more appropriate to compare these figures to other livery cab companies since that is essentially what Uber is. I don't think it's very surprising that Manhattan has a higher percentage of street hails than the outer boroughs.

I was in NYC a few weeks ago and Lyft Line was $5 flat rate anywhere in Manhattan! Beats taking the subway if you ask me.

On a more related note when I was in Bushwick in Brooklyn it was pretty much impossible to even see a cab let alone hail one. I didn't even think twice about calling an Uber to take me back to the city.

I was in NYC a few weeks ago and Lyft Line was $5 flat rate anywhere in Manhattan!

Here's the problem with that - it's a heavily subsidised, promo rate. None of us should get used to it, because once Uber/Lyft destroys the other they'll stop doing it.

That's definitely a limited-time-only offer, but how are Uber or Lyft going to destroy each other? Maybe by erecting some kind of regulatory wall, but otherwise, the barrier to entry seems so low it's hard to imagine one of them winning a monopoly.

The barrier to entry is huge - getting people to download your app and getting drivers to drive those users around is not a simple process. That's why numerous apps have already left the market.

Here in Germany you call a cab with your phone when you are away from the city center. Usually the taxi arrives within ten minutes.

You can do that in the USA too. Generally, the cab will arrive - but in many cases it is not profitable for the driver to come out of their way to pick you up so sometimes they will not. The problem being that cab drivers are mostly independent contractors, and the cab dispatcher and government regulators don't have much ability to force them to do things that will lose money.

> but in many cases it is not profitable for the driver to come out of their way to pick you up so sometimes they will not

How is the same thing profitable for Uber drivers?

Uber and Lyft monitor both the driver and passenger. The driver is more confident that the passenger will be present when the driver arrives. The passenger can be more confident that the driver will in fact arrive and not pick up someone else along the way, never telling the dispatcher that they changed their mind.

The lack of trust between taxi driver and taxi passenger ruins phone call hails. Once in Austin, I called the dispatcher for a pickup, waited for 2 hours while calling every 15 minutes and being promised a ride in 10 minutes, eventually gave up and walked 5 blocks to a major intersection and immediately hailed a cab off the street.

Since taxi passengers can't guarantee they'll get picked up, a taxi passenger will sometimes call multiple companies or pick up a random cab from the street. Since taxi drivers can't guarantee the passenger will be there upon arrival, they will pick up any random person along the way.

Uber drivers will be more geographically distributed to match real-time demand due to their systems. In theory. As well, drivers will be more likely to operate where they live if demand is there. Again, in theory. Therefore, less costly to pick up people.

Cab drivers who drive out to drop someone off are very likely to hurry back to the dense parts where they can pick someone up. Uber is able to cover a large hailing area, so if cab has gone to the suburbs, they are more likely to be able to pick up a ride from the suburbs.

Uber drivers don't pay for the rationed "taxi medallion", which elsewhere in this thread is reported at ~$100/day.

I believe the OP is talking about a car service, not a medallion taxi cab.

Requesting on your phone and seeing exactly where the car is is much better.

For a long time Taxi's have had a monopoly on their market. Like any monopoly they under-serve.

Nice that Uber is shaking that up.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, Uber Drivers are being kidnapped by taxi drivers and get their cars smashed...

Same here in Uruguay for EasyTaxi drivers (an Uber clone).

I was encouraged to apply for at position for Uber in Uruguay, but I'm really not cut out for the work (it involves fighting the extremely strong cab driver's union here, which isn't above kneecapping).

Seems like the best use for uber. Honestly, in European capitals I've been in, uber was better in the outskirts than hailing something in the interior. Seems like a logical extension.

In some cities, like Tel Aviv, Get Taxi and Uber use a similar model (all licensed cabs) but coverage and penetration matters.

I think it's fairly obvious that the Uber/Lyft model is inherently more effective at serving the outer regions.

I'd be more interested to understand if Manhattan congestion is a legitimate concern.

I listen to NPR and it seems there is a lot of anxiety among people about technology and automation and it seems all doom and gloom, it almost makes me feel guilty.

But after I though about for a while I realized its all rubbish and technology is being used as a scapegoat.

Technology has allowed constant deflation in the past 40 years for everything from food to transportation due to enormous efficiency gains.

If it WAS NOT for technological innovation there would have been a revolution by now, since cost of housing, education and healthcare has shot up ( as well explained by Elizabeth warren's research ).

While wages have been dropping in real terms. Essentially technology has allowed people to afford clothes, etc. Without it the average person wouldn't be able to afford anything.

So the reality is things like the Uber revolution is not happening fast enough ! The average cost of taxi rides is ridiculous compared to what it was in the past.

The real controversy is not Uber causing joblessness. If we want to innovate a lot - there is always going to be constant destruction of old methods. Uber will be replaced with driverless cars, who will be replaced by personalized solar driverless cars, etc.

Those jobless people should became part of the supply to bring those changes.

----------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Raghuram Rajan [1] essentially helped me see capitalism and the free market in this new more enlightened light.

Capitalism seems to be getting a lot of bad rep since 2008 - but its not the fault of the free market. This medallion bullshit is what is holding the free market behind and creating a welfare system for taxi drivers and billionaires.

In a real free market billionaires would quickly lose their wealth as new competition would destroy their wealth.

Rather than protect workers - we should try to retrain them for the coming knowledge economy.

[1] Dr. Raghuram Rajan predicted the financial crisis in 2005 while working for the IMF. He has a great book called "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalist".

His argument for reform is really controversial - essentially he states the US economy is overinflated, the military industrial complex, housing, financial services. While the real economy hasn't been able to grow, compared to germany, etc.

He doesn't believe the Keynesian argument about a loss of aggregate demand - there is always demand for things - housing, better healthcare. Its just that the supply side is completely distorted - and this taxi cartel is one example.

The US spent trillions on QE to prop up the housing bubble even more - while it could have used that money to retrain the workforce to do more productive things - more doctors, more engineers to create robots.

Even though there is no demand for houses at the price that people want to sell. Sure a lot of baby boomers will end up with negative equity but that is capitalism and Free market ! Its your decision to tie up all your wealth on your house rather than invest in your kid's education or pay higher taxes so government could pay if for you and create better healthcare.

The government is the biggest culprit, they tried distorting the market by allowing the buyers to have more credit than they could afford.

Sorry about being so ranty. But I do not want my industry to be scapegoated.

>This medallion bullshit is what is holding the free market behind and creating a welfare system for taxi drivers

How exactly is being forced to pay to do your job a "welfare system"?

Yeah, it's very definitely a form of rentier capitalism: the creation of an artificially scarce resource on which monopoly rents can be charged.

did they release this uber data to the public: i dont see it in these tables:

https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/results/emerald-diagram-43...

Doesn't it make sense that street hails would be lower in areas with a lower rider density?

But not Upper Manhatten. The way the questions are constructed and the way the author headlines where Uber is superior, rather than inferior (or better yet, rather than both), feels like yet more Ubermania, not balanced analysis. It's getting old.

I'm not even quite sure I know mine or the public's interest? Why do I care?

Hmmm ... At least, drivers and passengers should be protected, and I think services should be available to as broad a segment of the community as possible. And decisions for the community should be made democratically, not by whoever spends the most.

>And decisions for the community should be made democratically, not by whoever spends the most.

Is "What cab service should I, a random private citizen, use?" a decision for the community to be made democratically?

An excellent indicator of Ubermania is that the parent comment was voted down to -4. (I don't care about the points.)

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