Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis
fivethirtyeight.com
fivethirtyeight.com
1) They drive as if they are on a rally track. I have had never experienced motion sickness before until I moved to Manhattan.
2) If you ignore the tip or tip them in the range of $1-3 you get snarky remarks from them.
3) If you try to hail a cab and (regrettably) ask the taxi driver to drive you to a place where their chances of hailing a passenger back are slim then they will rudely turn you away (Tip: First hop in then tell the direction. It is a NYC law).
I can go on and on but point being Uber is the much needed necessary evil in scarce resource cities like Manhattan.
But you should still report it. It is the volume of reports that are considered. Plus, you're calling a facility run by the city, not calling the taxi company.
But discussions like this are loaded with people who assure us that certain ultra-common behavior "is illegal", as if that somehow settles it, so I'm going to tolerate otherwise content-free reminders that this is not true.
I see what you're saying. There are two fallacies at play:
1) same logic that people use to reason out of voting (it doesn't matter if I do x because it hasn't mattered before). 2) the logic that because it's illegal means it isn't permitted (which is, as you stated, not always true).
I'm not sure if it truly matters if people report taxis. What I am sure about is it will never matter if no one cares to report them to begin with. This works for any system.
We don't care about illegality per se. We care about "not making the bad thing happen". If illegality accomplishes that, great! But if it doesn't, then it is non-responsive to our concerns to remind us that it does. It's like if you're going to friends talking about problems you encounter, and all they ever tell you is, "Well that's not supposed to happen".
The process of enforcing the illegality puts a lot of burden on the customer, and your response recognizes that it requires people going far out of their way.
In practice, a system that requires most individuals to make heroic sacrifices is the same as a system that just doesn't work.
1) Uber comes in pays well - sources on the net for hip drivers - You get awesome English speaking nice drivers
2) Uber starts to drop rates
3) Good Uber drivers quit for lack of pay, existing cabbies start to drive for Uber
4) You end up getting the same cabbies as before Uber, but with surge pricing.
It takes a while, but eventually it ends back up in the same exact place as before :( Totally happened in Chicago in front of my eyes.
In a new market Uber will pay something like 95-110% of fares taken in to drivers (not exact numbers, would need to look). Over the long run I think it drops to 60-70%, or something significantly worse (as clearly paying drivers 110% of income is not sustainable).
If Uber decides to change the commission it almost always grandfathers existing drivers to what they had when they joined.
In chicago you can call 311 but you have to register a case and show up in the court on the hearing date.
You can't really complain about general rudeness, but most usually the really rude behavior breaks at least a couple rules.
1) No communication problems telling the driver where you are going. If you or they don't speak English, that's fine
2) No tipping.
3) No cash/form of payment shenanigans
4) ETA and location information in near real-time
5) No hailing--great if you are an introverted person/don't know how to whistle like a truck driver/etc.
Honestly, if the taxi industry adopted that dispatch system I would have no problem using it. Uber should do enterprise licensing for "Uber For Cities" so they can finally run their taxicab operations properly.
Taxis do not compete in any meaningful way.
If I'm in downtown or SOMA, I will use a taxi (either hailing or using Flywheel). It's usually a huge time saver (and there's no "surge" pricing either).
Seems like they are simply using as-the-crow-flies distance, which is kinda crazy.
Sounds like something Uber themselves would do come to think of it.
There was a precise cliff-edge over which service levels dropped dramatically, and it came a few months ago when the lowest priced tier, which had nice, big modern cars with really professional drivers who knew the city, was replaced with a tier branded as 'uberX'.
The uberX experience, while still certainly usable, is a very obvious step down from the previous standard. To sum it up, it basically feels less like you're getting an on-demand professional driver/ taxi, and a lot more like you're just flagging a lift from some guy with a car.
The cars themselves are a big step down - much older, smaller, worn out interiors, sometimes even without seatbelts. On numerous occasions the drivers have been far from the professional driver standard. In general they get the job done but they sometimes don't know the roads very well, and I've run the full spectrum of issues like them taking forever to get to the pickup point, often driving past it and circling back round a one-way system etc, having to take ridiculous detours en route because they miss a turn, going via obviously gridlocked routes, asking me for directions along the way to the destination. All of the things you just don't expect to happen with a driver service but you might expect to happen if you asked a friend for a lift. It's not a guaranteed slick service like it previously was, at all.
I'm not sure what happened here but this, along with the Android app being fairly buggy and seeming to get worse over time (takes minutes to lock GPS coordinates, really kills my battery, sometimes completely freezes when you're tracking them coming to pick you up, gives you a locking error message when you've lost your data connection so you can't even see the map, or the license plate of the car, any more) has really downgraded my impression of uber from something which was all-round vastly better than taxis, to a something which is basically on the same level and that I'll just use when it's not that convenient to hail a taxi on the street. And I'm no big fan of taxis.
It's a shame, I used to rave about uber to anyone who'd listen, but if the level of service for the same cost continues to slide like this here and in other cities then I could see myself looking for and switching to competitors much more often where previously I had no real need or desire to.
Uber adds a level of accountability that NYC cabs do not have.
I feel like cabbie turnover is so high, if 1000 join Uber.. 200 get canned so switch to Lyft... 200 more cabbies will just join Uber the next month.
A rating system is good over the long term, but if people have an average life in a market of a few months - it doesn't do a bunch.
All else equal (and many say all else isn't equal here of course, though that argument cuts both ways), a system with SOME accountability is better than a system with none.
[1] http://uber-partners-static.s3.amazonaws.com/chicago_uberx/f...
Personally I give a 5 star as default unless they are sub-service given I know they face being cut if below ~4.5. So for me it almost works as a negative only scale with no positive points for exceptional service.
Based on what Uber is spending on acquiring new drivers I would assume they have eased up on threshold for booting poorly rated drivers. Based on the recent revelation that the map view of nearby cars is now simulated I would assume that the published reviews should no longer be taken at face value either.
At the beginning the pitch went something like Uber would win because it had so much data that it would be able to route drivers much more efficiently than any new competitor. The pick up times rather have gone the other direction over the year. If anything, there are far more opportunities for vehicle transport services now.
I wondered, what if the future Uber, rather than offering the awesome service it had in the beginning, ended up being just as mediocre as what we had before -- cabs, buses, towncars you booked a day before -- but just in different ways?
It's not necessarily a bad thing for business models to be cyclical. Even when it results in a downwards spiral, it usually allows the problem space to be explored, and that spiral can be disrupted upwards... at the cost of temporary lack of quality.
1) Uber comes in pays well - sources on the net for hip drivers - You get awesome English speaking nice drivers
2) Uber starts to drop rates
3) Good Uber drivers quit for lack of pay, existing cabbies start to drive for Uber
4) Alternate company, takes lower margin, pays drivers well and offer better customer experience.
5) Uber hold some inertia in via brand name while the majority of the market recognises new services is better and uploads new app on their phone over the course of a year or 2.
This is the beauty of the Uber model. Its relatively easy for new entrants to enter. There's no medallion system holding out innovation. The day Uber mucks around their customers/drivers significantly I'll delete their app. I already use an alternate one occasionally for comparison and cause I like to see competition in the market.
It doesn't seem to me that your crucial step will work. Uber is worth >$50bn, but more importantly has a substantial amount of cash on hand. I can't imagine anyone could out last them in a price war.
Give that response was largely about someone saying when Uber has lost their customer service quality, that would be a large switching point alone. I went to Uber more for service and convenience. Price was a bonus.
And they will be limited on price wars. If someone comes in at slim margin, paying more to drivers, Uber can hardly go negative in pricing. Firstly they have investors to appease. And in many countries they would be charged with predatory pricing and be in a heap of trouble. They might knock out a few competitors this way but eventually anyone competing would have massive regulatory protection in this area.
Convenience is another protective moat. Simply having cars available. But its easy for a car to run 2 versions at once if they feel the demand is there, even if Uber demand exclusive service (again possibly causing regulatory issues), policing it would be nightmare when one can simply have a second phone in the car. And pushing for exclusive would likely shoot themselves in the foot if there is increasing demand from the market elsewhere as some drivers will be forced to jump ship hurting their own service.
Steps 3 and 4 are no longer relevant.
I'm not sure what the solution is with this whole mess though.
Stories of not getting picked up and rumors of complaints are not the same as "Taxi number ZX123 did not pick me up, though they were on duty and looked directly at me hailing him".
There is no proof of the incident, but at least there is the official record. It gets logged, it's a statistic, and it's something officials in the city can state: "we've had X number of complaints this year about taxis. This is up twice from last year."
4. They pretend that ccard machines are not working. Demand cash.
5. Cars are so old that someone of them have no Air conditioning.
6. Drivers often have BO and are often chewing gutka(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutka)
7. Rude. This needs to be said again.
I mean, it's obviously a scam, so most of the time they don't, and they're not actually broken, but at least there's something you can yell back at him when you arrive and he demands cash.
If you can't afford to tip your taxi driver, take the train. Sorry.
In certain Asian households it is expected that you take your shoes off, if you know this, and still stomp around the household in your shoes, would you say there was no justification for the owner of the household to be rude or snarky?
You might be able to argue that the enlightened person might say "I don't know what has happened to this person today, or why they're doing this, and I will try to find out their story before assuming they're just being an uncultured ass", but there is certainly justification, especially when it comes to the fact that these people are earning their livelihoods in this way and the tips are an essential part of that.
As well as all of Canada (when we have a house party, there can be a pile of 30+ shoes at the front door, and someone inevitably loses one or both shoes), and most other countries...
Shoes in the house is the strangest part of the US to me.
In that case, the host should at least consider the possibility that they forgot about money they owe you, or that this was an ambiguous case, before concluding that you're committing a faux pas.
The analogy is that tipping is supposed to be "optional" in some sense, and there's tremendous disagreement about what is appropriate in what context, and that "if you felt this person didn't provide you with great service, you can reduce or withhold the tip".
Thus, if you tip too little, the driver should consider it to be possible feedback about underperformance.
Of course, they way it really works is that they expect you to give 20% irrespective of service, but want to maintain a pretense that it's "for service", enforced by rudeness-with-impunity.
If cab drivers expect a tip regardless of service quality, then the tip might as well be added to the cab rate.
Yeah, it should be, shouldn't it? But it isn't. The system is fucked, of course, but it's fucked in a very deliberate way where "protesting" by not tipping hurts the cabbie significantly, and the people responsible for the system not at all.
Then they would try to rip us off by driving long routes when we know it's bs. It's hard to argue with them afterwards.
Forget about calling a cab company for a pickup. They almost never show up. It's maddening.
The argument of regulators is that, in the absence of proper congestion pricing for cars on the road, the market equilibrium for number of taxis per inhabitant will be higher than is efficient. That's how they justify a cap on the number of cabs. (It increases wait times but, they argue, it is worth it for the fewer number of cars on the road causing congestion).
So the question isn't "are there more Manhattan pick-ups after Uber entered the market?", it's "are there more cars on Manhattan street?" or "Have average trip times in Manhattan increased?".
How likely is it that Uber cars have actually replaced taxi cars on New York streets? In the minds of many consumers, this replacement has already happened.
> Precise data on congestion is hard to come by — that was part of the fight — but we were able to estimate that Uber vehicles contribute to about 10 percent of traffic in Manhattan, south of Central Park, during the evening rush hour.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/upshot/blame-uber-for-cong...
Uber ultimately will have enormous leverage to submarine any meaningful competition and even to displace public transit. Their national scope will make them a force to be reckoned with.
"The theory of disruptive innovation was invented by Clayton Christensen, of Harvard Business School, in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. Mr Christensen used the term to describe innovations that create new markets by discovering new categories of customers. They do this partly by harnessing new technologies but also by developing new business models and exploiting old technologies in new ways. He contrasted disruptive innovation with sustaining innovation, which simply improves existing products. Personal computers, for example, were disruptive innovations because they created a new mass market for computers; previously, expensive mainframe computers had been sold only to big companies and research universities."
[0] - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds [1] - http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/31/news/economy/nyc-subway-cons...
I'd arguing that Uber has the potential to pose a disruptive threat to taxis, not subways. And to lots of transportation systems in plenty of other cities around the world.
This ultimately results in less feeder traffic for the subway, higher subsidy requirements and is overall a bad thing for the system.
Über's valuation is all about the market clout they are building. The fantasies of robot cabs are just a veneer.
Why do I need to trust Uber for reputation management? Is there really any other piece of Uber that couldn't be replicated overnight by a knowledgeable enough team?
Uber decided to hold off entering Spain, which let a bunch of similar services (Cabify, Hailo, MyTaxi) operate in that market. Same in Denmark - almost every cab passing by advertises a URL for their specific app.
Is that really true? More people might ride cabs if the experience was less annoying.
So, when do we institute congestion pricing?
Uber drivers might not be making bank, but from what I can tell they are doing better. If I'm wrong about please correct me, I'd love to hear some feedback on that.
I often ask Uber drivers if the pay is worthwhile since I don't want to be supporting something that is screwing people over. So far it all seems positive for the most part.
* the pay is decent (ranging from a hair above minimum wage to a healthy and sustainable source of income)
* the benefits are non-existent (most don't seem bothered by this)
* the job security is guaranteed (a huge plus)
* the work schedule is at their discretion (another huge plus)
* the work environment is quite good (passengers are usually very friendly, you work from the comfort of your car, the on-boarding process is quick and painless)
All in all it's a net benefit for most people, in terms of quality of life and financial stability. What's not to love?
Note: this is all purely anecdotal and most drivers I have spoken to have been working for <1 year, in most cases <6 months.
Put another way, if a few someones you give a ride to rate you low, you lose your ability to earn. That's hardly "guaranteed"... I would certainly contrast it with the current model of "at-risk" employment we have now, but the certainty of your word choice feels facetious at best.
There are complainers out there but from feedback I've gotten after commenting on a driver once I suspect Ube at least attempts to handle those kinds of situations.
About the benefits, most of them do Uber as a side gig so they often get benefits from their main job or Uber is a temporary thing.
There is a finite amount of job potential which you are able to compete for. That's why Uber drivers often drive for Lyft as well because they are just sitting around waiting for someone to hail them, because there is no job security past the fare you are currently picking up.
This is also reflective by the fact that you arent an employee but an independent contractor who has very little rights and no benefits.
The debate is not only for NYC or DC. It's knowing that your transportation service in Paris, Kinshasa or Moscow has a 4.5 rating.
[1] I don't even have a personal opinion on this, personally I loved cabs in Madrid, but I'm just taking notice of a worldwide trend.
(from the article):
CHANGE IN APRIL-JUNE PICKUPS, 2014 TO 2015
BOROUGH UBER TAXI NET
Brooklyn +1,123,969 +299,388 +1,423,357
Queens +655,525 +191,974 +847,499
Manhattan +4,045,735 -3,685,504 +360,231
Bronx +126,283 -265 +126,018
Staten Island +3,920 +192 +4,112
Manhattan (core) +3,818,179 -3,830,621 -12,442
A while ago the city found income taxes weren't enough, and the state and feds didn't give them enough, so there's a separate NYC income tax. And then that wasn't enough so if you're a small business there's a separate unincorporated business tax. It's not enough to just add a new line or worksheet to compute this tax, it's a whole separate form, a whole separate set of duplicative questions, a separate mailing address, a separate check. And then that wasn't enough so they created the MCTMT income tax, which again is a separate form, separate mailing address, and its own check.
The tax amount isn't as costly as the additional bureaucracy generated at both ends of the equation. Raise the rate? Nah. Add a new line for computation? Nah. They want completely separate offices, forms, addresses, and their own check.
Oh and each one of those wants separate estimated income tax payments made 4x per year. It's just insane.
From the article, in the busiest part of New York, "Uber gained 3.10 million pickups, while taxis lost 3.09 million."
I read this to say that almost every Uber ride would have been a taxi ride if Uber did not exist. It doesn't seem to be replacing private car use at all. If it were, we'd see Uber rides increasing faster than taxis ride are decreasing.
Private car usage could be accounted for in the 100,000 more uber has than taxis there.
My impression, though, is that most car owners are not using their cars for intra-Manhattan travel, which is what Uber is doing a lot of. Rather they're using their cars to travel to NJ, upstate NY, Long Island, or other areas where taking an Uber isn't practical.
I would have expected some impact on traditional black car service but that may be such a small slice of the total that it doesn't show up in the numbers.
Until Uber launches calendar integration there will be an advantage to having a private driver reliably waiting outside and knowing where to go next. Many peoples' drivers also double as ersatz admins.
Uber is therefore primarily disrupting the shit electronics powering the current "yellow cab" style cabs. These include the meter, the dispatcher and radio system, and the advertisement screen. That is the real source of disruption.
The ratings etc. are just noise to poach costumers away from taxis. Or more correctly, to force taxis to adopt Uber as logistics provider. Once monopoly is established the consumer-facing niceties become irrelevant. Nothing prevents Uber from lowering their minimum ratings requirements, for example.
(1) the efficiency of the app/gps combo vs traditional cab dispatch. This seems fairly easy to copy by incumbents and new entrants and in fact being a private company operating your own network has shown some weaknesses (ghost cars injected into map to fool customers, drivers not given accurate pickup info to protect from competitors which delays pickup, etc.)
(2) the quasi-legal setup of "we will pick you up and take you to somewhere else for money but we're not a taxi company" that allows them to disrupt the medallion ecosystem where it exists. This advantage only manifests in areas where supply has been heavily and artificially constrained and disappears once the medallion bubble has been burst.
Ten years down the line are drivers going to be complaining about the Uber tax after a price hike?
They should stop trying to take aim at Uber and use the opportunity to learn from them. They should study why Uber is so successful and what they - the taxi company can do to compete. It is the only way they stand a chance.
Uber raised the bar in terms of user experience, so the industry is scrambling to react. No harm with a little competition. My company (Pocketworks) do a taxi app in the UK that's effectively competing with Uber.
Does anyone know if Ubers long term plan is around disrupting logistics? Having a network of drivers that can move anything on demand would be really powerful.
Pre-Uber days, getting a cab in NY was painful. You can't call them to come pick you up. More often than not, the cabbie will complain about taking a credit card or just say the machine is broken. Rides TO the airport are a mixed bag of using the fixed fare vs the cabbie encouraging you to go off of it.
Are there are legitimate complaints about Uber that don't come from the standpoint of defending the incumbent cab industry? I just don't get the constant hate they receive.
Everyone is looking out for number one (themselves), so the protected cab industry is going to fight uber tooth and nail. They'd be stupid not to. Any protected industry would do the same. It's on the rest of us to see that for what it is.
[1] http://www.geekwire.com/2015/apple-takes-smartphone-market-s...
I guess its actually slightly harder in an area like that to compete with cabs because there are lots of cabs and you can just wave one over. Although the app is pretty easy to use.
Do the taxi companies have an app now like Uber and are they competitive in pricing and pickup times?