How Uber Plans to Conquer the Suburbs
buzzfeed.com
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Private enterprise relies on business failure and distribution of resources to those who can pay the most for them. Some things can't fail (police, fire, transportation, water, medical, etc.) and are needed by everyone regardless of income.
> What if their motive is to bankrupt public transport agencies and then raise prices when people have no alternative?
Uber prides itself, IME, on very aggressive business tactics, concerned only for profit and not, for example, its own workers, local laws, etc. I would be surprised if they did otherwise than what you say.
That said, I don't think the situation is as dire as you're describing. Getting around in smaller American cities is _already_ difficult for many people- as you mentioned, those living on very limited budgets, but also the elderly and other people that can't drive themselves around and must rely on family and friends.
So, in the end, I think it's less a matter of "replacing public transportation", and more a matter of "creating a realistic model for publicly-funded transportation in suburban and semi-rural America".
This is not to say that I'm super chuffed with Uber being the one to do it. But I can see a future where municipal governments become comfortable with the idea, which would open the door to competition, just as we've seen in major cities where there are plenty of alternatives to Uber.
My adjacent city just spent something like 2 years and who knows how much money putting in a new parking garage for one of the MBTA stations that have been notorious for insufficient parking for pretty much forever. With no parking at all during the construction. Assuming the numbers and logistics worked out, something like this would have been very interesting.
I'd be much less concerned if governing bodies created a non-profit that built and ran the technical infrastructure for ridesharing.
* Uber is not substituting for public transport. It's replacing the "last mile" of suburban commuters driving to the local NJTransit station with a pool of drivers who can keep rolling throughout the day.
* Uber replacing a mass-transit link (especially something like a train line into NYC) is unthinkable. The links for cars between NJ and NYC are already at or beyond capacity, and the planning is right now trying to drive commuters to use public transit when possible.
Anyway, the article mentions this is maybe ten to a hundred rides a day. This is either a PR thing or a prototype; time will tell.
I think mass transit needs to be rethought. On the one hand when I ride buses in Wilmington they are primarily empty. I can totally understand why over the past several years they have raised the fairs, decreased running times, and condensed lines and stops. On the other I can't get really get around without a car.
Due to the car first mentality uber is not heavily in demand, and prices seem higher than when I was in Philadelphia. Uber has not even entered the vocabulary of alot of people around Wilmington.
So which way do you go, the bus routes are expensive and require alot of man power. Yet there's limited demand. Do you put that in a private company? I really don't trust government to vendor relations. I know they easily get overcharged. I would literally toss money at a family subscription for uber or lyft. Locking in rides at a set rate. But that would require a subsidy. I've also seen as you said, rates start small then they raise and bankrupt another party.
For almost all routes, the cost per mile, carbon footprint, and convenience will all be better than a bus or train.
Major thoroughfares will still want to be subway/light rail/commuter rail/bus, for traffic alleviation purposes, and because high capacity is where public transit efficiency really shines. But think of it more like internet backbone—a way to quickly and efficiently get batched traffic through bottlenecks—not as the default mode of access.
Think commuters disembarking rail cars and boarding a swarm of continuously replenished self-driving vehicles, from 2-seaters (faster) to microbuses (cheaper), on the other side of the platform. Those two modes of transport, maximum efficiency and maximum convenience, will squeeze out almost everything in between.
Without centralized routes, there is no point to government involvement for the last mile (last five?) transit system, and Uber/Google/Tesla will coalesce close to cost plus 10% or whatever.
- People ride the train in Summit NJ to work in NYC / elsewhere - It's a pain to park at the train station and wastes a lot of time in the AM - It costs $4 to park in the lot currently - Uber will offer $2 each way rides to 100 residents within the city - Summit will reimburse Uber for the difference between the flat fares and the true cost of a ride, which drivers will receive up front - Summit NJ is about 6 square miles
Talk about insolvent...
In your humble opinion. It's not better in my town, it's not better environmentally than mass transit, and I don't think it's better for jobs and workers.
It can easily replace inefficient minibus lines in the suburbs though, and riding your own car to real public transit (in this case, the train). That's potentially a significant market, but I doubt it's as big as the taxi market they're trying to take over.
Externalization is the key to Uber disrupting mass transit. It doesn't matter how much more efficient busses and trains are if Uber can continue to push the costs of its operations onto the environment, taxpayers, and the less wealthy who drive for the company.
(I know this article isn't about that directly, just wanted to chime in)
Sure, for the most heavily travelled routes. Some fraction of trips—those where you're going to the same place, from the same place, at the same time as a bunch of people—fall in that category. Daily commute from a dense suburb to a metropolitan city center. Weekend trips from a dense city to a popular beach.
But for the majority of trips, a giant empty bus running several blocks away in the slightly wrong direction is far from the most optimal transport method, especially if you have a fleet of various sized driverless cars.
Centralized routes and large fixed vehicle size are generally not going to be a good thing for efficiency once we have autonomous driving.
It's not that there isn't a potential pool of drivers who are fine with working a few hours a day but it's not obvious.
This town itself may not have a ton of Uber drivers, but they can come from anywhere in the area.
That said, the town is 6 square miles and they're not getting rid of the existing lot. If you're close enough to the station, why not just walk?
Anyone living between the spokes can probably get to a spoke by walking 0.75 miles or less.
Just two or three continually circling vans/buses could go from the city center, down a spoke, then back via another spoke. Probably could return every 20 minutes, give or take.
Can it be done for less than the $167,000 per year this Uber plan will cost the city?
3 vans, operating 16 hours per day, would require a minimum of 7 drivers (to perform two 8-hour shifts per day, with a driver to stand-in for call-outs and vacations). Let's assume we can pay the drivers $10/hr (which is on the low end). At 2080 hours per year per driver, that gives us an annual cost of $145600. And we haven't even paid Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, or worker's comp and unemployment insurance yet!
The Uber deal sounds more cost-effective than the van plan.
Most people would not Uber for only $10 an hour, knowing that their car needs gas and depreciates.
Short term Uber can subsidize the drivers, but long term? I guess a lot of uber drivers come during the busy morning rush, but 0 come at say 1pm or 8pm when it is very slow. How would uber get people to drive on the slow times??
They won't. You just described the benefits of Uber's system. Their driver pool scales with demand and allows for part time work.
Many many requests, many drivers. Cool.
But 10, 5, 3 requests per hour? 0 drivers.
So I don't think you can compare a service that doesn't really work at quiet times, with a 16 hour continuous shuttle...
* Did Uber influence the politicians somehow?
* Did Uber place or pay for the article?
* How many of the anecdotal cab complaints (EDIT: And anecdotal Uber raves) in every HN Uber story are part of that PR operation (my apologies to all the legit ones)?
Yes. They influenced them by convincing them that this was a better option than a major capital expenditure on a parking lot.
* Did Uber place or pay for the article?
Almost certainly not. This is a newsworthy story. They may have given the writer an exclusive, however.
* How many of the anecdotal cab complaints (EDIT: And anecdotal Uber raves) in every HN Uber story are part of that PR operation (my apologies to all the legit ones)?
Anecdotal cab complaints are probably real, and for verification, just be a person who has had to deal with cabs.
In fairness, I don't know Uber did the things I am concerned about in this case, but I do know that they've done them in other cases.
> Anecdotal cab complaints are probably real, and for verification, just be a person who has had to deal with cabs
I am, in several towns, and am a very satisfied customer. I've almost never had any of the problems described so regularly here. That doesn't make them impossible, of course. Also, I don't think anyone would say Uber was above astroturfing on HN.
And just two days ago, my friend took an Uber from the suburbs to downtown (25-30 min ride), which only cost him an extra two bucks compared to taking public transit (1.5 - 2 hours commute).