Hacker News Reader

Comment by no_protocol | Hacker News Reader

The city is about 6 square miles in area and the general layout appears to be a central hub with major routes as spokes around it to each edge.

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?

View on HN

The way you put it, I would say no.

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.

So then how does the math work out?

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??

The difference is we paid our van drivers for an 8 hour shift. Uber isn't, they are only paying when there is a demand

> 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.

I just don't see it scaling that smoothly.

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...

I like the approach, but north jersey gets considerable snow in the winter. No one is walking that in heavy snow to stand outside waiting for a shuttle

Yeah, assume the city is 2 by 3 miles and the station is right at center, then one'd only need to walk at most ~1.7 miles to the train station. That's like half an hour walk before and after work. Do your cardio a favor and start walking and leave the parking space for less fortunate people who are not able to walk.

Winter exists in NJ

Winter exists in Chicago. Never stopped me from walking a few miles. A normal healthy person should be able to walk 2-3 miles down to -10 degrees or so, which would cover 99.99% of the year. Yes babies and the old and the sick need something else, but the bulk of people commuting on these trains are 30-60 year old healthy (if not a bit overweight) individuals.

Summit is suburbia. You don't have sidewalks across the entire city, it's very hilly in places, and the train station is not centrally located. Walking and biking year round is out of the question, and that's not even accounting for people not promptly clearing snowy sidewalks before commuting hours start (usually 6am).

And people should also eat their vegetables and floss daily. Even ignoring bad weather, the city needs to plan for transportation the way people actually behave rather than how they ought to behave.

Except the city can have policies that encourage healthy habits. For example, no tax on vegetables, $1 tax on soda.

Sure, in theory they can. In reality the same people who are too lazy to walk 1.7 miles also get to vote on whether those taxes go into effect.

This is why the benevolent dictator is the best form of government.

At that point, you're basically adding public transit. And a lot of folks won't want to take "the bus" and potentially walk half a mile or more in all kinds of weather.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com