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Comment by galdosdi | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn't be an obstacle. This is already exactly how normal, hailable, regulated taxis work (at least in much of the USA, and certainly in NYC -- I can't speak for elsewhere). That's why taxi driver is (at least in the US) a statistically more dangerous occupation than police officer.

From the point of view of a driver, this scheme is less dangerous than the status quo, at least there is potentially a little more paper trail to prove a rider rode.

From the point of view of a rider, there is the advantage in regulated taxis that the driver is licensed and identified, but in countries where it's feasible, I don't see why LibreTaxi couldn't have an option to "request licensed driver only" or something

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"at least in much of the USA, and certainly in NYC"

Here in Kenya, and much of the developing world, things are quite different. Traditionally, people would save known and trusted drivers in their phonebook, and call them when needing a taxi. If you're somewhere far from your drivers, you might call a friend who lives there and ask them.

That's how we got started on our own app (http://maramoja.co.ke): we let people favourite drivers, and let them choose the driver for their ride. We show them who's their favourite, who's their friend's (e.g. from Facebook, phonebook, referrals) favourite etc.

Although other apps have now made an inroad here (Nairobi), particularly Uber, whose marketing budget we of course cannot match, there's still quite a number of people who won't use their "just any driver" approach.

This is an extremely interesting example of how a technological fix can emerge in a difficult situation. Transferable to the US context, too. Thanks!

I have to disagree that this is "exactly how normal taxis work". Notable differences (many apply to Uber/Lyft also):

1) There's no check to ensure that the vehicle is ensured for commercial rides before they start taking hails.

2) Likewise, no background check.

3) No regulatory body to investigate cases of e.g. scamming passengers out of money or refusal to comply with agreed-upon rates and dropoff. [1]

4) The local PD doesn't stand ready to treat assault on a driver like assault on a police officer, in terms of marshalling resources.

5) No central registry, or even private registry of cars/drivers in operation.

6) Drivers aren't trained in the relevant anti-robbery countermeasures.

7) In NYC, the barrier to prevent the most obvious kinds of robbery.

That makes a big difference in safety of paying cash to a roving operator!

Sadly, I think the "big corp middleman" does add a lot of value that a free app can't replicate without similar investment, scale, and "walled garden"-ness.

[1] I know commenters here like to roll their eyes about the clumsiness and lackadaisical enforcement -- I'm one of them! But it's at least something, which prevents a major scale-up of this behavior.

All those points would not be an obstacle to an open source solution that is not trying to build a grand unified global Uber drop-in for random rideshare drivers to sign up with, but instead only ("only") tries to be an installable turn-key solution for existing operators (or regional federations thereof) to add the smartphone hailing user experience to their existing offering, without much investment.

I did not find a clear answer on the site wether this project is aiming at independent ridesharing or at being a turn-key solution for more conventional taxi dispatch organisations. There is the idea of "hack and tune it for your city", which is clearly not the global approach, but then they also advertise "1-minute hiring", which is definitely not what I would be looking for if I were to customize it for my hypothetical preexisting organisation.

Something like wordpress or the myriad open source online shop systems, but for taxi dispatch and with a unified smartphone client (or client protocol, actually) that can work with all installations. That might be the best way to avoid a single gobally dominant private network that can set their "tax" on all rides at will. The app/clients might be supported for discovery by a global registry of regional installations and some trust management, but it might actually be not only easier but also more reliable to just leave that to plain old web, with something like libretaxi:-URIs to connect the app to a regional network discovered by your search engine of choice.

All of the above, plus:

Taxi drivers, at least herearound, have mandatory rest periods, which are very strictly enforced. I know that for a fact, since my girlfriend used to drive a cab. Even if you adhere to your rest period (and can prove it), but don't have the paperwork straight this can lead to hefty fines.

There's nothing stopping your friendly Uber driver to drive you around after two back breaking shifts at the factory.

He may even quaff a couple beers, or three, before starting his "Uber shift". Something which is an absolute No!No! for a licensed cabbie. They have very stringent zero tolerance rules when it comes to booze. Your Uber driver does not.

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but imagine that this situation is quite comparable to a lot of places.

Getting in a taxi with a $250K medallion and the city of New York behind it is much different than getting in someone's car...

Without someone vetting these drivers and taking a risk and responsibility for people's safety, this seems like a terribly dangerous way for anyone to get around.

Medallion has nothing to do with it, any TLC licensed driver can rent a medallion cab. To get a TLC license you pass a BS exam that anyone can pass and a background check, and get an ID.

I don't see why LibreTaxi, in areas that have a individual driver licensing scheme, couldn't require that. You just look at the driver's license when you get in, or they post it on the back seat. The license information is recorded in LibreTaxi so everyone knows there's a paper trail if anything happens.

This would be identical in safety for everyone to medallion hailable cabs, or am I missing something?

passing an exam, obtaining a license and passing a background check sound like a much more thorough vetting process than the "1-minute hiring" on this app

As far as I understand it the "1-minute hiring" is not something the people behind libretaxi are actually doing, it's something people running a libretaxi instance would do.

Or hopefully they would rather not, at least if they are serious about it and are not just running on a short-lived inspiration to play pretend-Kalanick.

Medallion has nothing to do with it, any TLC licensed driver can rent a medallion cab. To get a TLC license you pass a BS exam that anyone can pass and a background check, and get an ID.

If I was going to do nefarious things, I wouldn't bother with any of that. I'd instead just carjack a taxi and have at it.

And have the taxi company report it immediately to the cops when you weren't the proper operator of the vehicle on the radio. The cops and the company would then use the vehicle's GPS system to track you down and find you in record time - as I've seen and heard happen in NYC.

Exactly my point

Actually, no - every medallion cab in NYC is required to have the driver's name, license number, and picture posted where the passenger can see it. I can, in theory, check any cabbie's license before I set foot in the taxi.

"Terribly dangerous" == not dangerous at all.

Criminals aren't liable to want to leave an electronic trail driving a taxi just to rob someone. It's likely to be nearly as safe as riding Uber or Taxis in general, which is to say extremely safe.

What's more likely is the driver will get robbed, but even then that's not going to happen very often.

Part of the pitch is that there isn't much of an electronic trail.

>This is already exactly how normal, hailable, regulated taxis work

It's funny, isn't it? Every pro-Uber article around here talks about the over-regulated, controlled taxi environment and how damaging it is. Then a service appears that goes the other way: peer-to-peer, no middle-man. Now people complain that it could be dangerous, and they need regulation and control?

Which is it? And what makes anyone believe Uber (or themselves) know what that "proper level" is?

My personal opinion is that the proper level is whatever ensures there's safety and control over both T&LC drivers and their vehicles - including limiting the number of said vehicles on the road at any one time. On the more personal level, requiring a percentage of the fleet to be ADA-compliant vehicles (i.e. wheelchair accessible), as well as a clear identification of the driver's identity and license number, are absolute necessities. If we could put speed and range limiters on the cars, I'd be even happier.

>Shouldn't be an obstacle. This is already exactly how normal, hailable, regulated taxis work

Except normal hail-able taxis are driven by professional drivers with background checks and large insurance policies. There's no guarantee the person who picks you up with this app will even be a licensed driver. A lot of the value in Uber is that they take care of these things, not just the app side of things.

But do I care as a passenger? I see little or no reason to personally. Perhaps some might be more concerned about their safety, heck, I might be if I was to consider someone other than myself - but me personally? I'm more concerned about cost and privacy.

Keeping those things in check would have me using the service far more, even if it was slightly more risky - I don't believe the risk would be substantial enough for me to care.

I don't know if this feature is still around, but in India the calls to drivers/passengers were made via pressing the button in the app, which launched the dialer and connected the two calls via a third ephemeral phone number provided by a cloud telephony API.

Last night, my Uber driver told me the reason he does it is that it's safe - way safer than taxi driving. He says there is no cash, the users are all tracked, and they already have their trip sorted.

He was never a taxi driver - he's a retired teacher.

Taxi driver is more dangerous than being a Police Officer because being a Police Officer is a very safe job.

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