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Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

I've never used uber, but doesn't it have a thing where drivers rate passengers? and with ratings comes blacklisting, does it not? so what happens when people start getting banned from this "public transit" system?

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Not to mention, uber is far from an (unbiased) public service, who'll ensure the bias? Also public transport should be definition be cheap and not costly, there should be no such thing as surge pricing. Strange that a city is destroying public transport and paving way for exploitation of their citizens

Since the city is subsidizing fares, I imagine they would have some influence into the service being delivered. (You can voice your complaints to city hall)

I am curious, if the fares are subsidized, then how much Uber will earn? I can imagine that surge pricing makes them a lot of money, are they going to drive away surge pricing? What if it is 2am and uber asks for 400$ ( I am not American, so pardon my analogy) to go for a small distance?

Considering the rebellious attitude Uber has, I can imagine their city hall complaint as "this is how we will behave, else we will go out of your city like we did in Austin"

The Innisfil city website mentioned that there will be flat rate pricing to certain major destinations in town.

_certain major destinations_

This is the reason this isn't a public transport, there is no such thing as "certain major destination" when it comes to public transport!

destroying public transit? Most suburbs never have public transit to begin with! Mine didnt, and it doesn't sound like Insifil had much either. They couldnt even justify 2 busses.

Destroying would be a wrong word, of course, if a public system didn't exist earlier then nothing can be destroyed.

I am from a small town in India and we didn't have buses in our town either, we had autorickshaws for travel + a big autorickshaw which fits 6 people.

Maybe someone that acts like an ass on publicly funded transit doesn't deserve to ride on publicly funded transit?

Perhaps. But depends on what "acts like an ass" means. Most cities don't have the ability to ban people from public transit, so they don't have to deal with where that line gets drawn. Is smelling bad "acting like an ass"? perhaps I'm smelling bad through no fault of my own (encountered something smelly at work). Is vomiting "acting like an ass"? Perhaps I'm doing chemotherapy. If lines are getting drawn, who is drawing them and is there an appeals process?

From my experience using public transit, there is a code of conduct which all riders must follow, and my understanding is that if you violate that code of conduct, you could either be fined, or if it's serious enough, banned from using public transit. (i.e. I think assaulting a driver or passenger could get you banned from using public transit) I imagine that if you were to behave on Uber the same way as you would on public transit, you wouldn't get banned (or rated low).

Yes, but I think the posters concern was the opposite.

Uber can establish arbitrary rules for banning, way larger than rules for public transportation. What happens when a private entity decides to ban you from riding public transportation? And you have no car?

You walk. A lot.

The public entity subsidizing your fare can use that leverage to make sure the rules are fair.

Do you honestly believe that a town of 36000 inhabitants has any leverage against Uber?

    > I imagine that if you were to behave
    > on Uber the same way as you would on
    > public transit, you wouldn't get banned

Public transport can't and won't ban you for having a disability that's inconvenient to the driver, won't ban you for being homeless and having an unpleasent odour, and won't ban you because you're an ethnicity that's currently being discriminated against. And in the unlikely case it does, you'll find strong lawful protections against that.

It'll be interesting to see how small town dynamics influences the ratings. I can just imagine a Corner Gas scenario.

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