Uber’s transit offering just went live in Denver
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
They might be providing walking directions in the future, I think. And once it's a fully-fledged map app, having it track your location outside of the ride has the same justification as Google.
Wow, I hadn't noticed but they got rid of that feature. Perhaps they'll reinstate it at some point. https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16219542/uber-location-tr...
Lyft is cheaper in some markets but I was so annoyed by their fear of comparison that I have stopped using them. And Uber aren't saints, so this is a missed opportunity for Lyft.
So as a first step, they could offer those people to share their first/last mile with other passengers, in a 6-passenger minivan. The price will be cheap/cheapest, and the trip fast(the route will be optimized).
That would be an easy sell. Probably viral. And it would increase transit ridership - and lead to other transportation authorities cooperating.
And Google can't compete with that.
I have both installed on my phone. What possible reason could I have for picking the uber one to open up if I'm looking to take public transportation? Is it better in any way whatsoever?
Basically, the goal is to have one 'transport' app, and that would be the Uber app. Removing mental overhead - never having to think about what app you want to open (I realize how ridiculous it sounds to call that 'mental overhead', but let's just pretend that any non-zero cost is equal and an inefficiency).
Of course this could only happen if the Uber app has all functionality the Google Maps app has, and every bit as good, and also all functionality of all local public transport apps (like, it would have to have up to date information on the exact current location and time of the trains on the route you're looking at, as some PT apps do). This is a huge, dare I say it impossible task. But still, baby steps and all.
Something that I have found is Uber doesn't seem to be as good as Google Maps doing routing between two people. Google has better traffic management and having routes that are shorter and faster. Uber seems to sometimes take a much longer route. Anecdote, of course but yeah, IMO, they have a long while to go yet.
No way Uber is competing with that.
And those options would include the travel times and costs of all available modes.
As a result, catching the bus is a complete guessing game every day. There are three possible outcomes:
1) The bus arrives 5-10 minutes early and doesn't wait around, so you have to get to your stop at least 15 minutes early.
2) The bus is late (the typical scenario), so you spend 15-60+ minutes convincing yourself you aren't crazy and the bus didn't pass before your eyes while wondering how long you can continue standing outside before getting frostbite.
3) You spend 15-30 minutes standing around in scenario (2) above before getting an "alert" from the app that your route has been cancelled. These late alerts ensure that even if you manage to find a different route to take you to your destination, you'll have to repeat the guessing game above and you'll definitely be late.
Uber and Lyft have numerous problems still, but as far as I'm concerned their disruption of the transportation industry has been long overdue. My local government refuses to expose the transportation API, so even if there was a motivated individual who wanted to make a better app they wouldn't have access to the information they needed. I can't wait for more competition in this space.
Regarding your point on outbound trains, often if a train is running late inbound they will have another one take over the duties, so trying to identify it isn't a perfect system for predicting.
Plenty of of agencies publish bogus data (e.g.: Muni has predictions for outbound train service even when a train will be taken out of service at the end of the line, as a result only the second to last prediction for the night is valid). This was Transit being useless.
https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/
https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs-realtime/
I'm a bit curious which city you live in, because the majority major cities(at least in the US) publish both GTFS and GTFS real time. This is how Google(and other applications) gather the data. Does Google Maps provide real time data for transit? If not, you may want to get in touch with your cities transit service and inquire why not. I was part of a team that did GTFS(not real time) for a small area, and it was not incredibly expensive. Most of the data the transit service already has and its usually just a matter of doing some transformations on the data into the new format.
I was not aware about GTFS, but I'll read about it and try and contact the city council maybe. My city isn't small or poor so the problem definitely isn't one caused by lack of resources, but maybe it's just something they haven't considered before. In any case, thank you for your insight.
My local authority has had a free public API for a long time and also contacts people following up on how API use is going, arranging meetups for people wanting to code things with the API and so on.
Consider: Public bus systems are constrained to fixed schedules and stops for obvious reasons. Neither apply in a Mobile App.
Uber could sign up drivers who own mini-vans or large buses, and dynamically generate "bus routes" using on key waypoints, and both ongoing and forecasted demand (based on historical data).
As a consumer, the experience is still 1) Pick a destination
2) Go to the spot where Uber asks you to go (Which already happens in places like Airports, or if you use Uber Pool which asks you to move a little closer to the route to decrease driving time
3) Get in the uber
4) Get off at a spot when the app/driver tells you which isn't exactly at your destination but close
All for a much much lower price
Meanwhile, as a driver, the experience is: 1) Follow the Uber app's navigation that tells you where your next 'Stop' is. 2) Drive around in a circle that changes throughout the day.
It's a hard problem to solve and get perfect but it would actually justify improving an existing public service.
A lot of times the fastest way to get somewhere in LA is actually: walk to a scooter, scoot to the train, train to the closest stop, then uber to your final destination.
But that isn't shown automatically and it's a lot of work to calculate it yourself.
The cool thing is that for Sydney, the same APIs are available to the public: https://opendata.transport.nsw.gov.au/dataset/public-transpo...
Not sure about their scooter coverage though; I don't use it for that.
actually it's famous for the second one
> Drive , walk and ride : support for mixed-mode commutes
> There’s a new feature for people whose commutes involve both driving and public transit. You can see helpful information about when to leave, and for each leg of your trip: you’ll know if there’s traffic on your drive, when the next train departs, and how long it’ll take to walk from the train station to the office. We do the work for you and automatically factor this into your ETA so you can anticipate exactly when you’ll get to work.
https://www.blog.google/products/maps/take-control-your-comm...
Wonder if that’s why this is US only.
I don’t really care that they track me for a short time, it’s not like they don’t keep logs anyway.
I wish I could tell it I like walking more than catching a connecting bus, so I’m occasionally working on a side project to allow custom routes for common commutes.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/alsm56/uber_transit...
RTD already has their own app for buying tickets. Transit app (or google maps) work well for planning trips. You can’t even actually buy a ticket yet on the Uber app.
> Uber is aiming to increase efficiency, enhance the experience and increase equity and accessibility
What does that mean?
Edit: It doesn't look like that's their offering now, but I think they'll move towards it.
It is so vague, it means absolutely anything you want to imagine, and nothing specific. I would be surprised if a variation of that specific line you quoted didn’t end up in the next season of HBO’s Silicon Valley
enhance the experience: less stressful / research required / more convenient
increase equity and accessibility: make it cheaper so more people can afford it
People with disabilities(especially electric wheelchairs).
Uber currently has a service in some markets: https://www.uber.com/ride/uberwav/
Many people with disabilities depend on municipal "paratransit". For example this is for Denver http://www.rtd-denver.com/accessARide.shtml
If you visit the page you can see the experience is less than awesome. You typically need to book your trip a day or more in advance . Considering how expensive paratransit can be for a municipality, I imagine they could see using Uber, even if only for dispatch) as a potential big win in both overall user experience and cost savings.
> increase efficiency
Many muncipalities prefer to do as much in the private sector as possible. Handing ticketing and payment over to 3rd party providers has the potential for cost saving if Uber and other services can do it for less money.
Edit: I should add that I'm not writing this as something I think will end up being true as much as I'm clarifying the corporate speak that Uber is sending out for other decision makers in other municipalities.
I'm sure RTD knows they cannot compete with Uber or any other large company on app quality. So if RTD cannot even handle a simple one-way fair, it's no wonder they're trying to partner with Uber to handle complex fairs that combine walking, buses, trams, and trains.
Also, as others have said, Google Maps does some of this integration already, but it sounds like Uber might be taking over the ticket purchasing part as well? Which does sound nice.
How often are you checked!?
I've only used a couple of trains in the USA, but in Europe it would be very unusual to be checked more than once on any journey. Twice can happen on long journeys if the guard changes.
Usually there's either no check, or only a check by machine like a ticket gate.
Turn that around and resell the location data to other data aggregating businesses. Or use it in-house to augment forecasting or pricing models.
Seems slimey to me. Public funds should be providing app access for this sort of thing, with audits to demonstrate personal data is not collected.
Really wish it was more popular to lock down privacy options in phones to make it so this sort of thing is not profitable for companies like this.
I'd be okay requesting the entire map of a region from the front end service to cache and doing the computation with geolocation on my local device.
And they have an app for checking bus locations and buying tickets, and it's free.
I think the API is great for enabling integrations, but I really hope they keep their existing apps. There's no reason end users shouldn't be able to get the data directly from RTD, and they definitely shouldn't be forced into using a sleazy company like Uber.
Here's a good writeup on the "jobs to be done": https://stratechery.com/2018/aggregators-and-jobs-to-be-done...
For example using Uber from my house to Caltrain and from the SF Caltrain to my friend's house would be a convenient single booking.
OTOH I am not sure it's true that short trips are more profitable (for Uber or drivers) in which case this is presumably a PR effort.
> Initially, the ability to purchase tickets via the Uber app won’t be available, but it’s on the horizon. The in-app ticketing portion, in partnership with Masabi, will be available in the coming weeks, Reich said.