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Comment by jameshawkins | Hacker News Reader

I used to work at Uber and we would see similar behavior from drivers at airports. There would be a geofence around the parking lots where drivers had to wait before they could be sent a ride. However, the app would still send a ride to the closest available driver, so they would all lean their phones against the gate to get as close to the edge of the geofence as possible.

Ultimately, Uber implemented a FIFO queue at these lots, meaning a driver was added to a waiting list as soon as they entered the lot, thus removing the need for this behavior anymore.

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Most every taxi firm in the uk has a piece of plastic water pipe and a bunch of ping-pong balls. As each driver comes back they take their number from the basket and drop it into the far end of the tube. The next call that comes in, and the despatcher takes the ball out the "near" end.

It is an almost foolproof FIFO pipe (literally), simplemfor everyone to understand and very cheap to run.

This is it, chief. I work in a place where work used to be pick-up-able instantly and all the pain of that went away when pools were introduced.

I believe FIFO is evil. It encourages people to form queues. I'd rather make it a random pick from the set of those within a reasonable range.

Why evil?

If I know it's FIFO - I come as early as I can.

This way I both struggle myself (as I never want to go there that early) and harm the others' comfort and convenience by occupying the place, making the queue longer. People also tend to conflict, fighting for their place in the queue (I had to witness and to participate in too many queues in my life, people become nasty there).

If I know it's random I come whenever I'm comfortable.

I would like the option to have my call sent to the highest rated driver.

Interesting... maybe I haven't taken enough Ubers to notice, but I generally can't tell the difference between a 4.9 driver and a 4.7 driver.

Would you pay more to guarantee getting the highest rated driver near you?

Now we're talking. I could get a list of prices vs ratings.

I haven't had a "bad" experience, but I've had some better than others.

Maybe one can charge a "thrill premium" for the "opportunity" to ride with a "sub 4.0" driver?

It worked for marketing yellow "champagne" diamonds. I joke that the next trend is "chocolate" and "dark chocolate" for selling brown and black-ish industrial diamonds on the retail market.

You mean like this? https://www.levian.com/ChocolateDiamond

> Would you pay more to guarantee getting the highest rated driver near you?

Part of Uber Comfort's value proposition is that only highly rated drivers are allowed to participate.

Oh my, that reminds me of that Black Mirror episode with the red-headed girl that only thought about her rating 24/7.

Edit: Season 3, Episode 1 "Nosedive"

If you think people fight in a FILO queue you wait till you see what happens when the one guy who’s been randomly waiting all day sees you randomly get randomly served first 5 times in a row.

you do understand that the only difference is a fixed waiting time vs. a randomized one.

Meaning you still wait the same amount of time on average, just have a bunch of "that was quick" and "wtf. I'm waiting for 4 hours" thrown in there. Not an improvement if you ask me.

Then have I got the queue for you!... LiLo...

I'll take the bait, and say the exact opposite:

I firmly believe that queuing is the very basis for, and perhaps definition of, civilization itself.

(British, can't you tell?)

I had a driver tell me he’d get his friends to call in fake rides if things were slow, which meant that he got to the front faster. He was convinced everyone else was doing it too.

I did not leave a tip.

Is it common to give tips to taxi drivers?

As with a waiter, failing to tip a cabbie is expressing extreme displeasure.

The stressful and annoying payment dance at the end of a cab ride was a not-insignificant factor in the rise of ridesharing.

Interesting, being a clueless european I thought that this was common only for waiters and deliverymen in the USA.

You tip everyone in the USA. Hairdressers, handymen, babysitters, car mechanics, coffee baristas, bartenders, cab drivers.

Why should employers pay employees when their customers can do it for them?

Wait... car mechanics too? If you’re already billed for human labor cost on your invoice, what percentage do you tip on top of that? How is it shared between employees of the shop?

I have lived all over the US and have never tipped a car mechanic or heard of someone doing so.

Assuming you go to the same garage, and that the mechs are not the owners... Your car is one of many at the garage. You may have particular expectations on time or how you like your settings (specific wheel alignment, etc) A bit of extra "appreciation" means your car may get fixed earlier, and come back with a few extra things adjusted without being on the bill, along with extra care to meet your specific asks.

Or so I was told. I saw it more when I was younger than I do today.

And somehow I get that in the rest of the world by just being a regular customer, without paying a tip.

I've never tipped a car mechanic. They bill their labor rates anyways, tipping in such circumstance should never be expected.

Generally, most tipping is at restaurants and bars/pubs. Hairdresses/barbers/salons is also very common because of the close personal interaction with the worker.

Most of the time you tip at businesses that would be expected to employ low-education, or poorer or immigrant workers (and by extension, more easily abused workers.) Restaurants, salons, car washes, etc, all tend to employ poorer, less educated people, and also tend to be highly tip-based businesses. So for the most part you're expected to tip at businesses that traditionally abuse and underpay their employees.

I’ve had great relationships with independent shops and only tip when they do something quick and don’t charge.

It seems weird that USA is in general more expensive than europe if this is the case.

Yeah. Like why can I get a draft beer anywhere in Amsterdam for 3 euros MAX 4. At the top of the 5 star Okura hotel, beers are 4/5 euro. Of course, fancy beers can be 6 euros.

But in the USA, it is not uncommon to see Budlight selling for 8 dollars or more. (don't forget to tip!)

Yes I noticed the same thing, but only in the cities. Cost of living there is generally higher and income is as well. If you go to a small town in the US a beer can be 3 dollars and a coffee 1.50 or so.

If they weren't using the same currency there would probably be difference in inflation due to very different economics between let's say New York and some tiny rural village.

In the US it is also customary to NOT tip if the person performing the service is the business owner. Eg at a hair salon or similar.

Hairdressers and car mechanics? Really? :o

I've never tipped my mechanic, but I absolutely tip my hairdresser. I suppose it depends on the place, though.

>car mechanics

Really? I never know anyone doing this

Wait, deliverymen? I don't tip the UPS, FedEx, or USPS guys. The only type of person that comes to my house that I tip is the garbage guy, and only when I have a particularly large garbage pile to take out. They send out cards around Xmas with the official tipping procedure, but I do it whenever I have an onerous load, not at a certain time of year.

In Germany, dumpster staff is disallowed from taking cash tips due to corruption concerns: https://www.br.de/radio/bayern1/weihnachten-trinkgeld-postbo...

It must be completely dependent on where you're from. Over here you tip neither waiters or cabbies. I have no idea why you'd tip the taxi driver at all. I'm glad that with Uber you can just pay through the app and that removes the stupid "just keep the change" attitude. Most other taxi companies are implementing their own apps with online payment nowadays so fortunately this habit is dying out(one can hope).

In the US and Canada, very.

But why? I somewhat get the argument with waiters - they are paid shit wages, so somehow it became a cultural norm that customers have to subsidise waiters since their employers are too cheap to pay properly. Like, ok, I don't agree with it, but that's the system you build for yourself so that's the one you have to deal with.

But why taxi drivers? Why delivery drivers? Are those groups also poorly paid because they rely on tips? Why other social groups haven't adopted this? Are your electricians also charging $1 an hour of work and then expect that you leave a tip that saves them from poverty?

I don’t understand why the person that hands you the food gets 20 percent yet the person who cooked it usually gets nothing.

Is it common to give tips to taxi drivers?

In the US, yes.

People I regularly tip: - wait staff - barber - delivery service (for oversized packages/furniture delivered into my home, not general UPS/FedEx deliveries that are left on the doorstep) - taxi driver

It's a side effect of a low minimum wage. Most of the rest of the western world has the minimum set closer to a living wage.

Not much in the UK (which is where I was) but I usually tipped them anyway, unless they were jerks. In the USA it's much more expected.

At German train station the taxis form a line. You are expected to take the first car in the line. If you try to take another one most drivers will tell you to go to the first car.

Same here (UK) the only exception to jumping their taxi queue is if you need a specific vehicle further back in line (large, wheelchair friendly, etc)

Or if they don't want to carry you because you need to "cross the river" or get out of Zone 1.

Does not happen nearly as often since Uber is squeezing them though.

This happens in Norway as well. Unfortunately different companies charge different rates, so I refuse if the first in line is one that charges more than others.

That's the way it works pretty much everywhere in Europe in my experience.

And it is how taxi lines work or worked in the US. App-based hailing changed this, since there is no longer a designated physical place where the line would exist. Building a virtual-line, makes plenty of sense, and in hind-sight was something overlooked.

I love solutions like this. Had I been called on to solve their problems, I probably would have built a "simple" app. I try to remember solutions like this when I am tempted to over complicate a problem.

Though I'm already thinking about how maybe the balls need some sensors or we codes so we can have data and a dashboard.

LOL here in Manchester they had ways to spoof their location/cheese the system for ages, it's one of the first things I've learned after moving here last year (had to use Uber a lot).

Am I crazy or is the solution the thing you'd design in the first place if trying to make the simplest system possible

I worked on this feature at Uber, it’s not as easy you think. Airports are notoriously hard and diverse across the world.

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