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Comment by AnthonyMouse | Hacker News Reader

> I imagine a fleet of buses directed by sophisticated scheduling and navigation algorithms.

The primary reason we use large buses rather than e.g. minivans is that it amortizes the cost of the driver over more people. If it weren't for that buses would be less efficient because they're very often not completely full and to be completely full in most cases requires a larger vehicle to travel more miles.

What you really want is, effectively, car pools. Someone was already going there and they just take on more passengers, so there is no separate driver you have to pay.

But Uber already has this. It's called "driver destinations." You tell it you're driving to work, it gives you passengers near you who want to go near there. You make some extra money on a trip you were making anyway and now your car has five people in it instead of one.

Is the problem just that people don't know this?

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> > I imagine a fleet of buses directed by sophisticated scheduling and navigation algorithms.

> The primary reason we use large buses rather than e.g. minivans is that it amortizes the cost of the driver over more people. If it weren't for that buses would be less efficient because they're very often not completely full and to be completely full in most cases requires a larger vehicle to travel more miles.

> What you really want is, effectively, car pools. Someone was already going there and they just take on more passengers, so there is no separate driver you have to pay.

> But Uber already has this. It's called "driver destinations." You tell it you're driving to work, it gives you passengers near you who want to go near there. You make some extra money on a trip you were making anyway and now your car has five people in it instead of one.

> Is the problem just that people don't know this?

The problem is also insurance. Namely, mine doesn't cover ride shares, and here in Canada at least, most don't (unless you pay extra).

> The problem is also insurance. Namely, mine doesn't cover ride shares, and here in Canada at least, most don't (unless you pay extra).

That seems kinda fair? Commercial ride sharing implies more miles driven under different (or at least increased) motivations to get there fast, and regardless of profit motives having more people in the car increases potential payout if something happens. It naively seems like that's a plausible correct increase in cost.

> It naively seems like that's a plausible correct increase in cost.

Only if they're thinking one dimensionally.

Your theory is this guy is going to take on four extra passengers, so now he has to go pick them up and drop them off, which will cause him to drive e.g. 50% more miles.

But now those other four passengers don't have to drive themselves. You're not going from 100 miles to 150, you're going from 500 miles to 150. That's going to reduce the number of collisions and therefore insurance claims.

So from a policy perspective, you want people not to be charged extra for this, even before considering the reduction in congestion and pollution. You might even want to offer a discount.

The exception for a selfish insurer would be if all the other drivers are insured by some other insurance company. But if we're talking about a rule set by the government or followed by every insurer then that doesn't matter. Some of your driver's passengers will be on the other insurance company and vice versa so it's a wash.

I think the problem is that people don’t want to cram into a car with random strangers, especially with kids.

Can't talk about the kids part, but Uber Pool was definitely a popular thing pre pandemic. People were happy to get in cars with strangers.

I haven't heard many people say they miss it since it's gone. I sure don't, and back then I would get UberX most of the time when Uber Pool was available. I've been avoiding getting in a situation where I need to take Uber and Lyft and using public transit most of the time and it's much better.

Yeah I was talking about that with my gf yesterday. She commented on how it was basically a little over bus fare to go to and from work. It’s kinda sad that it’s gone due to the pandemic. It made Uber a lot more affordable.

Slug lines in DC disprove that assertion. At least prior to COVID.

https://sluglines.com/

But, there’s infrastructure to support it - parking & HOV lanes.

What is the ridership of sluglines vs. total commuters. Just because a niche product exists doesn’t mean the hypothesis is false in general.

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