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Comment by gwill | Hacker News Reader

in the US it's normal to refer to uber/lyft as ride share apps. with ride share apps, the driver supplies their own, personal, vehicle.

taxi services in the US have yet to roll out any type of for hailing rides afaik and have a fleet of vehicles with their own livery.

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In Austin, Yellow Cab became Z-Trip, with more of a ride hailing model than the old taxi model. They are cheaper than Uber or Lyft and considerably more reliable. Uber/Lyft will cancel a pick-up (sometimes, without telling you) when the pick-up is less profitable or would cause the driver to leave an area with more ride pickups. Z-Trip has never done that, that I know of. U/L also tend to have more drivers who are less proficient with English, which causes communication issues. Lastly, if you have a medical condition and it's not an urgent trip, Z-Trip can usually handle it. I have had Uber and Lyft drivers cancel on me, once while I was sitting in the car. But the main difference is on price - Z-Trip does not do the annoying surge pricing like the others do.

> taxi services in the US have yet to roll out any type of [app] for hailing rides afaik and have a fleet of vehicles with their own livery.

Don't NYC taxis have one? I vaguely recall there being something when I visited several years ago.

[note, I had to guess to fill in the blank for your comment, since it seemed like you dropped a critical word].

One of my local taxi companies (Central Oregon) has an uber-like app for their cabs. So they are changing.

What do you call an actual ride sharing service then?

We call them cabs in NYC for what it's worth

If you mean taxis, yes, we call them cabs in NYC.

If you mean Uber/Lyft, no, we do not call them cabs in NYC.

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