Hacker News Reader

Comment by upofadown | Hacker News Reader

Once you are in the Waymo, why bother getting out just to get on a bus?

In New York, increases in the use of ride services like Uber mostly came from bus and subway riders[1]. If we are being charitable to Google, we might assume that this initiative is intended to reduce the same sort of trend. If we are not being charitable, we might assume that this initiative is intended to encourage current bus riders to expose themselves to the product.

[1] https://www.6sqft.com/mta-says-uber-use-is-the-cause-of-nyc-...

View on HN

The answer to both of your points is that mass transit is used for most of the travel and the last mile is taxi equivalent. Being unable to do the last mile is a common reason not to take mass transit, so more usable taxi equivalents tends to increase mass transit use. And most directly, taxi equivalents are often significantly more expensive or significantly than mass transit at crossing cities.

Maybe just an artifact of where I live (Los Angeles), but whenever Ive considered taking Waymo to the train station, it's usually easier and often cheaper to take it all the way to my destination. eg right now a Waymo to the train station is $16, then you wait 0-15 minutes to hop on the train, paying an additional $3.50 round trip. I'm pretty pro-transit, but I can't deny that the ipace is a much more pleasant experience than the train (I can play my music, don't have to listen to other people, guaranteed seating, guaranteed AC, fewer undesired encounters with strangers).

Meanwhile, a waymo to a stadium on that same train line is $26. If you're with 1-3 other people, taking Waymo all the way is a no-brainer.

That's an artifact of where you live haha

> If you're with 1-3 other people, taking Waymo all the way is a no-brainer.

This is often the case for any mass transit vs personal transit option.

As for home -> taxi -> mass transit -> taxi -> destination; you have to have a pretty short journey on the mass transit for it to reliably work out cheaper to do home -> taxi -> destination, which pretty clearly restricts the pool of people that applies to.

It makes a lot more sense for Bart. You can go places that don’t even have Waymo service.

Last mile simplicity? Yes absolutely it incentives both ways. People taking mass transit and not Waymo and folks taking Waymo only. That’s ideal imo.

Cost, presumably?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com