By bus, it begins with a twenty-minute walk to the nearest stop. Then about twenty minutes on the bus. Then a twenty-minute walk to the destination. And that assumes the bus is precisely on time. I could just walk the entire way in about the same amount of time (though given the route, walking would be dangerous - no sidewalks, high-speed traffic).
I've not seen a public bus with a first class section, but it probably exists somewhere.
Also, given that this is not a huge number of people, relative to public transportation in NYC, it would probably not make much of a budget increase.
There is obvious room for improvement with routes that dynamically respond to demand. If the bus doesn't have to run where nobody uses it, and can instead pick up riders who are waiting in a popular area, and take them where they want to go, the same number of buses and drivers could deliver much more transit value.
Probably it would be better if the city bus service ran this instead of Uber. But that bureaucracy has no history of making reasonable decisions.
My city did a hub and spoke type system, but the flip side is that you need to go downtown and change buses to get on the right spokes, which is confusing for people, and can take longer than a route that just goes in a big circle, if you're going somewhere that isn't super far away. That said, our system seems to mostly exist to get poor people where they want to go, vs being designed for working professionals, so I'm still not sure what the best solution would be.
Uber and those $1 private buses that some cities have are able to cut the bureaucracy and just popup routes that make sense for them to service without having to worry about disabled folks and such, so I'm sure they give a better experience to their customers while not providing a universal experience that a publicly funded operation would require.
Uber gets me where I need to go faster and more reliably than the bus, already. The cars and buses should be combined into a single dispatch system. Then we can combine efficiency of buses that can transport several people (when the there is enough demand in that direction) with the flexibility of small cars to fill in the gaps. This system would be dramatically more useful than my city’s bus service is today, and would be a compelling competitor with solo driving.
Fixing that one route would be a nice first step, but their inability to do something so basic (dispute countless rider complaints filed over years) doesn’t make me optimistic about the prospects for this institution.
Small vehicles decrease capacity of the public transit network and increase labor intensity. Good luck finding a CDL holder driver who will work as a "gig" worker. Vans are cheaper than $250K buses, but that means each bus that ever has more than a dozen riders at peak usage will require two drivers or even three to service. https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.ht...
Isn't capacity primarily about passenger-miles / time? Whatever vehicle size optimizes for this is probably better. During rush hours, it could definitely make sense to use big busses.
> You pay more for taxi fare because it's door to door and capacity is far scarcer than bus/train seats.
Hard to compare taxi fares to transit fares when transit fares do not fully pay for the service.
> Good luck finding a CDL holder driver who will work as a "gig" worker. Vans are cheaper than $250K buses
This is one of the strengths of these microtransit options, no specialty employees or vehicles.
We can roughly assess the economic value added to the community per dollar of transit spend. I am not sure that metric is possible to measure for Uber?
or for transit agencies
They can kick out disruptive passengers
Are the drivers employees, or self employed? Are they going to have security people riding the routes, or rely on the drivers to provide that service?
I have in mind local retailers, who pretty much ignore shoplifters because it costs more to pay for injuries to their employees who try to stop the shoplifting. So they let the shoplifters go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jhTnk3TCtc
My favorite is transport means that involve rails.
These things are actually pretty great, in a way. My city is full of them. The drivers are maniacs, they're overcrowded and dangerous, but they're affordable, have great coverage and are better than yet more cars on the road.
meagher•1d ago
Like Uber cares about any of these things (prices, consumers, congestion, the environment)
MattDamonSpace•1d ago
meagher•1d ago
nickff•1d ago
comte7092•1d ago
Anyone with industry experience would tell you your statement is wildly off the mark, beyond perhaps employees desiring a livable wage.
Literally everyone in public transportation cares about prices, customers congestion and the environment.
mentalpiracy•1d ago
silotis•1d ago
amanaplanacanal•1d ago
vel0city•1d ago
Calling the police or fire department should incur service chargers.
Libraries should charge rental fees.
Schools should all charge tuition, including "public" schools.
If they're not at least breaking even, are we sure they're providing any public good?
dns_snek•1d ago
mentalpiracy•1d ago
amanaplanacanal•1d ago
xnx•1d ago
What is the right way to frame it? Total cost per passenger mile might be good. The transit systems that move the most people efficiently would do well on that metric.
mentalpiracy•1d ago
Sometimes basic science research funding is framed in terms of "this program generated $10 of economic activity for every dollar spent." Social programs sometimes measured this way too. The term for this escapes me at the moment, but I think it would be more useful?
nickff•1d ago
This type of cost-benefit analysis (or economic multiplier calculation) is also used to justify public subsidy of sports stadiums and the like. Unfortunately, these analyses always use overly optimistic assumptions, and fall victim to the broken windows fallacy.
mentalpiracy•1d ago
xnx•1d ago
Not sure how that squares with ~$40 billion high speed rail in California.
Most US transit agencies are designed as jobs programs (not necessarily bad, just wasteful) or to transfer tax money to construction firms.
comte7092•1d ago
Have you actually looked at the cost breakdown of California HSR? This isn’t all going to contractors but to land acquisition, feasibility studies, parts and materials, etc etc.
I also don’t know where you get the notion that it is representative of public transportation in the US, which is by and large just bus services.
xnx•1d ago
It's an example of how most US transit systems have completely lost the plot. There has been almost no change in the services offered despite smartphones totally changing how services could be offered. Transit systems would rather run empty buses on the same fixed routes than adapt a more efficient, Uber-like, system.
comte7092•1d ago
Most transit systems carry dozens of passengers per bus per hour. Fixed route services are more efficient than uber. I’m just having a conversation with your own personal biases at this point.
The major differences between uber and transit are technology yes, but also in the fact that it is a public service that is here to meet the needs of everyone. Uber doesn’t have to comply in the same manner with the civil rights act and the ADA, and it doesn’t have a unionized workforce, which in sum is as much if not more of an impact on the services provided than the technology aspects.
bryanlarsen•1d ago
Far less unprofitable than the road system. Gas taxes & tolls cover a far smaller percentage of road building & upkeep than bus fares cover of transit costs.
pavel_lishin•1d ago
pkulak•1d ago
Even admitting that, I'd be willing to bet that essentially no single Uber employee is working that job out of care for environment, or interest in having a healthy transportation system in their city. I know for a fact that's a consideration for many people who work for city transit agencies.
triceratops•1d ago
9283409232•1d ago
triceratops•1d ago
janice1999•1d ago
triceratops•1d ago
Did it work?
9283409232•1d ago
triceratops•19h ago
According to this article https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/25/technology/yellow-cab-bankr... they filed for bankruptcy in 2016 due to liability claims from passenger crashes. But even so:
"San Francisco's Yellow Cab collective is not stopping service. You'll still be able to spot, and maybe hail, a Yellow Cab in San Francisco. It says business is still strong and that it averages 15,000 fares a day in the city. The chapter 11 filing will allow it to restructure its debts, it said in a statement. "
From what I can tell the company is still around. They have relatively recent Google reviews and there are posts with complaints about them on Reddit all in the past 6 months. I think it was acquired by a competitor (CityWide) through the bankruptcy, which then rebranded as Yellow Cab.
The point is SF still has traditional cabs and they compete with Uber.
bko•1d ago
That's basically how the market economy works. It's not controversial and it's why we in the industrialized world live in such affluence when compared to centrally planned systems or systems from the past.
I find these kind of comments like "corporation doesn't care" are lazy and boring. What's the point? It's a service, that looks pretty cool and is supplementing an often crappy public transportation system. And it won't cost taxpayers anything. In fact, it'll likely be subsidized by rich people who own Uber stock