Who would have thought: Ride sharing actually adds to city congestion!

[cytg111]

Automated cars might fix things a little, but congestion is mainly a function of the number of vehicles. Plus, cars, no matter how automated, move very few people per square foot compared to the capacities of a bus or subway. Buses and other mass transit are not going anywhere, and you'll likely see an expansion of these services over the next decades. If transit is rapid enough, regularly provides service, is reliable, and has stops close enough to people's destinations, many people would use it. But when it becomes unreliable and takes forever, people abandon it in favor of personalized services like Lyft, which compounds the congestion problem and worsens existing surface mass transit.

Operated by inefficient humans.. IIRC, ill try and find that source, going autonomous you can easily double your throughtput = end of congestion.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I'd honestly rather see the end of Uber/Lyft/Air BnB altogether. These are municipally destructive enterprises from nearly every angle. Cities see a cavernous void with revenue, and service business shutter up because they can't compete against these "companies" that essentially exist off the theft of municipal wealth.

But I'm an evil liberal so I must not believe that.

So you don't find cab prices to be obscene alongside ridiculous expected tip on top of it?

Same goes for simply having a bed and bath for 1 night, do you really think $150/night + high taxes is reasonable for a tiny square room?

Make sure to take into account the average us income, unless you think having a hotel for a week is just too high class for peasants in the middle class.

 

[Genx87]

I'd honestly rather see the end of Uber/Lyft/Air BnB altogether. These are municipally destructive enterprises from nearly every angle. Cities see a cavernous void with revenue, and service business shutter up because they can't compete against these "companies" that essentially exist off the theft of municipal wealth.

But I'm an evil liberal so I must not believe that.

These services were born out of shitty regulated services like Taxis. Where the local govt with the backing of the Taxi companies erected impossible barriers of entry into the markets. No surprise when a protect monopoly has to compete they fail.

 

[Brainonska511]

Operated by inefficient humans.. IIRC, ill try and find that source, going autonomous you can easily double your throughtput = end of congestion.

You severely overestimate the benefits of automation. Cars take up physical street space. There is only so much room you can give them.

Meanwhile, a bus might take up 2.5 cars worth of space but carries 10x+ the amount.

 

[fskimospy]

Operated by inefficient humans.. IIRC, ill try and find that source, going autonomous you can easily double your throughtput = end of congestion.

If I remember right those benefits are primarily related to the reduction in 'phantom' traffic jams that occur for no good reason other than collective inefficiencies. I suspect effects would be considerably smaller in extremely dense areas where traffic is constrained by other issues. I mean the MTA has daily ridership of about 6 million, I don't know where you would begin to put those cars.

From my experience and that of my friends I would never consider taking Uber or Lyft for my daily commute. First I would go broke and second, I don't think it would actually save me much, if any time. What it IS really great for is nights and weekends though when trains come infrequently or if a line is shut down for some reason.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Exactly, they are the equivalent of "outsourcing" in order to bypass the rules, regulations, and costs associated with taxis, either make them adhere to all the rules good and bad taxi companies have to live by or lower the standards and costs for taxi companies to uber/lyft level.

The Europeans get it, and don't fall for the BS that they are tech companies and shouldn't have to follow the same rules,

too bad our tech liberals who are on the politically correct side of social justice issues are no different than conservatives when it comes to workers and money, rules and regulations are a hindrance to their profit only matters mentality.

The tech oligarchy is no different than the industrialists that preceeded them. They’ve wrapped all the worst trappings of capitalism under the rationalization of disruption and the promise of striking IPO gold.

 

[Zorba]

Operated by inefficient humans.. IIRC, ill try and find that source, going autonomous you can easily double your throughtput = end of congestion.

You are right that throughput will go up, mostly by eliminating lights and stop signs. As soon as you add pedestrians or bikes to the mix, the benefits drop off real quick.

Currently buses and subways in NYC way more than double the throughput of the transportation infrastructure, though. Automations biggest real world throughput increases will likely come on inner city highways from better merging, lack of rubber necking, and less accidents.

 

[fskimospy]

These services were born out of shitty regulated services like Taxis. Where the local govt with the backing of the Taxi companies erected impossible barriers of entry into the markets. No surprise when a protect monopoly has to compete they fail.

Yes, exactly this. While Uber and Lyft may be evil in their own right the industry they are competing against is one that has long deserved to die. Taxi companies are a perfect example of incumbents leveraging government to protect themselves from competition. I have loved how the price of an NYC taxi medallion has gone from like $1.3 million to (as of the most recent report I see a year ago), to about $240k. If someone was willing to pay $1.3 million for a taxi license that meant they thought they could extract enormous rents from the riders and drivers. Not as much anymore!

 

[Ken g6]

I object to the title, Uber and Lyft are not ride sharing, they are taxi services by any other name.

You know what would help congestion? Ride sharing sharing. For a discount, riders could opt to share their ride with others going in the same general direction. The driver could pick up one rider, go slightly out of their way to pick up a second rider, and then drop off each rider at their destination.

I wonder how difficult that would be to develop on the software side?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

You know what would help congestion? Ride sharing sharing. For a discount, riders could opt to share their ride with others going in the same general direction. The driver could pick up one rider, go slightly out of their way to pick up a second rider, and then drop off each rider at their destination.

I wonder how difficult that would be to develop on the software side?

Uhhh... not sure if there was implied sarcasm but that is already being done by uber/lyft for Chicago and other places.

Also they gave programs setup, I had a hit who worked construction downtown in Chicago take me to the airport, he basically has his uber programmed so that it will pick up someone that is heading in the same direction as his house to effectively make a buck and take a passenger while just doing his normal commute.

 

[fskimospy]

You know what would help congestion? Ride sharing sharing. For a discount, riders could opt to share their ride with others going in the same general direction. The driver could pick up one rider, go slightly out of their way to pick up a second rider, and then drop off each rider at their destination.

I wonder how difficult that would be to develop on the software side?

They already have it, it's called Uber Pool. In my experience though it really, REALLY sucks. The two times I've tried it I only saved like $5 and it doubled or tripled the amount of time my trip would have taken. Maybe better software can help with this in the future but at least so far it blows.

 

[K1052]

If anybody wonders how/why Uber/Lyft came about you really needed to use taxis in SF before it became a thing.

Worst service I've ever seen counting underdeveloped countries.

 

[theeedude]

I am not sure comparing a form of transportation to skipping the trip is the right metric.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Anybody besides zinfamous and cab drivers mad at Uber/Lyft? Taxi service was virtually non-existent in my city. In fact there was an ordinance saying they couldn't drive around looking for pick-ups. You had to call a dispatch service to come get you, or you walked to one of a couple locations downtown taxis are allowed to idle. Complete bullshit.

And a survey released in October of more than 4,000 adults in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Washington, D.C., also concluded that 49 to 61 percent of ride-hailing trips would have not been made at all — or instead by walking, biking or public transit — if the option didn't exist.

For most of the country, rideshare is a replacement to taxis and personal cars for night/weekend entertainment. Folks aren't riding a bike to the bar. They surveyed users in perhaps the only cities in the U.S. with transit as a usable option. I would be surprised if traffic changed much outside these cities.