Will Lyft and Uber's Shared-Ride Service Hurt Public Transit?

An anonymous reader writes Lyft and Uber have already undercut the price of a taxi in most markets, but with this new service, both are now taking aim at public transit systems. By attempting to offer a viable alternative to the bus and metro, Lyft and Uber are offering new options to consumers in a space where few existed before. As Timothy Lee writes at Vox, "Until recently, there weren't many services in this 'in between' category. If you were going to the airport, you could get a shared-ride van. And some urban areas had dollar vans. But these were limited services in niche markets." If you're traveling with multiple people over short distances, Lyft Line and UberPool can be quite affordable, but it's still not cheap enough.

Comments

No.

[xevioso]

It will not. It's much cheaper to take public transportation in most cities; the only time it would make sense would be on longer trips, because you are saving alot of time by taking Lyft or Uber, but you sure the hell aren't saving money.

And it's much easier to find a cab in San Francisco nowadays, not only because they are having to compete with rideshares, but they actually will notice you now when you wave a hand. So why not take a cab instead of Uber and Lyft?

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know when either of these can get me from the Chicago Surbs to Downtown Chicago (45 miles) for under $10.

Or from the far north part of the city to the south part (25-30 miles) with 4 lights per mile for $2.50

Wrong Question

[Anonymous Coward]

The only question that matters: Will they improve transportation?

Competition is a bitch; a government never likes it.

Re:Wrong Question

[fustakrakich]

Competition is a bitch; a government never likes it.

Yeah, we noticed, when they give monopoly franchise contracts to their business associates in energy and communications, and family. We need open markets, but we need public oversight. We are supposed to use the government for that purpose.

I use Uber over public transit

[Hadlock]

Parked my car a year ago and I ride my bike to work most days. There's a bus stop less than 200 feet from my house. If it rains or gets below 40F (it's Texas, only gets that cold maybe 3 weeks a year) I take an Uber. Since I live 3.2 miles from downtown it costs between $6.43 and as much as $8. A single bus ticket costs $2.50, drops me off six blocks from my office, and runs on their schedule, and is frequently late. For $3 more I get dropped off in front of my office, they pick me up on my schedule, I get a real seat belt, appropriate heating/A/C, listen to NPR, nobody asking for money or sitting next to someone not having showered for a week etc etc. I usually take the bus home for $2.50 as I have more time in the afternoons to wait for a bus.
 
Parking downtown costs $5 for the bad lot four blocks from my office, $7 for a semi private parking garage. That's $100-$150/mo to rent an 8x10' piece of ground.
 
There's a very slight premium for using uber, but compared to paying for car insurance, maintenance, gas + the hassle of driving myself around, Uber is a fucking deal. In my very very corner case. That $1.50 a day premium is a really nice premium that really improves my morning, for those days that I need a car to get to work.

Re:I use Uber over public transit

[mvdwege]

For $3 more I get dropped off in front of my office, they pick me up on my schedule, I get a real seat belt, appropriate heating/A/C, listen to NPR, nobody asking for money or sitting next to someone not having showered for a week etc etc.

Oh yes, God forbid you little princesses should ever see the masses up close

Just remember what happened to Marie-Antoinette.

Re:I use Uber over public transit

[swb]

I think "increases road usage" doesn't make sense.

If 10 people decide to take Uber instead of driving, that's 9 less cars that use the road at all. You can't make any statement about total miles driven without know where those 10 people start and end their trip.

Uber could reduce congestion by reducing the number of cars that need to use the road at the same time.

The way to think about UberX is that economically, a car is physical capital that is underutilized. It gets driven to work, parked and does no useful work until it is driven home. Uber lets people maximize the utility of the capital.

Re:I use Uber over public transit

[Slashdot Parent]

People fucking hate riding the bus, but they love the train, for whatever reason.

I ride the train, so I can fill in the "whatever" for you:

1. The train doesn't have any traffic lights and it doesn't get stuck in traffic.
2. The train doesn't stop every 500-1000 ft.
3. The train comes every 3-5 minutes instead of every 15-20 minutes for the bus.
4. The train doesn't get jam-packed like sardines because it's way bigger than a bus and it comes more often.
5. The train stations are often enclosed in some way, so you don't have to wait for the train in the rain/cold/wind/snow/etc. (e.g. the train station by my house is outdoors, but it is covered and protected somewhat from the wind)

Of course, if the weather is truly shitty, I'll just drive. But most of the time, I take the train. No way in hell I'd take the bus.

It's only worth it

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not at all universal. Some cities have quite nice and convenient public transit, and it can be even better if you live and work in the right places. I own a car and can afford to drive to work, but I typically take light-rail. It takes maybe 30 minutes as opposed to 25 by car, but I get 15 minutes of walking and fresh air and I can read while in transit, and I don't have to experience daily driver-rage-stress. I actually rather like taking the train to work.

Not Sharing

[jklovanc]

Can we please stop calling it "ride sharing"? It is no more ride sharing that a grocery store is "food sharing".

Re:Not Sharing

[mjwx]

Can we please stop calling it "ride sharing"? It is no more ride sharing that a grocery store is "food sharing".

But then we'd have to call them what they are, taxis... and that means they'll have to meet the same standards and requirements as regular taxis. Uber and Lyft will ultimately fail. Mini-cabbing (which is essentially what Uber is doing) has been legal in London for ages and the London black cabs are still around and going strong. In Australia, Uber isn't any cheaper than getting a legit taxi who has a license, insurance and may actually know where they're going.

Re:Not Sharing

[Daniel_Staal]

Actually, at this point it's exactly a share taxi. I wonder when Americans will realize they've just re-invented a form of semi-formal public transport that's common in undeveloped countries without real public transport.

should be banned or regulated

[goombah99]

Lyft and Uber drivers should have to follow the same not-free regs as taxi drivers. things like displaying a hack lic, certification of insurance or bonding, and penalties for systematic race discrimination are things that taxi drivers and their companies are required to follow. Undercutting these is not a good idea.

Re:should be banned or regulated

[swillden]

Lyft and Uber drivers should have to follow the same not-free regs as taxi drivers.

Why?

Serious question. Forget about questions of fairness, step back and look at first principles and evaluate whether the regulations are of value to society. Were these rules ever necessary? If so, why? Do the same reasons apply to Uber and Lyft?

Re:should be banned or regulated

[whoever57]

Serious question. Forget about questions of fairness, step back and look at first principles and evaluate whether the regulations are of value to society. Were these rules ever necessary? If so, why? Do the same reasons apply to Uber and Lyft?

Some are clearly necessary. Others not so much. Unfortunately, the regulations around medallions are often abut revenue for the city, which merely pushes up costs for the taxi drivers. In return, the taxi drivers get a limit on competition.

Re:should be banned or regulated

[stephanruby]

Lyft and Uber drivers should have to follow the same not-free regs as taxi drivers. things like displaying a hack lic, certification of insurance or bonding, and penalties for systematic race discrimination are things that taxi drivers and their companies are required to follow. Undercutting these is not a good idea.

Uber's insurance is explained here, and its legalese can be found here. I haven't looked for Lyft's policy, but I assume that Lyft's policy can be just as easily found.

penalties for systematic race discrimination are things that taxi drivers and their companies are required to follow.

And yet despite all those penalties, racial discrimination still happens systematically during peak hours. During peak hours, taxi drivers can easily pretend not to have seen someone hailing them down if they know they can easily pick up someone else just as easily.

And in a way, Uber and Lyft's processes nicely solve that problem, since for them, they're not allowed to pick up people who are hailing them visually. They can only pick up the people that have hailed them electronically through a mobile app. So choosing your customer based on skin color is much less of a possibility for Uber and Lyft drivers, because now there is an electronic paper trail if a driver suddenly decides not to pick up a potential customer he has agreed to pick up electronically.

The electronic process of ordering rides through a mobile app also solves the problem of displaying a license. By ordering a ride through Uber, you see the picture, you see the id, and you see the rating of who's going pick you up before they do pick you up. Just try to get that level of information the next time you call for a Yellow cab, you won't get it.

Not only that but in a few big cities, where the number of medaillons stays stagnant despite the desperate need of additional taxis on the road during peak hours, Uber and Lyft are serving the needs of an underserved market. Because I can tell you, in my personal experience, it's not just black people that can't find a cab sometimes. As a white person who sometimes really needs a cab in San Francisco during peak hours, I've simply given up trying to find one. I can only assume that only customers from five star hotels and hot supermodels can catch cabs during those hours, because I see many cabs during those times, and I've used my phone to call cab companies as well, but those cabs are certainly not stopping for me, or they have the light on signaling that they're on their way to pick up someone else.

If I really need a car after work for some reason, I'll drive my car in, clogging up the system even more, and I'll risk paying insane parking fees for the entire day (despite the fact that I might only need the car for a fraction of that time, to go somewhere after 5 PM, that's not easily reached with public transportation).

Re:should be banned or regulated

[Richard_at_work]

On each of your points I will say why for a different reason:

1. Licence / certification: What does this bring to the ability to ride in someone else's car? They are already licensed to be on the road, why should this license magically not apply when they carry someone other than a friend / family member?

I can already cook and make meals for my friends, why do I need various licenses and inspections to open a restaurant for someone other than a friend / family member?

2. Insurance: This is more of a problem with the insurance system than anything else. Why do different levels of insurance exist when a vehicle is used in different circumstances. Either apply a blanket policy which is compulsory (Australia has compulsory third party insurance for any registered vehicle), or change all insurance schemes to grade the vehicle by real time risk, i.e. km driven in a period. Why should a car be perfectly fine insurance wise to drive on the road and then suddenly not be fine when it's carrying another passenger?

My home has perfectly fine accident damage for when I invite friends and family over, so why do I need public liability insurance if I then choose to run a business from it that involved people coming over?

Hint - when you aren't doing something for profit, that is taken into account in liability cases. The moment you intend to make a profit from the action, your liability changes and so you need additional insurance to cover it. When running a business in both your own and my examples, the standard that you are held to changes dramatically, even when there is a comparable non-business version of your actions.

Re:should be banned or regulated

[jbengt]

You are not correct.
My home insurance will cover accidents that visitors have on my property, but will not cover customers if I'm using it as a place of business - that'd be a whole different level of risk for the insurance company.
Similarly, insuring a taxi driver is a much larger risk for an insurance company than insuring a private driver, even for the same number of miles.
Why should I, as a private driver, pay for the same insurance that covers the larger risks of taxi drivers?

This may be a good thing ...

[MacTO]

Cities that offer good transit service don't have to worry about the competition. Those transit services already offer fast and reliable service at a reasonable price.

On the other hand, cities that offer horrible transit service need the competition. They need to realize that poor coverage, poor scheduling, unreliable service, and drivers with poor safety records are unacceptable. If they don't realize that it is unacceptable, then maybe they should shutter their doors and let the private sector take over. (This coming from someone who normally supports a strong public sector.)

To give you an idea of what I mean: I work two jobs in a city with poor transit service, so I decided to sit down and do some math one day. The end result is that taking the bus cost significantly more than taking a taxi. That's a single person in a regulated cab, and not the shared-ride service mentioned here. Yes, a great part of the cost was from lost income. Yet it was real lost income in my case because I had to negotiate my work hours around transit. For other people, the loss of income will come in other forms: being unable to accept a job due to transit coverage or scheduling, or losing a job because unreliable service results in an unreliable employee. For other people it will result in a diminished quality of life, simply because much of their time is spent waiting for or being in transit.

(To give you an idea of how inefficient transit is in my city: if it takes 30 minutes to walk somewhere, you may as well walk since the bus is going to take longer. If you have to be somewhere at a particular time, you can usually increase that 30 minute walking radius to 1 hour because that bus that "arrives 10 minutes early" will end up arriving 10 minutes late so frequently that you will end up unemployed.)

Re:It's only worth it

[mysidia]

Some cities have quite nice and convenient public transit, and it can be even better if you live and work in the right places.

Yes, and they're all outside the United States. :-)

No!

[superdude72]

Threads like these always leave me flabbergasted at how people who have never lived in a big city just really, really don't get how cities work.

Re:It's only worth it

[wisnoskij]

This. It all depends. In a busy city with a great subway system public transit can be several times faster than if you owned a car, and less than 1% of the cost.

Re:It's only worth it

[mister_playboy]

I have read that half of the USA's total daily public transportation ridership is found in a single city... New York City

This one factoid portrays our public transport situation very well...

Your ancient rules make little sense

[SuperKendall]

things like displaying a hack lic,

This makes no sense. Remember they are not sitting there waiting for you to get in - you summon them via app which automatically means they have been vetted by the service, and you have info about them beforehand before you even selected them.

Perhaps taxi drivers should start with regulations requiring you to be able to see reviews from past customers?

certification of insurance or bonding

Again - all taken care of or else they would not be on the service.

penalties for systematic race discrimination

They come and pick you up. It's funny you bring this up with zero evidence of this being a problem, while we know cabs do this from time to time. If you've not solved it for cabs forget about solving it for Uber.

Undercutting these is not a good idea.

None of that is undercut. Only price, convenience, shiftiness of drivers, and car quality are undercut (or enhanced).

Another Gated Community

[cmholm]

I don't begrudge Lyft and Uber as an experiment in alternative transport. I think the growing sharing culture is a symptom of middle class economic stagnation, such that people are "driven" to monetize the spare capacity in their personal transport, their homes, etc.

What concerns me is that they are likely cherry picking transportation consumers. Those who can normally afford to spring for Lyft are then less likely to use public transport, and become alienated to its broader utility, much as those who live in gated communities aren't as concerned about addressing the crime rate in the surrounding community.

Re:It's only worth it

[Slashdot Parent]

I don't know anyone who takes public transportation if they don't have to.

It really depends on the individual situation.

For me, I live near a suburban train station and my office is near a downtown station on the same line. My commute is about 5 minutes shorter if I drive, but traffic can be frustrating in the city. On the train, I can relax and read and let someone else do the driving. So while I can perfectly well afford to commute by car, I typically take the train because it's less stressful.

If I truly had to spend 3 hours on a smelly bus, then you'd be right, there is no way in hell that I would tolerate that shit at my age. All I'm saying is that if the public transport option is reasonably pleasant, people will use it even if they can afford to drive.

Re:It's only worth it

[neilo_1701D]

Some cities have quite nice and convenient public transit, and it can be even better if you live and work in the right places.

Yes, and they're all outside the United States. :-)

Really? I live in NJ, and work in Manhattan. My monthly PATH card costs $89; that $4.45/day, and my monthly MTA MetroCard costs $112; that's $5.60/day. I've a 5 minute walk to the PATH each day ad a 5 minute walk from the subway to my office. So for $5.02 a trip, I get from home to work on the (mostly) reliable PATH and the (somewhat more reliable) NY subway in an average time of 20 min (best is 15 min; worst was an hour).

The PATH is almost always clean (if a little packed in the mornings); the subway is the E line, which originates at WTC so the cars are cleaned and not so packed.

All in all, for my daily trip cost it's a pretty good service.

The alternatives are a taxi (good luck with getting one to cross from NJ to NY or the other way) or a car service. The times I've had to use a car service it was a $50 "mate's rates" fare one way, and took 30-40 min, thanks to the traffic in the Holland tunnel.

However, if there's an Uber or Lyft service that offers a one-way service from NJ to NY, can get me there in 15 minutes or less and costs less than five bucks, I'm game to try.

Re:It's only worth it

[ganjadude]

I went to Munich back in 2008 and was shocked at how great the public transit system is (coming from someone who has used the NYC system quite often) and i realized within a day that we are decades behind munich when it comes to public transport.

having said that, most places in america are not cities that lend to public transit systems to begin with. Im 20 miles from work and most of it is small towns and farmland, it wouldnt make any sense to have a light rail. we have a bus system but the busses dont go anywhere I need them, and frankly I hate taking busses id rather drive

being in the hudson valley however, it is very nice to hop on amtrak take it into grand central or penn for 20 bucks round trip give or take instead of driving which wont save you time (bridges and tunnels always full) pay more in gas and tolls, add in parking and its not worth driving into NYC these days.