Data Research Reveals When Taking a Yellow Cab Is Cheaper Than an Uber

An anonymous reader writes A team of data scientists have come up with a system to identify times when regular yellow taxis are cheaper alternatives to an Uber [in New York]. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Nanmur in Belgium have compared a broad dataset of both yellow taxi and Uber fares in New York and have discovered that for a trip costing less than $35 Uber is often the most expensive option. The data scientists were able to reach this conclusion by comparing trip and fare data for each yellow taxi ride taken in 2013 and entering it into Uber's fare query system. Prices were taken from Uber's lowest-cost service Uber X and the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Comments

Re:Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I used to live in a "popular" neighborhood of Seattle (Capitol Hill) with a lot of bars and clubs. Every time I called a yellow cab (in the evening), they would never show up because they'd pick up someone along the way and disappear without notifying me. Every single time. The only way I could get a cab was to walk to a major street and try to hail one. Hugely inconvenient with the rain and steep hillside - this is for going out in the evening, so there's a fancy hairdo and high heels involved, and I'm willing to pay to be picked up at my door!

Re:Experience

[diamondmagic]

Dumping waste onto your neighbor's property (even gas, here), without their consent, is criminal.

Offering to give a person a ride at a cheaper rate than the alternative, without misrepresenting your product (and regular Uber users know what the product is perfectly well), with their consent, is not just legal, but beneficial to society as a whole.

If the problem is regulated rates, minimum road time, and so on... how about we fix that problem, instead of creating new ones?

What you're describing is called protectionism and it's been disproven in economics for hundreds of years. If you're going to cry 'Nothing happens in a vacuum' you can't then proceed to talk about only the taxi cab owners/drivers. You have to talk about all of society.