Virtucon writes
"Ride Sharing Services such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar received a big boost today when the California Public Utilities Commission approved rules that would allow them to continue to operate as long as the followed a few rules. This makes California the first state to adopt such rules and is expected to preempt local governments who are trying to clamp down on these services and try to regulate them like local taxi companies."
Re:Why is it called ride sharing?
By Anonymous Coward
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2013-Sep-19 20:48
• Score: 5, Informative
• Thread
I must be missing something about this concept. If you're getting paid (with a net profit) to drive people around, why is it called ride sharing? How is it not a taxi service?
...A ride share takes you where you want to go providing it isn't too far out of the way from where the driver was going anyway...
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No. I've used Lyft on multiple occasions, and every single time it was exactly like a taxi--"Take me to location X". There was no waiting around for someone travelling a similar route or anything along those lines.
What I actually really like about it is the rating system. Lyft provides a "suggested donation" for the traveler. The traveler can pay as much as they want (with a minimum of $5, IIRC), but Lyft tracks the value as a % of the suggested donation (which is *always* less than the cost of a taxi). Lyft drivers, then, have the ability to look up passengers that average, say, minimum 80% of the suggested donation. So if you're continually paying very little, you're going to quickly find yourself out of a ride. And on the flip side, travelers get to rate the driver--how friendly were they, how clean was their car, etc. And living in Chicago, I can tell you that I have taken far more filthy taxi rides with complete asshole drivers (who refuse to take the route I tell them) than I care to count. So while I haven't used the other services, I have nothing but good things to say about Lyft.
Is any regulation necessary?
By mendax
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2013-Sep-19 20:57
• Score: 3
• Thread
A very conservative friend seems to think I'm rather liberal when I think regulation is a good idea sometimes. Regulation *is* quite often a good idea when history has amply demonstrated that a business model cannot operate in a legitimate or non-abusive manner without it. Classic examples of this are banks and the the Wall Street financial market as well as the taxi business in places like San Francisco and New York, automobile manufacturing, trucking companies, and the labor markets. Great evils of various kinds have occurred when these things were not regulated. But sometimes overregulation creates problems. A great example is the airline industry. At one time, the airlines were highly regulated. Regardless of who you flew with, the fare would be the same for the same route and they were high. Airline travel in those days was quite expensive. Since airlines couldn't attract customers using fares, they differentiated themselves by offering great service (even in "cattle" class), better planes, etc. For example, when was the last time that any of you flew a Boeing 747 on a domestic flight that wasn't a leg of an international flight? In the 1970's, wide-bodied planes were common on the higher trafficked domestic flights. These days, airline service is awful but relatively inexpensive.
So I ask the question: Does ride-sharing really need to be regulated beyond a requirement that the vehicles and drivers have proper insurance? Is it anything like the wild west of unregulated taxi services in places like New York and San Francisco that created chaos?
Re:the taxi services have a right to be pissed
By Anonymous Coward
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2013-Sep-19 21:37
• Score: 4, Informative
• Thread
The SFMTA reports that there are only twenty-nine taxi companies that legally operate in San Francisco. Those 29 taxi companies operate a total of 1,707 cabs. (One medallion allows one cab to be operated.)
I can tell you from hard, long experience that this is far too few cabs for the city.
Data source, straight from the horse's mouth: http://www.sfmta.com/services/taxi-industry/medallions/medallion-holders
There are currently 1,430 people waiting to acquire a taxi medallion. http://www.sfmta.com/services/taxi-industry/medallions/waiting-list
It is said that one is often on the waiting list for ten years. In order to acquire a medallion, you have to meet a boatload of somewhat reasonable requirements, then be able to pony up $300k. From that $300k, the city takes $100k, and the remainder is given to the previous medallion holder.
As of this moment, the city does *not* create new taxi medallions. This is the very definition of "lucrative, performance insensitive monopoly".
Re:the taxi services have a right to be pissed
By Thomasje
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2013-Sep-19 21:48
• Score: 4, Interesting
• Thread
Don't hold your breath waiting for prices to plummet when taxis are deregulated. This has already been tried in the Netherlands, and the result was that prices went up, not down, and service got worse, not better, capitalist dogma notwithstanding.
The problem is that taxi drivers need to make a certain amount of money to pay their cost of living, and if the number of cabs goes up while the number of passengers doesn't, they end up spending more time waiting for fares, and less time actually driving. And they can't just hop off to a second job while they are waiting. So, they have to *increase* their rates in order to make up for their reduced number of trips, so taking a cab becomes more expensive, and they will tend to refuse short trips, trying to hold out for the more profitable longer ones, so taxi availability gets worse.
A Few Rules
By jimbrooking
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2013-Sep-19 21:57
• Score: 4, Insightful
• Thread
The rules in the article are as follows:
"Regulators would require drivers to undergo criminal background checks, receive driver training, follow a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol and carry insurance policies with a minimum of $1 million in liability coverage."
That seems like some pretty heavy lifting that will probably dissuade lots of otherwise good-natured and willing drivers, no?