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Given the proliferation of microtransit services trying to match drivers and passengers, you might think they had ride-sharing and carpooling all figured out. But the recent demise of Leap Transit in San Francisco—to say nothing of the other transportation start-ups that have failed without a media whimper—reminds us that even in a big city it’s not easy to fill empty vehicle seats. And in the suburbs, it’s downright mathematically impossible.
Or just about, anyway, according to a provocative new thought-experiment by Steve Raney, principal at a smart mobility consultancy called Cities21. In a working paper, the former Silicon Valley tech product manager crunched the numbers on ride-sharing in the Palo Alto area and found the odds of matching drivers with passengers long, to say the least. Raney calls it the “Suburban Ridematch Needle in the Haystack Problem.”
“I wanted to gently inject some reality into this,” he tells CityLab.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday November 18 2015, @06:07AM
How about an extra shot of reality.
Screw this new age .com blather about 'ride sharing.' It is like 'reality tv' in that it is a lie almost every way you look at it. Uber isn't some new hip thing. It is an Internet dispatched taxi service. But like reality tv all of the terminology is fudged up to cover up what is actually happening.
Reality TV got it's big start during a strike. So it has actors, but they aren't called that and they aren't in SAG. It is written (in the editing bay by stitching a storyline together out of the footage) but not by anyone in the Screenwriters Guild. Same for the lack of a union director, usually without union cameras, etc. To cover up all of this union busting, reality is distorted by all new terminology.
Same with "ride sharing." A paid driver shows when summoned, picks you up and delivers you to your destination and charges a fee for the service. That is taxi service but it isn't one of the official monopoly "Taxi" companies so a lot of fancy new words get invented to pretend it is something different. Without the Internet dispatch angle and the glow of "Internet Startup"; 1% hipsters wouldn't think they were wonderful, write endless press articles extoling them etc. They would just be an outlaw cab companies and Uber and the other 'ride sharing' startups would all be in jail, their assets seized and Bernie Sanders and his staff would be applauding the crackdown instead of calling them for rides.
As a capitalist I have no problem with any of it, I just like pointing out the hypocrites and the double speak.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday November 18 2015, @06:52AM
What are you going on about?
This story is about ride sharing, (car pooling). Its not about taxi's or how taxi's are summoned.
People have been car-pooling since before the first gas shortage of the 70s. Local citie governments have been trying build ride-sharing programs by matching people who both work and live in the same places (or close to the same places). It works in a small town, but it just doesn't work in big cities.
The only arrangements that do work out are those of happenstance where you happen to know someone on roughly the same schedule, living very near by, and working very close to your work destination. Nobody will go very far out of their way to pick up a rider. Word of mouth works. But if you can hold a ride sharing program together for two years, you are doing very well. They break down, people change jobs, they move, they change shifts, etc.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2015, @12:55PM
This story is about ride sharing, (car pooling). Its not about taxi's or how taxi's are summoned.
"Uber isn't some new hip thing. It is an Internet dispatched taxi service."
Learn to fucking read? You're talking about the story. GP is talking about a point he is making. You are allowed to introduce your own points and comments you know.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:38AM
I take it no one wants to carpool with jmorris. I understand. He will not allow us to listen to NPR on the way to work, and insists on AM talk radio! Can you imagine? In this day and age, listening to Amplitude Modulated radio waves? No wonder jmorris is so far behind the cool, and behind science. So, could someone just make the effort to try and get jmorris to ride in a socialist collective pooling of resources for mutual benefit? Or are we all too afraid that he is packing?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 18 2015, @09:41AM
And. . . . wait for it!. . . . troll mod for not wanting to carpool with jmorris? WTCP? (That is, "What The Car Pool?"). Unless it is a mod by jmorris himownself, in which case I am truly honored! Still wouldn't carpool with you, though. C'mon, all that right-wing talk radio is rotting your brain to the point that the rest of us can't even talk to you without getting modded down, or some such.
Remember, my dear and precious Soylentils, that a double shot of reality is not, in fact, actually reality, it is one shot over the line, dear Jesus. Or was that a toke? Same dif. Let us now all engage in rational debate grounded in actual reality, based on facts, and founded upon a respect for our fellow disputants. Except for jmorris. Did anyone else notice the smell? I mean, does he listen to Alex Jones in the morning?
(Score: 0, Redundant) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 18 2015, @09:48AM
Third response to my own post. I realize this should never be done, but I thought that in case anyone should want to mod me down further, another post that they could do so on would be helpful. Beyond the double shot of reality is yet another chance of redemption.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 18 2015, @03:07PM
But you're right, the "call a tail a leg" of Uber is just complete bullshit to get around paying tax (the top 1% do it, why shouldn't people elsewhere in the pyramid too?). As someone who pays lots and lots of tax, this pisses me off.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:07PM
h, I never knew about th origins of reality tv (citations appreciated), but that kinda confirms why I've been refusing to call it reality tv, and instead call it "tv without professional actors" (OK, I call it "reality tv" for short, but have never considered there to be any reality behind the scripted scenarios that are played out. And OK, I haven't seen much, I haven't had a telly since the 90s.)
It's easier to just call it crap.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 18 2015, @08:30PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves