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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: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:12PM
The taxi would have cost prolly $20 (1980 dollars), when you're making minimum wage that's a day's wages.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:05PM
So what? If you only had an emergency like that once, then what is the problem?
She ended up leaving work early to go home with me.
So you forced your carpool buddy to go home early, because *you* had an issue? The proper way of handing things would have been to take a taxi, or give your carpool buddy money for a taxi. Or have some sort of a plan ahead of time worked out between the two of you - things come up. Then you continue with your arrangement considering it worked for months already. How long to save $20? Even in 1980s, that's probably 20-gal of gas.. so even with an efficient car, maybe 2 weeks?