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Transportation Businesses Earth

Uber Admits It Wants To Take Riders Away From Public Transit (cnn.com) 190

"Uber took down the taxi industry and now it wants a piece of public transit," reports CNN, in an article shared by dryriver: For years, as it aggressively entered new markets, Uber has maintained that it is a complement and ally of public transit. But that messaging changed earlier this month, when Uber released its S-1 ahead of its upcoming initial public offering. In the regulatory filing, Uber said its growth depends on better competing with public transportation, which it identifies as a $1 trillion market it can grab a share of over the long-term. Uber, which lost $1.8 billion in 2018, said it offers incentives to drivers to scale up its network to attract riders away from personal vehicles and public transportation.

Transportation experts say that if Uber grabs a big chunk of its target market -- 4.4 trillion passenger miles on public transportation in the 63 countries in which it operates -- cities would grind to a halt, as there would literally be no space to move on streets....

Uber's rival Lyft didn't describe public transportation as a competitor in its S-1. But while the corporate mission may be different, in practice there's little difference, experts say.

"Try to imagine the island of Manhattan, and everyone taking the subway being in a rideshare. It just doesn't function...." said Christof Spieler, who teaches transportation at Rice University and wrote the book Trains, Buses, People. "It's a world in which large cities essentially break down."

And transportation consultant Jarrett Walker tells CNN that while it may make business sense for Uber and Lyft to pursue this strategy, "it may also be a strategy that's destroying the world."
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Uber Admits It Wants To Take Riders Away From Public Transit

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  • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @05:47PM (#58502224)

    "Try to imagine the island of Manhattan, and everyone taking the subway being in a rideshare. It just doesn't function...."

    Most people don't live in Manhattan.

    If ridesharing doesn't provide a better alternative, people won't use it. Problem solved.

    Public transit will continue to be successful and widely used in Manhattan and a few other dense cities. Everywhere else, it will continue to suck.

    • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @06:03PM (#58502286)
      Take into account they are losing billions per year charging what they charge today. Any 'defeat' they have over alternative modes of travel they have in the end is a loss for everyone because they'll eventually have to raise prices in order to profit.
      • by hazardPPP ( 4914555 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @06:26PM (#58502372)

        Take into account they are losing billions per year charging what they charge today. Any 'defeat' they have over alternative modes of travel they have in the end is a loss for everyone because they'll eventually have to raise prices in order to profit.

        To me it just sounds like Uber is getting desperate. They are history's most money-burning startup, have never made a profit, and a couple of years ago basically said the only way they will ever make money is massive deployment of self-driving cars.

        As self-driving cars are not going to be ubiquitous anytime soon (it's one thing to run over municipal taxi regulations, quite another to do so over state and national road safety regulations), now they are trying to say they'll grab a share of the public transit market. At some point, Uber is either going to massively downsize operations to a level where they can be profitable (I'm sure there are markets where they are profitable, and can be long-term), or they will just go bankrupt.

        • Itâ(TM)s incredible Uber manages to lose so much money. They donâ(TM)t pay their drivers that much, and they have no overhead to speak of. So where does all the money go?

          I guess with them going public weâ(TM)ll get to see.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward

            They subsidize the cost of every ride so they look cheaper than taxis. The point was to run all the taxi companies out of business and undercut any other app based transit company (they are not ride sharing companies, stop calling them that). The potential profit from being in a monopoly position over an industry many people are required to use to survive* is massive. I think they underestimated how long it would take to take over everyone. It's a common occurrence with people living in richer areas thi

      • People don’t internalize the cost of traffic congestion. The gridlock factor is what kills single passenger vehicles.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        That is what is really going on. They are losing billions and they need a pump and dump because it looks very much like the ride is coming to an end. So Uber executive and their bankster buddies want to waffle on about a new market, no matter how unrealistic.

        In capital letters 'UBER IPO' https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/2... [cnbc.com]. They will now tell every single fucking lie they can get away with, the initial hedge fund investors, corrupt executives and the banks getting a commision on the transaction. They might w

        • Can a car compete with an express train ride into the city from the burbs, rare days yes, most days NO and that doesn't even touch high speed rail. It is BULLSHIT,

          You didn't even ask the _real_ question. Can one thousand cars compete with an express ride? (Sticker seen on the back of a bus: "Would you rather have me in front of you, or fifty cars?"

        • Can a car compete with an express train ride into the city from the burbs, rare days yes, most days NO and that doesn't even touch high speed rail.

          Most places don't have commuter trains at all, never mind express ones. I live in South Florida, and while Miami has (apparently) a half decent system, Tri-Rail and Brightline (Virgin Trains now) are north-south only. That isn't particularly helpful for 95% of the population. The bus systems north of Miami-Dade are ... unreliable.

    • "Try to imagine the island of Manhattan, and everyone taking the subway being in a rideshare. It just doesn't function...."

      Most people don't live in Manhattan.

      If ridesharing doesn't provide a better alternative, people won't use it. Problem solved.

      Public transit will continue to be successful and widely used in Manhattan and a few other dense cities. Everywhere else, it will continue to suck.

      It doesn't have to be that way. There are other countries which have managed to have good (or even excellent) public transport systems that operate nationwide, not just in dense cities.

      • Just curious, what are those other countries, and how large are they?
        • Just curious, what are those other countries, and how large are they?

          It sounds like you're edging towards the "America is special because it's big." argument.

          The overall size of the country is irrelevant since people don't take a cab from NY to LA. Most people day to day travel within cities, from work to home and back, maybe via shops or schools.

          On the hand feel free to keep arguing for exceptionalism from inside a traffic jam in a gridlocked city.

          • Well, the GP talked about excellent public service (not just taxis) across the nation. And no, I wasn't going to talk about the entire US. But I don't think many people realize the greater LA area (Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties) is larger than Belgium, and about on-par with Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, and a host of other countries.
            • But I don't think many people realize the greater LA area (Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties) is larger than Belgium, and about on-par with Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, and a host of other countries.

              LA is about twice the area of Switzerland with about twice the population (both are about 200 people per square km, slightly denser in LA) with similar GDP per capita (a bit higher in Switzerland). Switzerland is much more mountainous.

              The public transportation in Switzerland is excellent

              • Now - does Paris or Zurich have to contend with a few hundred fault lines running through it? And I know Paris has nothing like the altitude changes you have in LA. And the density in Bern, Zurich, and even Interlaken are much higher than in most of Los Angeles (which is spread out - not concentrated in a few high-density cities with large open areas between them). Fly into Zurich versus LA, and it's radically different - forests/mountains and then a city versus flying over a full-on city for 40 minutes.
          • It sounds like you're edging towards the "America is special because it's big." argument.
            The overall size of the country is irrelevant since people don't take a cab from NY to LA.

            America is special because so many of its cities were born after the car. They were sited along highways — indeed, when rail lines closed down and highways were built, some towns died because they depended on the rail traffic, and the highway didn't follow the same route. So areas were actually planned with highways in mind. European cities predate the automobile in most cases, so they have a very different situation.

            With that said, public transport can be useful here too, and we'd have more of it tod

          • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
            Well said.
    • Uber is essentially a gentrified transportation service. Poor people can't afford Uber, so they take the bus. Uber's plan now is how to attract more people in the middle since they've already captured the stupid-with-too-much-money market.

      • It isn't just poor people, am I going to spend $18 for a taxi, $27 for Uber EACH WAY to work (just looked up price) or am I going to spend $5 for ROUND TRIP?

        Yup it's a no-brainer, public transportation it is

        • You have the pricing for Taxi vs Uber reversed, but you're right otherwise. Uber each way to work would be about $20-25 for me, so about $50/day vs $5 for the bus. MOST of the time it makes more sense for me to take the bus, but that ride is at least 1.5 hours each way with a change of busses, and occasionally a bus doesn't show up, or I have something to do after work, or the weather is inclimate enough to make the 20 minute walk between the bus stop and my office untenable. In those cases, the extra cost

          • Not reversed, Taxi is indeed cheaper here for that long run, I've taken it when public transport was down due to someone deciding suicide by being struck by CTA train would make people notice their name for at least the duration of rush hour plus the evening news. Cost of Uber was right from website.

    • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      Most people don't live in Manhattan.

      >

      A lot of people go there to work, though.

  • by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @05:49PM (#58502228)
    This was the known business model from Day 1.
  • by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @06:00PM (#58502264)

    a bus ride from my neighborhood to downtown is $1

    it's about 25 miles, how much would an uber ride be?

    Downsides to the bus, it takes a while and there are only 2 trips in the morning and 2 in the late afternoon.

    • Installing the app would need you to register, etc. A deposit of $20 or so can be applied towards your first ride, if I remember correctly (Credit or debit card) Rideshares via uber depend on distance & timing (rush hour etc)

    • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      That's incredibly cheap.
  • They don't care (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @06:28PM (#58502382) Journal

    And transportation consultant Jarrett Walker tells CNN that while it may make business sense for Uber and Lyft to pursue this strategy, "it may also be a strategy that's destroying the world."

    And the executives at Uber will respond with, "So what?"

    Really, they don't give a shit about anything except how much money finds its way to their bank account.

    "So we kill a city or two or ten or a hundred, so what?"

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @06:43PM (#58502440) Journal
    My old boss used to say, "When you buy a new house, you make sure the five most irritating things in the old house does not happen in the new one. After you buy you discover five new irritants that did not exist in the old house"

    People see the problems of public transit, the delay, the crowd, empty buses/trains when you are not looking for a ride, your bus alone is over crowded, price hikes, ... America had the best street car system, and people hated it. Politicians promised a car for everyone.

    Firestone, Ford and Standard Oil formed a secret cartel to destroy the public transportation. They bought critical backbone routes and shut it down. But they need not have been all that secret. All the people and the politicians hated the public transport so much they would have been cheerleaders.

    With public transport destroyed or crippled, most cities ended up with traffic congestion, parking costs and the most insidious thing: So many people living at the bottom end of wages are just one fender bender, one blown alternator, one oil pump failure away from disaster. With public transport, if the friends can chip in for bus fare, you can work that day and slowly get back into workforce. Without it, people not only lose the job, the ability to find/go to another job too. Unless they have a support circle that can get the car back on the road, they eventually become homeless.

    • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

      But they need not have been all that secret. All the people and the politicians hated the public transport so much they would have been cheerleaders.

      Hated it because cars and gas were at some point free? And even today, you have wealthy people living in NYC who don't own cars because they're too much of a pain in the ass over public transportation.

  • Hah, not likely.
    Buses and trains have limitations like schedules, service areas, speed.
    However where I live the bus is $2 including a 2 hour transfer, or $4 for a day pass, and $60 for a monthly unlimited pass.

    I took an Uber to work once only when my car broke down recently. $32 plus tip. One way.
    I can live with a lot of inconvenience for $4 a day compared to $64 a day.

    My car is somewhat more than a bus, but far cheaper than an Uber, around $5 to $5.50 depending on gas prices.
    I doubt I want to ride in a $2
    • by dryeo ( 100693 )

      The car costs more then gas. Insurance here is $3-4 a day. Then there is maintenance, which is likely to be another couple of bucks a day. Brakes, tires, oil and other fluid changes, as well as break downs.

  • Then we might know where the bus is and when it is coming. Here in Palo Alto the bus may run early and leave us standing there a half hour for their next round. A great opportunity for Uber.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      They should take over our city bus service. Then we might know where the bus is and when it is coming.

      Loads of places have this already without some crazy privatisation scheme. In some places you don't even need a smartphone, you can just text a number written on the bus stop and the system replies with the arrival times.

      And that's only for the stops that don't have live displays.

  • Two words (Score:4, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @07:18PM (#58502554)

    Congestion pricing. More cities are moving towards increasing fees for vehicles which drive in the city at certain times. The whole point of public transportation is to alleviate streets packed with vehicles and the consequent pollution.

    If the Uber taxi company wants to go after public transportation by increasing the number of its taxis on the street, cities will simply respond by passing on the fee to them which will in turn be passed on to the customers which will defeat the entire purpose of flagging an Uber taxi in the first place.

    • We'll see how it works in NYC soon. America has a habit of being dragged kicking and screaming into the good ideas the rest of the world has been doing for decades, coming up with the worst possible implementation of them, and then when they fail claim "it just doesn't work here".

  • I use ViaVan for my daily commute to work. The only reason I do that is because public transport is absolutely crammed. Often I will wait outside the station for the staff to re-open the access because it gets so busy that the gates close as there is essentially no more space for people to walk into the station. So, for me it was either: drive my own car, or pool. I chose the latter.

    What would I do if EVERYONE started pooling and causing traffic chaos in big cities?

    Are you kidding me? You mean to say

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