travis county sheriff against banning uber/lyft

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Austin97

When I last did the math it was $9/ride

That's assuming all the current Uber/Lyft drivers (many of which also have other jobs) are willing to work during rush hour?

And that they're willing to be paid $9 to sit in rush hour traffic for an hour?

And does that include buying them a bunch of handicapped accessible vehicles?

And does that include Billions for all the highway expansions necessary (all the highways are capacity constrained, light rail adds capacity that would need to be added some other way)?



TNC companies (and taxis) can play an important part of the overall transportation system.

But no way, no how are they a replacement for transit.



They _may_ be able to help for extremely sparse areas, where often the transit is already on-demand. But not for $9.

[txstate]

There doing background checks in Houston for drivers

[Aquitaine]

I wonder what the "cost per ride" math would look like for subsidized Uber/Lyft as an alternative to light rail and/or replacement for busses

That's a very interesting question. I assume it will be answered not by Uber in its current form, but by driverless cars. There are already Uber pilot programs for accessible vehicles.

If I had to make a prediction, I would guess that we'd see a hybrid-style driverless bus on the economy end of the mass transit scale. It'll never be efficient for any vehicle to stop at everybody's residence, but 10-12 passenger vans with the ability to re-route based on demand would reduce some of the infrastructure required. Your overall ridership would go way up, but efficiency of each ride would also go way up, so you wouldn't have empty busses.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by Novacek

That's assuming all the current Uber/Lyft drivers (many of which also have other jobs) are willing to work during rush hour?

And that they're willing to be paid $9 to sit in rush hour traffic for an hour?

And does that include buying them a bunch of handicapped accessible vehicles?

And does that include Billions for all the highway expansions necessary (all the highways are capacity constrained, light rail adds capacity that would need to be added some other way)?



TNC companies (and taxis) can play an important part of the overall transportation system.

But no way, no how are they a replacement for transit.



They _may_ be able to help for extremely sparse areas, where often the transit is already on-demand. But not for $9.

9/rider trip was for metro rail not for uber

[Roadking2003]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

I like to approach these questions from the perspective of 'if there was no industry at all, how would you design it?'

Yes!

The first thing I would do is get the government out of the way and see how the market develops. If customers want newer cars, somebody will meet that need. If customers want drivers who have been fingerprinted, the market will supply those drivers. Government should never control the number of taxis we have and should never be involved in pricing this product.

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by Roadking2003

Yes!

The first thing I would do is get the government out of the way and see how the market develops. If customers want newer cars, somebody will meet that need. If customers want drivers who have been fingerprinted, the market will supply those drivers. Government should never control the number of taxis we have and should never be involved in pricing this product.

I don't think "no government" is that's what he was saying. I would not want an unregulated transportation industry. The issue is that regulations designed pre-technology don't always fit well, so "how would we do it today" from scratch is a valid question.

Sometimes the bridge between the divide is hard to span. I'm a low government, Libertarian minded person in most cases, but government does and should have a role in public safety.

There is an article in Fortune Magazine from yesterday about the Uber Austin battle.
Uber, Lyft Fight Austin Over Fingerprints - Fortune

[Aquitaine]

Even libertarian me believes the state has an interest in regulating certain parts of the transportation industry. Anyone who has ever been to an airport in a country without this kind of enforcement knows that the market has not historically been the best at serving the consumer's interest.

Even that could be different now, since the transportation companies without decent apps and posted rates won't last long (what do you mean, you need me to pay cash?)

But I wouldn't categorically say that the government has no interest. It's just tough to contain. Look at LAX, where every taxi pickup earns Los Angeles $4 for doing next to nothing. Total government control is no different than (and often worse than) monopoly control.

Same thing with fingerprints. If there is something about what the city council wants that will actually facilitate real security, I'm all ears. But "let's solve all your problems" politicians, of which the city council has more than a few, don't have a great track record on knowing when to stop.