> The goal, he said, “is just to reduce prices to the consumer and then help with congestion and the environment.”
Like Uber cares about any of these things (prices, consumers, congestion, the environment)
nickff · 11h ago
Most of the people running and operating mass transit are motivated by remuneration as well.
comte7092 · 11h ago
Mass transit is wildly unprofitable.
Anyone with industry experience would tell you your statement is wildly off the mark, beyond perhaps employees desiring a livable wage.
Literally everyone in public transportation cares about prices, customers congestion and the environment.
xnx · 10h ago
> Literally everyone in public transportation cares about prices
Not sure how that squares with ~$40 billion high speed rail in California.
Most US transit agencies are designed as jobs programs (not necessarily bad, just wasteful) or to transfer tax money to construction firms.
comte7092 · 6h ago
What does that project have to do with buses?
Have you actually looked at the cost breakdown of California HSR? This isn’t all going to contractors but to land acquisition, feasibility studies, parts and materials, etc etc.
I also don’t know where you get the notion that it is representative of public transportation in the US, which is by and large just bus services.
xnx · 4h ago
> What does that project have to do with buses?
It's an example of how most US transit systems have completely lost the plot. There has been almost no change in the services offered despite smartphones totally changing how services could be offered. Transit systems would rather run empty buses on the same fixed routes than adapt a more efficient, Uber-like, system.
mentalpiracy · 10h ago
public transportation is a service, a public utility, not a business. it should not need to be profitable, and framing it terms of profit at all is wrong imo.
xnx · 9h ago
> it should not need to be profitable, and framing it terms of profit at all is wrong imo.
What is the right way to frame it? Total cost per passenger mile might be good. The transit systems that move the most people efficiently would do well on that metric.
mentalpiracy · 8h ago
public transit benefits the community/region more so than any individual benefit, so I don't think cost per passenger is appropriate either.
Sometimes basic science research funding is framed in terms of "this program generated $10 of economic activity for every dollar spent." Social programs sometimes measured this way too. The term for this escapes me at the moment, but I think it would be more useful?
nickff · 7h ago
>” Sometimes basic science research funding is framed in terms of "this program generated $10 of economic activity for every dollar spent."”
This type of cost-benefit analysis (or economic multiplier calculation) is also used to justify public subsidy of sports stadiums and the like. Unfortunately, these analyses always use overly optimistic assumptions, and fall victim to the broken windows fallacy.
mentalpiracy · 7h ago
that’s very true, good point
amanaplanacanal · 9h ago
Imagine trying to make roads and highways profitable. Very few people would be able to drive.
silotis · 9h ago
It doesn't need to be a cash cow (and probably shouldn't be), but public transit should be able to break even because that is the only reliable signal that a service is providing enough value to justify its cost.
vel0city · 9h ago
All roads should become toll roads then. The moment you leave your private drive you should be paying for the roads to break even.
Calling the police or fire department should incur service chargers.
Libraries should charge rental fees.
Schools should all charge tuition, including "public" schools.
If they're not at least breaking even, are we sure they're providing any public good?
amanaplanacanal · 9h ago
Roads and highways don't break even. I guess we should stop maintaining those, since they don't justify their cost.
dns_snek · 8h ago
If they're breaking even then what "cost" is there to justify? That's a really roundabout way of saying that public transit doesn't deserve public financing.
mentalpiracy · 8h ago
If that is the only reliable signal in this context - what signals of measuring value are available in this context that you feel are unreliable?
bryanlarsen · 9h ago
> Mass transit is wildly unprofitable.
Far less unprofitable than the road system. Gas taxes & tolls cover a far smaller percentage of road building & upkeep than bus fares cover of transit costs.
pavel_lishin · 11h ago
No, but the transit agencies themselves aren't driven by a profit motive.
pkulak · 11h ago
OP mentioned Uber's motivations, and you countered with workers' motivations.
Even admitting that, I'd be willing to bet that essentially no single Uber employee is working that job out of care for environment, or interest in having a healthy transportation system in their city. I know for a fact that's a consideration for many people who work for city transit agencies.
triceratops · 10h ago
"Uber" can't care about anything because it's a legal fiction. I'm sure many of the people who work there care.
9283409232 · 9h ago
I'm sure many of the people who work there can care but the people who make the decisions only care about profit and if anything is decided that will eat into profit they will be overruled.
triceratops · 9h ago
Uber is in the business of moving people around in exchange for money. They aren't a monopoly in any of the major markets they serve. It follows that profit is directly correlated with their quality of service and price.
janice1999 · 8h ago
Uber used a VC treasure chest to run at a multiple-billion dollar per quarter loss for years to run rivals out of business (while operating illegally in many market places).
triceratops · 8h ago
> to run rivals out of business
Did it work?
9283409232 · 1h ago
Yes. Uber and Lyft have driven many taxi companies out of business. SF Yellow Cab and LA Green Cab are the two largest ones. Uber and Lyft ran at losses for years losing billions of dollars to keep prices low and drive people out of business.
bko · 10h ago
They're providing a good. People have to part with money to use the good. The money someone is willing to pay is necessarily at worst exactly equal to the value they place on it. For instance, I may be willing to pay up to $5 for a slice of pizza, but it only costs me $3 so I get a surplus of $2.
That's basically how the market economy works. It's not controversial and it's why we in the industrialized world live in such affluence when compared to centrally planned systems or systems from the past.
I find these kind of comments like "corporation doesn't care" are lazy and boring. What's the point? It's a service, that looks pretty cool and is supplementing an often crappy public transportation system. And it won't cost taxpayers anything. In fact, it'll likely be subsidized by rich people who own Uber stock
MattDamonSpace · 12h ago
What do you think they care about
meagher · 12h ago
Money
ashdksnndck · 10h ago
In my city the buses suck. There are lots of lines going on meandering routes through the suburbs. Not enough routes going between dense areas with high frequency. I desperately wish to take public transit, but it’s normal that the travel time would be hours longer than driving, which makes it totally impractical.
There is obvious room for improvement with routes that dynamically respond to demand. If the bus doesn't have to run where nobody uses it, and can instead pick up riders who are waiting in a popular area, and take them where they want to go, the same number of buses and drivers could deliver much more transit value.
Probably it would be better if the city bus service ran this instead of Uber. But that bureaucracy has no history of making reasonable decisions.
Suppafly · 10h ago
> There are lots of lines going on meandering routes through the suburbs. Not enough routes with going between dense areas with high frequency.
My city did a hub and spoke type system, but the flip side is that you need to go downtown and change buses to get on the right spokes, which is confusing for people, and can take longer than a route that just goes in a big circle, if you're going somewhere that isn't super far away. That said, our system seems to mostly exist to get poor people where they want to go, vs being designed for working professionals, so I'm still not sure what the best solution would be.
Uber and those $1 private buses that some cities have are able to cut the bureaucracy and just popup routes that make sense for them to service without having to worry about disabled folks and such, so I'm sure they give a better experience to their customers while not providing a universal experience that a publicly funded operation would require.
ashdksnndck · 9h ago
We actually have such a hub and spoke system, but the geniuses put the bus hub pretty far from downtown, and it’s not the same place as the rail hub!
mentalpiracy · 10h ago
Dynamic routing destroys the value proposition of a bus route entirely. The whole point of a system of bus routes is that you are providing a _reliable_ system of stop locations and times for passengers to use as individually necessary. How do you use a bus system when you aren't sure if the bus will ever show up?
ashdksnndck · 9h ago
The buses are already unreliable! There’s one nearby route which is notorious for having a driver who simply doesn’t even run the route some of the time. And it’s common in most routes for them to be 0-20 minutes late, which means you need to waste lots amounts of time waiting at bus stops and for transfers.
Uber gets me where I need to go faster and more reliably than the bus, already. The cars and buses should be combined into a single dispatch system. Then we can combine efficiency of buses that can transport several people (when the there is enough demand in that direction) with the flexibility of small cars to fill in the gaps. This system would be dramatically more useful than my city’s bus service is today, and would be a compelling competitor with solo driving.
iaaan · 9h ago
You don't think that solving that particular route's reliability problem makes more sense than privatizing the whole system?
ashdksnndck · 8h ago
I haven’t advocated for privatizing the system. Public transit agencies who see how Uber is beating them at their own game should respond by adapting and improving.
Fixing that one route would be a nice first step, but their inability to do something so basic (dispute countless rider complaints filed over years) doesn’t make me optimistic about the prospects for this institution.
supertrope · 2h ago
Public transit could beat Uber at service quality. But it would come at the cost of abandoning their public responsibilities. Cut low use routes and focus on the profitable urban core. Raise fares to discourage low income customers. Go cashless. Ignore the Americans with Disabilities Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Workers' Compensation, Social Security like Uber does.
specproc · 9h ago
This looks a lot like a digital marshrutka.[0]
These things are actually pretty great, in a way. My city is full of them. The drivers are maniacs, they're overcrowded and dangerous, but they're affordable, have great coverage and are better than yet more cars on the road.
I would take this for the sole reason that junkies and panhandlers won’t be able to afford it
mentalpiracy · 10h ago
Public transportation does not need to be run at a profit - it is a public utility, just like mail service. What better metric could we use to compare private driver services to public transit?
We can roughly assess the economic value added to the community per dollar of transit spend. I am not sure that metric is possible to measure for Uber?
xnx · 4h ago
> I am not sure that metric is possible to measure for Uber?
or for transit agencies
jplrssn · 10h ago
How much cleaner, safer and faster would the actual public transit option be if everyone who was prepared to pay $13 each way for a 30-minute commute paid the same amount in taxes instead?
danielvf · 10h ago
My guess is that the people who are paying $13 each way for a 30-minute commute are paying orders of magnitudes more than that in taxes already.
Also, given that this is not a huge number of people, relative to public transportation in NYC, it would probably not make much of a budget increase.
einszwei · 10h ago
The problem isn't people taking public transit or taxis, its the people who take private jets and yachts not paying their fair share of taxes.
Are the drivers employees, or self employed? Are they going to have security people riding the routes, or rely on the drivers to provide that service?
I have in mind local retailers, who pretty much ignore shoplifters because it costs more to pay for injuries to their employees who try to stop the shoplifting. So they let the shoplifters go.
9283409232 · 9h ago
I've seen city bus drivers physically toss out disruptive passengers.
mattl · 11h ago
A lot of people feel the bus is not for them but will be fine taking this :/
tomasphan · 10h ago
I'm one of those people. I can't safely take the bus in my city, but this seems safer.
mattl · 10h ago
Where do you live?
tomasphan · 9h ago
Philadelphia
_DeadFred_ · 10h ago
This is the equivalent of a 'gated community' for the ridership, something traditional bus service can't offer.
Symbiote · 10h ago
In many countries trains have two or more levels of travel. First Class here provides free refreshments, a larger seat, and fewer people in the carriage.
I've not seen a public bus with a first class section, but it probably exists somewhere.
mattl · 9h ago
In the US there are luxury coaches, but for public buses any class system would be highly problematic.
nisegami · 10h ago
There's a lot of reasons those people could be right.
- reliability of service
- route options, route frequency
- smaller things like maintenance/standards of vehicles
devilbunny · 9h ago
For kicks, I decided to see how long it would take for me to go to work via public bus. By car, it's about ten minutes if all the lights are red; closer to seven if they're all green.
By bus, it begins with a twenty-minute walk to the nearest stop. Then about twenty minutes on the bus. Then a twenty-minute walk to the destination. And that assumes the bus is precisely on time. I could just walk the entire way in about the same amount of time (though given the route, walking would be dangerous - no sidewalks, high-speed traffic).
Symbiote · 7h ago
A one hour walk is about 5km. That's 20 minutes on a bicycle at a casual speed.
devilbunny · 5h ago
It would take slightly longer, since the road involved isn't really safe for cycling (you'd take a longer route that actually has a bike lane for a good part of it), but yes.
Havoc · 9h ago
Patrick Boyle did a series on techbros reinventing things:
Like Uber cares about any of these things (prices, consumers, congestion, the environment)
Anyone with industry experience would tell you your statement is wildly off the mark, beyond perhaps employees desiring a livable wage.
Literally everyone in public transportation cares about prices, customers congestion and the environment.
Not sure how that squares with ~$40 billion high speed rail in California.
Most US transit agencies are designed as jobs programs (not necessarily bad, just wasteful) or to transfer tax money to construction firms.
Have you actually looked at the cost breakdown of California HSR? This isn’t all going to contractors but to land acquisition, feasibility studies, parts and materials, etc etc.
I also don’t know where you get the notion that it is representative of public transportation in the US, which is by and large just bus services.
It's an example of how most US transit systems have completely lost the plot. There has been almost no change in the services offered despite smartphones totally changing how services could be offered. Transit systems would rather run empty buses on the same fixed routes than adapt a more efficient, Uber-like, system.
What is the right way to frame it? Total cost per passenger mile might be good. The transit systems that move the most people efficiently would do well on that metric.
Sometimes basic science research funding is framed in terms of "this program generated $10 of economic activity for every dollar spent." Social programs sometimes measured this way too. The term for this escapes me at the moment, but I think it would be more useful?
This type of cost-benefit analysis (or economic multiplier calculation) is also used to justify public subsidy of sports stadiums and the like. Unfortunately, these analyses always use overly optimistic assumptions, and fall victim to the broken windows fallacy.
Calling the police or fire department should incur service chargers.
Libraries should charge rental fees.
Schools should all charge tuition, including "public" schools.
If they're not at least breaking even, are we sure they're providing any public good?
Far less unprofitable than the road system. Gas taxes & tolls cover a far smaller percentage of road building & upkeep than bus fares cover of transit costs.
Even admitting that, I'd be willing to bet that essentially no single Uber employee is working that job out of care for environment, or interest in having a healthy transportation system in their city. I know for a fact that's a consideration for many people who work for city transit agencies.
Did it work?
That's basically how the market economy works. It's not controversial and it's why we in the industrialized world live in such affluence when compared to centrally planned systems or systems from the past.
I find these kind of comments like "corporation doesn't care" are lazy and boring. What's the point? It's a service, that looks pretty cool and is supplementing an often crappy public transportation system. And it won't cost taxpayers anything. In fact, it'll likely be subsidized by rich people who own Uber stock
There is obvious room for improvement with routes that dynamically respond to demand. If the bus doesn't have to run where nobody uses it, and can instead pick up riders who are waiting in a popular area, and take them where they want to go, the same number of buses and drivers could deliver much more transit value.
Probably it would be better if the city bus service ran this instead of Uber. But that bureaucracy has no history of making reasonable decisions.
My city did a hub and spoke type system, but the flip side is that you need to go downtown and change buses to get on the right spokes, which is confusing for people, and can take longer than a route that just goes in a big circle, if you're going somewhere that isn't super far away. That said, our system seems to mostly exist to get poor people where they want to go, vs being designed for working professionals, so I'm still not sure what the best solution would be.
Uber and those $1 private buses that some cities have are able to cut the bureaucracy and just popup routes that make sense for them to service without having to worry about disabled folks and such, so I'm sure they give a better experience to their customers while not providing a universal experience that a publicly funded operation would require.
Uber gets me where I need to go faster and more reliably than the bus, already. The cars and buses should be combined into a single dispatch system. Then we can combine efficiency of buses that can transport several people (when the there is enough demand in that direction) with the flexibility of small cars to fill in the gaps. This system would be dramatically more useful than my city’s bus service is today, and would be a compelling competitor with solo driving.
Fixing that one route would be a nice first step, but their inability to do something so basic (dispute countless rider complaints filed over years) doesn’t make me optimistic about the prospects for this institution.
These things are actually pretty great, in a way. My city is full of them. The drivers are maniacs, they're overcrowded and dangerous, but they're affordable, have great coverage and are better than yet more cars on the road.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
We can roughly assess the economic value added to the community per dollar of transit spend. I am not sure that metric is possible to measure for Uber?
or for transit agencies
Also, given that this is not a huge number of people, relative to public transportation in NYC, it would probably not make much of a budget increase.
They can kick out disruptive passengers
Are the drivers employees, or self employed? Are they going to have security people riding the routes, or rely on the drivers to provide that service?
I have in mind local retailers, who pretty much ignore shoplifters because it costs more to pay for injuries to their employees who try to stop the shoplifting. So they let the shoplifters go.
I've not seen a public bus with a first class section, but it probably exists somewhere.
By bus, it begins with a twenty-minute walk to the nearest stop. Then about twenty minutes on the bus. Then a twenty-minute walk to the destination. And that assumes the bus is precisely on time. I could just walk the entire way in about the same amount of time (though given the route, walking would be dangerous - no sidewalks, high-speed traffic).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jhTnk3TCtc
My favorite is transport means that involve rails.