5 ms·

Congratulations, Uber, you just reinvented the bus.

cscharenberg 11y ago
But the vehicle's route is chosen by exactly-known demand rather than following a centrally-set and inflexible schedule and route. It's not much like a bus at all in actual practice.
sneak 11y ago
The blog post cites the prior practice of informal carpooling with strangers; it is somewhat dishonest to insinuate that they claimed to invent anything.
mikeash 11y ago
I've never seen a bus that dynamically picks a point-to-point route based on the needs of the passengers on it at the moment.
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  Most private buses in the third world will do this.
  - pavel_lishin 11y ago
    It's exactly how taxis work in St. Thomas.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - superuser2 11y ago
    For the passengers who are onboard, sure, but what about pickups?
    - bryanlarsen 11y ago
      Call their cell. It's written on the bus.
- anonymfus 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
- manacit 11y ago
  They're very popular in a lot of places that aren't the USA (and even exist in NYC): Dolmuş in Turkey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmu%C5%9F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmu%C5%9F NYC "Shadow Transit": http://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-vans/ http://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-vans/ More broadly, "Share Taxis": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi The idea isn't anything new, but being able to pay and ride from the convenience of Uber is nice.
  - bostonvaulter2 11y ago
    It's worth noting that the ones in NYC are illegal. With that said I'm all for moving mass transit in this direction.
    - akgerber 11y ago
      They are illegal to street-hail— but this is unenforced. The city is working on normalizing them, including adding taxi-like branding: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/vans.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/vans.shtml
  - petra 11y ago
    I think it becomes something different and much more efficient with enough data and good algorithms.
Eleopteryx 11y ago
Hmm yeah, this kind of technology combined with vehicles that can carry large numbers of people could be very effective. Not quite the same as a bus, significantly better in fact.
graeme 11y ago
Not quite. More like the shared taxi stops that operate in poorer countries. I saw many of these in Cuba. Not like a bus in that it was: 1. Faster 2. Carried fewer people 3. Had route flexibility. You could pay extra to go off the route, negotiated with the driver and checking it didn't inconvenience the other passengers. This is radically different from how we run transport in North America. With self driving cars, I could see Uber running shuttles around the city that decided optimal multi-user routes taking into consideration all the various route requests users had entered. I always figured this was their end game as far as consumer transport was concerned.

But the vehicle's route is chosen by exactly-known demand rather than following a centrally-set and inflexible schedule and route. It's not much like a bus at all in actual practice.

sneak 11y ago

The blog post cites the prior practice of informal carpooling with strangers; it is somewhat dishonest to insinuate that they claimed to invent anything.

mikeash 11y ago

I've never seen a bus that dynamically picks a point-to-point route based on the needs of the passengers on it at the moment.

bryanlarsen 11y ago
Most private buses in the third world will do this.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  It's exactly how taxis work in St. Thomas.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- superuser2 11y ago
  For the passengers who are onboard, sure, but what about pickups?
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    Call their cell. It's written on the bus.
anonymfus 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
manacit 11y ago
They're very popular in a lot of places that aren't the USA (and even exist in NYC): Dolmuş in Turkey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmu%C5%9F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmu%C5%9F NYC "Shadow Transit": http://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-vans/ http://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-vans/ More broadly, "Share Taxis": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi The idea isn't anything new, but being able to pay and ride from the convenience of Uber is nice.
- bostonvaulter2 11y ago
  It's worth noting that the ones in NYC are illegal. With that said I'm all for moving mass transit in this direction.
  - akgerber 11y ago
    They are illegal to street-hail— but this is unenforced. The city is working on normalizing them, including adding taxi-like branding: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/vans.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/industry/vans.shtml
- petra 11y ago
  I think it becomes something different and much more efficient with enough data and good algorithms.

Eleopteryx 11y ago

Hmm yeah, this kind of technology combined with vehicles that can carry large numbers of people could be very effective. Not quite the same as a bus, significantly better in fact.

graeme 11y ago

Not quite. More like the shared taxi stops that operate in poorer countries. I saw many of these in Cuba. Not like a bus in that it was: 1. Faster 2. Carried fewer people 3. Had route flexibility. You could pay extra to go off the route, negotiated with the driver and checking it didn't inconvenience the other passengers. This is radically different from how we run transport in North America. With self driving cars, I could see Uber running shuttles around the city that decided optimal multi-user routes taking into consideration all the various route requests users had entered. I always figured this was their end game as far as consumer transport was concerned.