4 ms·

So simple! Let's just hook into every country where Uber has taxis to create a mega app that will allow you to travel to any country and have access to the fol

by thejosh 11y ago

So simple! Let's just hook into every country where Uber has taxis to create a mega app that will allow you to travel to any country and have access to the following: - Ordering of taxis via the app - Takes credit card information (atleast securely) - Ratings of drivers to weed out the bad ones - GPS to show how far the driver is, how far you are from your destination - Your destination syncs to the drivers device, so they know where the fuck they are going for a change - Tax invoices on completion of drive - Allow to change from business / personal accounts on the fly. - Semi good customer service - Fare estimate (including surge pricing, surcharges) to destination - Split fare easy - App that is on both iOS AND Android - App that doesn't suck and crash.

Nursie 11y ago
Given that several of my local taxi services already cover a lot of this with their apps - Ordering, payment, GPS, invoices, account management, fares etc - it's my guess that there's already an enterprising software house out there selling skin-able apps for most of this. Hooking it into multiple systems would be the technical challenge, the rest seems a solved problem. Oh, and some folks (probably mostly Europeans) don't really like the driver-ratings thing. It's an end-run around little things like employment rights. A ratings scheme for the individual taxi companies providing the services perhaps is useful, but not individual driver ratings.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Driver ratings seem fine from customer POV - they let you appreciate good service or take revenge on the driver if you didn't like something about it. Most people don't know that it may take one negative review to get the driver fired (or whatever Uber calls it, since because they're not employees they can't be technically fired). What's the minimum allowed average score now? It used to be somewhere around 4.3 - 4.6 out of 5.
  - Nursie 11y ago
    I guess that's my real problem with them. It's not like the rating goes back to head office who bring in Bob or Kate Taxidriver and ask if they need some training, or how they can help them improve the service, or if they're happy working for Bob&Kate's Taxi Service, it's "your ratings dropped, bye".
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > Hooking it into multiple systems would be the technical challenge, the rest seems a solved problem. There's a massive non-technical challenge as well: getting the companies to cooperate when both sides (the taxi companies and the unified service) would rather cut out the other intermediary, and when both the drivers and the passengers would benefit from fewer intermediaries (lower costs and higher consistency for the passengers, higher percentage of the fare going to the drivers). > Oh, and some folks (probably mostly Europeans) don't really like the driver-ratings thing. It's an end-run around little things like employment rights. A ratings scheme for the individual taxi companies providing the services perhaps is useful, but not individual driver ratings. How are driver ratings an employment rights issue? What's wrong, precisely, with recognizing when someone repeatedly does an unacceptably bad job? They're absolutely necessary, and a big part of maintaining consistency and quality. I've almost always had good experiences, but the few times I haven't (e.g. a driver going on a racist tirade), I've been glad to be able to provide a rating, and for that matter receive an actual response from a human. That would do a lot less good if that rating only applied to a taxi company, rather than to a specific driver. Why not give the taxi company enough information to recognize their good and bad drivers?
  - Nursie 11y ago
    >> There's a massive non-technical challenge as well: getting the companies to cooperate when both sides (the taxi companies and the unified service) would rather cut out the other intermediary Yet it happens in some places, there are now apps in many major cities that do just this across multiple firms. >> How are driver ratings an employment rights issue? Your ratings have dropped, you are no longer eligible to contract for Uber, goodbye. >> Why not give the taxi company enough information to recognize their good and bad drivers? I suppose I don't object to that, it's fine. It's the Uber strategy of kicking people off the books that's objectionable.
    - JoshTriplett 11y ago
      So you're OK with recognizing bad drivers, but you want to force a service to keep contracting with them anyway despite their poor performance?

by thejosh 11y ago

Nursie 11y ago

Given that several of my local taxi services already cover a lot of this with their apps - Ordering, payment, GPS, invoices, account management, fares etc - it's my guess that there's already an enterprising software house out there selling skin-able apps for most of this. Hooking it into multiple systems would be the technical challenge, the rest seems a solved problem. Oh, and some folks (probably mostly Europeans) don't really like the driver-ratings thing. It's an end-run around little things like employment rights. A ratings scheme for the individual taxi companies providing the services perhaps is useful, but not individual driver ratings.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Driver ratings seem fine from customer POV - they let you appreciate good service or take revenge on the driver if you didn't like something about it. Most people don't know that it may take one negative review to get the driver fired (or whatever Uber calls it, since because they're not employees they can't be technically fired). What's the minimum allowed average score now? It used to be somewhere around 4.3 - 4.6 out of 5.
- Nursie 11y ago
  I guess that's my real problem with them. It's not like the rating goes back to head office who bring in Bob or Kate Taxidriver and ask if they need some training, or how they can help them improve the service, or if they're happy working for Bob&Kate's Taxi Service, it's "your ratings dropped, bye".
JoshTriplett 11y ago
> Hooking it into multiple systems would be the technical challenge, the rest seems a solved problem. There's a massive non-technical challenge as well: getting the companies to cooperate when both sides (the taxi companies and the unified service) would rather cut out the other intermediary, and when both the drivers and the passengers would benefit from fewer intermediaries (lower costs and higher consistency for the passengers, higher percentage of the fare going to the drivers). > Oh, and some folks (probably mostly Europeans) don't really like the driver-ratings thing. It's an end-run around little things like employment rights. A ratings scheme for the individual taxi companies providing the services perhaps is useful, but not individual driver ratings. How are driver ratings an employment rights issue? What's wrong, precisely, with recognizing when someone repeatedly does an unacceptably bad job? They're absolutely necessary, and a big part of maintaining consistency and quality. I've almost always had good experiences, but the few times I haven't (e.g. a driver going on a racist tirade), I've been glad to be able to provide a rating, and for that matter receive an actual response from a human. That would do a lot less good if that rating only applied to a taxi company, rather than to a specific driver. Why not give the taxi company enough information to recognize their good and bad drivers?
- Nursie 11y ago
  >> There's a massive non-technical challenge as well: getting the companies to cooperate when both sides (the taxi companies and the unified service) would rather cut out the other intermediary Yet it happens in some places, there are now apps in many major cities that do just this across multiple firms. >> How are driver ratings an employment rights issue? Your ratings have dropped, you are no longer eligible to contract for Uber, goodbye. >> Why not give the taxi company enough information to recognize their good and bad drivers? I suppose I don't object to that, it's fine. It's the Uber strategy of kicking people off the books that's objectionable.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    So you're OK with recognizing bad drivers, but you want to force a service to keep contracting with them anyway despite their poor performance?