7 ms·

> Who cares about knowledge of city streets? Funny story: for a while in SF, the taxi union (?) was running ads that were thinly veiled attacks on Uber/Lyft. O

by mayank 11y ago

> Who cares about knowledge of city streets? Funny story: for a while in SF, the taxi union (?) was running ads that were thinly veiled attacks on Uber/Lyft. One of them showed a smiling taxi driver with the caption "would you rather have a driver who knows the city by heart or by GPS?" I found it particularly hilarious because the answer, for me at least, is GPS with live traffic information. Just another example of how out of touch the taxi companies are.

RickS 11y ago
I can appreciate both sides of this. There are lots of times that uber's maps will ignore an alley that would prevent having to circle the block, or will try to send a driver on the highway for one exit when going between 4th and 9th, which is a horrible idea. There's a particular brand of driving that feels like "Only barely keeping it together because of the GPS" that's a little uncomfortable. A confident driver with some slick shortcuts can be a really fun experience.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  You can probably buy GPS data for travel between any two given locations that will indicate the most popular routes and how long they took - from cellphone companies, Google and the like? Do driver routing companies (deliveries, taxis and such) do this to discover implied optimal routes?
  - acdha 11y ago
    In theory this is possible. In practice, it's clearly not commonly done as Apple, Google, etc. will merrily send you into notorious traffic jams, unprotected turns against heavy traffic, etc. even in major cities will millions of users. It seems like Google might be getting slightly better now that they're pulling in Waze but I have seen little reason to believe that this is at all widespread.
Tiktaalik 11y ago
I have had a SF cab driver input the wrong address in GPS and start driving the entirely wrong direction, so it is pretty good to have a driver that knows the city. Hilariously though, this clueless driver wasn't a Uber/Lyft driver, but a traditional taxi cab driver!
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  The problem there is that the driver had to manually input the address. With Uber/Lyft, that problem doesn't exist, because you input the address into your phone's app, and that's relayed to the driver's phone and automatically used to route them. Any time you have humans entering data, you're bound to have problems like this.
  - mikewhy 11y ago
    > you input the address into your phone's app > ... > Any time you have humans entering data, you're bound to have problems like this So no matter what there will be problems like this?
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      I don't know about you, but I know my home address just fine, and have no trouble entering it in (in fact, the Uber app probably lets you save it as a "favorite"). I don't expect some random Joe to be able to enter in my home address error-free. Now, if you don't know your own home address better than some random driver, then you have problems.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > The problem there is that the driver had to manually input the address. With Uber/Lyft, that problem doesn't exist, because you input the address into your phone's app, and that's relayed to the driver's phone and automatically used to route them. That doesn't work if you use the mobile site, m.uber.com, rather than the app. That site doesn't even offer the option to enter a destination. (I use the mobile site because unlike the app, it doesn't ask for a pile of invasive permissions.)
voltagex_ 11y ago
The "union" here in Australia has been running campaigns too, sometimes with hilarious results [0]. 0:http://www.smh.com.au/national/my-cab-driver-fell-asleep-taxi-industrys-social-media-campaign-backfires-20151109-gkuwis.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/my-cab-driver-fell-asleep-tax... (warning, autoplay video)
rhino369 11y ago
GPS still doesn't beat a good driver 9 out of 10 times for city driving. Uber drives consistently miss exits, head down clearly mistaken paths created by GPS errors, sit there staring at the GPS rather than the road I uber to work everyday and 90% of the time the uber driver blindly follows GPS through an alley that isn't really meant for traffic, ignoring the much simpler and faster route that whatever GPS uber uses can't figure out. But it's cheaper, cleaner, and will show up on demand. But the navigation of the driver is the big positive for cabs.
- kbatten 11y ago
  I'm not going to contest your experience because my experience with uber in the city was for tourism/getting home after a night of partying, not work. In my experience uber drivers took my word over the GPS every single time when I gave directions. I know that the driver can affect my rating like I can theirs so its in all our best interest to have a good ride.
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    >> "drivers took my word over the GPS every single time when I gave directions" So wouldn't a driver knowledgable of the city streets that you don't ever have to give directions to be better? I use Uber all the time but I find that regular taxi drivers are better in traffic as they tend to know ways around it the GPS doesn't provide. I also regularly get GPS focussed drivers taking 1 turn too early and driving in a circle to get back to where they started to make the correct turn (twice this week already). I still prefer Uber overall but dismissal of street knowledge because GPS is 'better/more accurate' doesn't gel with my experience at all.
    - seanp2k2 11y ago
      It'll be super funny when self-driving cars are seen following the at-times-ridiculous GPS directions. For the foreseeable future, I wouldn't want to be in a car without a steering wheel.
      - 11y ago
orf 11y ago
In London I actually find the opposite. I like Uber and the convenience, but all the drivers are foreign and don't know their way around. More than 3 times I've been taken a hugely longer way round because the driver blindly followed the terrible Uber GPS, literally adding 15-20 minutes to the journey for no reason. Sure, I can get some of the cash back (and it is super easy to do so) but I would like for them just to take the right damn turning the first time. Also they have to use the Uber GPS and not Google Maps, which several drivers have told me is quite inferior.
- umanwizard 11y ago
  London taxi drivers are a massive outlier, though. They are world famous for their knowledge and expertise. It's not really relevant to compare them to anything outside London.
- HappyTypist 11y ago
  Drivers can use any GPS they want. The uber gps is Apple maps.
  - dingo_bat 11y ago
    Whenever I've used Uber, it seemed to be Google Maps.
prostoalex 11y ago
Counter-point: once in Chicago a n00b Uber driver who didn't speak much English drove onto the bridge that had "Under Construction" signs, construction equipment and those orange barrels all over the place. Only my frantic yelling from the back convinced him to disregard GPS and go "custom route".
balfirevic 11y ago
I once called a taxi (not in US), the operator said it will arrive in 5 minutes. About 20 minutes pass, and I get a call from the operator saying that the driver can't find my street and asks me if I can walk a few minutes to one of the larger, more well known streets. So after 10 more minutes the driver finally finds me on a street corner and I enter the car - the GPS device (which would have guided him right to my doorstep) is installed but shut down and unused. I ask the driver why he didn't use the GPS, and he manages to tell me with a straight face that he doesn't need it because he knows all the streets in town. I was literally left speechless for the entire ride.
jusben1369 11y ago
To be fair I would say it was perhaps less being out of touch and more about being desperate to try to say anything for differentiation. But either way your point is the same. And for those that say "well I'd take a local driver over a GPS driven experience that might go wrong with bad data" I would ask; are you're old enough to remember having vastly different fares when you took a cab to and from the airport on a business trip? Never have to worry about that when you know a GPS system is doing the driving.
kelnos 11y ago
In my experience in SF, all Uber drivers who use the nav built into the Uber app fail at this. They never know which roads tend to be choked with traffic during different parts of the day, and it's rare to end up with a driver who actually knows the city well. Drivers who use Waze (still a minority, it seems) tend to do much better.

by mayank 11y ago

RickS 11y ago

I can appreciate both sides of this. There are lots of times that uber's maps will ignore an alley that would prevent having to circle the block, or will try to send a driver on the highway for one exit when going between 4th and 9th, which is a horrible idea. There's a particular brand of driving that feels like "Only barely keeping it together because of the GPS" that's a little uncomfortable. A confident driver with some slick shortcuts can be a really fun experience.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
You can probably buy GPS data for travel between any two given locations that will indicate the most popular routes and how long they took - from cellphone companies, Google and the like? Do driver routing companies (deliveries, taxis and such) do this to discover implied optimal routes?
- acdha 11y ago
  In theory this is possible. In practice, it's clearly not commonly done as Apple, Google, etc. will merrily send you into notorious traffic jams, unprotected turns against heavy traffic, etc. even in major cities will millions of users. It seems like Google might be getting slightly better now that they're pulling in Waze but I have seen little reason to believe that this is at all widespread.

Tiktaalik 11y ago

I have had a SF cab driver input the wrong address in GPS and start driving the entirely wrong direction, so it is pretty good to have a driver that knows the city. Hilariously though, this clueless driver wasn't a Uber/Lyft driver, but a traditional taxi cab driver!

Grishnakh 11y ago
The problem there is that the driver had to manually input the address. With Uber/Lyft, that problem doesn't exist, because you input the address into your phone's app, and that's relayed to the driver's phone and automatically used to route them. Any time you have humans entering data, you're bound to have problems like this.
- mikewhy 11y ago
  > you input the address into your phone's app > ... > Any time you have humans entering data, you're bound to have problems like this So no matter what there will be problems like this?
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    I don't know about you, but I know my home address just fine, and have no trouble entering it in (in fact, the Uber app probably lets you save it as a "favorite"). I don't expect some random Joe to be able to enter in my home address error-free. Now, if you don't know your own home address better than some random driver, then you have problems.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > The problem there is that the driver had to manually input the address. With Uber/Lyft, that problem doesn't exist, because you input the address into your phone's app, and that's relayed to the driver's phone and automatically used to route them. That doesn't work if you use the mobile site, m.uber.com, rather than the app. That site doesn't even offer the option to enter a destination. (I use the mobile site because unlike the app, it doesn't ask for a pile of invasive permissions.)

voltagex_ 11y ago

The "union" here in Australia has been running campaigns too, sometimes with hilarious results [0]. 0:http://www.smh.com.au/national/my-cab-driver-fell-asleep-taxi-industrys-social-media-campaign-backfires-20151109-gkuwis.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/my-cab-driver-fell-asleep-tax... (warning, autoplay video)

rhino369 11y ago

GPS still doesn't beat a good driver 9 out of 10 times for city driving. Uber drives consistently miss exits, head down clearly mistaken paths created by GPS errors, sit there staring at the GPS rather than the road I uber to work everyday and 90% of the time the uber driver blindly follows GPS through an alley that isn't really meant for traffic, ignoring the much simpler and faster route that whatever GPS uber uses can't figure out. But it's cheaper, cleaner, and will show up on demand. But the navigation of the driver is the big positive for cabs.

kbatten 11y ago
I'm not going to contest your experience because my experience with uber in the city was for tourism/getting home after a night of partying, not work. In my experience uber drivers took my word over the GPS every single time when I gave directions. I know that the driver can affect my rating like I can theirs so its in all our best interest to have a good ride.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "drivers took my word over the GPS every single time when I gave directions" So wouldn't a driver knowledgable of the city streets that you don't ever have to give directions to be better? I use Uber all the time but I find that regular taxi drivers are better in traffic as they tend to know ways around it the GPS doesn't provide. I also regularly get GPS focussed drivers taking 1 turn too early and driving in a circle to get back to where they started to make the correct turn (twice this week already). I still prefer Uber overall but dismissal of street knowledge because GPS is 'better/more accurate' doesn't gel with my experience at all.
  - seanp2k2 11y ago
    It'll be super funny when self-driving cars are seen following the at-times-ridiculous GPS directions. For the foreseeable future, I wouldn't want to be in a car without a steering wheel.
    - 11y ago

orf 11y ago

In London I actually find the opposite. I like Uber and the convenience, but all the drivers are foreign and don't know their way around. More than 3 times I've been taken a hugely longer way round because the driver blindly followed the terrible Uber GPS, literally adding 15-20 minutes to the journey for no reason. Sure, I can get some of the cash back (and it is super easy to do so) but I would like for them just to take the right damn turning the first time. Also they have to use the Uber GPS and not Google Maps, which several drivers have told me is quite inferior.

umanwizard 11y ago
London taxi drivers are a massive outlier, though. They are world famous for their knowledge and expertise. It's not really relevant to compare them to anything outside London.
HappyTypist 11y ago
Drivers can use any GPS they want. The uber gps is Apple maps.
- dingo_bat 11y ago
  Whenever I've used Uber, it seemed to be Google Maps.

prostoalex 11y ago

Counter-point: once in Chicago a n00b Uber driver who didn't speak much English drove onto the bridge that had "Under Construction" signs, construction equipment and those orange barrels all over the place. Only my frantic yelling from the back convinced him to disregard GPS and go "custom route".

balfirevic 11y ago

I once called a taxi (not in US), the operator said it will arrive in 5 minutes. About 20 minutes pass, and I get a call from the operator saying that the driver can't find my street and asks me if I can walk a few minutes to one of the larger, more well known streets. So after 10 more minutes the driver finally finds me on a street corner and I enter the car - the GPS device (which would have guided him right to my doorstep) is installed but shut down and unused. I ask the driver why he didn't use the GPS, and he manages to tell me with a straight face that he doesn't need it because he knows all the streets in town. I was literally left speechless for the entire ride.

jusben1369 11y ago

To be fair I would say it was perhaps less being out of touch and more about being desperate to try to say anything for differentiation. But either way your point is the same. And for those that say "well I'd take a local driver over a GPS driven experience that might go wrong with bad data" I would ask; are you're old enough to remember having vastly different fares when you took a cab to and from the airport on a business trip? Never have to worry about that when you know a GPS system is doing the driving.

kelnos 11y ago

In my experience in SF, all Uber drivers who use the nav built into the Uber app fail at this. They never know which roads tend to be choked with traffic during different parts of the day, and it's rare to end up with a driver who actually knows the city well. Drivers who use Waze (still a minority, it seems) tend to do much better.