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Is anyone else slightly apprehensive about Uber substituting as public transport? What if their motive is to bankrupt public transport agencies and then raise p

Is anyone else slightly apprehensive about Uber substituting as public transport? What if their motive is to bankrupt public transport agencies and then raise prices when people have no alternative?

jgalt212 10y ago
I think they'd bankrupt themselves first. It's hard to beat the government and their ability to tax at their own game.
hackuser 10y ago
I agree. It's also a risk for people living on very limited budgets; what do they do if Uber raises prices? How do they get to work? The grocery? The doctor? Private enterprise relies on business failure and distribution of resources to those who can pay the most for them. Some things can't fail (police, fire, transportation, water, medical, etc.) and are needed by everyone regardless of income. > What if their motive is to bankrupt public transport agencies and then raise prices when people have no alternative? Uber prides itself, IME, on very aggressive business tactics, concerned only for profit and not, for example, its own workers, local laws, etc. I would be surprised if they did otherwise than what you say.
- mhink 10y ago
  It sounds like the city described in the article (and others mentioned) is subsidizing Uber fares for people in the city. So, if Uber displaces public transport agencies, I suspect it'll end up being the city which gets stuck with the bill. That said, I don't think the situation is as dire as you're describing. Getting around in smaller American cities is _already_ difficult for many people- as you mentioned, those living on very limited budgets, but also the elderly and other people that can't drive themselves around and must rely on family and friends. So, in the end, I think it's less a matter of "replacing public transportation", and more a matter of "creating a realistic model for publicly-funded transportation in suburban and semi-rural America". This is not to say that I'm super chuffed with Uber being the one to do it. But I can see a future where municipal governments become comfortable with the idea, which would open the door to competition, just as we've seen in major cities where there are plenty of alternatives to Uber.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    It's cable cars being torn out for cars all over again.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      No. It's cable cars that don't exist being torn out for cars all over again. Suburban/exurban mass transit is pretty much non-existent other than commuter rail (in many areas). My adjacent city just spent something like 2 years and who knows how much money putting in a new parking garage for one of the MBTA stations that have been notorious for insufficient parking for pretty much forever. With no parking at all during the construction. Assuming the numbers and logistics worked out, something like this would have been very interesting.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        To have your mass transit beholden to corporate interests is the problem. I'd be much less concerned if governing bodies created a non-profit that built and ran the technical infrastructure for ridesharing.
ascagnel_ 10y ago
Two responses: * Uber is not substituting for public transport. It's replacing the "last mile" of suburban commuters driving to the local NJTransit station with a pool of drivers who can keep rolling throughout the day. * Uber replacing a mass-transit link (especially something like a train line into NYC) is unthinkable. The links for cars between NJ and NYC are already at or beyond capacity, and the planning is right now trying to drive commuters to use public transit when possible.
Stasis5001 10y ago
In this instance, Uber is making public transportation _more_ accessible. They are crowding out people driving from home to a parking lot. Anyway, the article mentions this is maybe ten to a hundred rides a day. This is either a PR thing or a prototype; time will tell.
- ascagnel_ 10y ago
  This is a prototype for Uber in a suburban area where public transit isn't as robust as what you'd get in a city. Summit itself doesn't have much by way of intra-city public transit (just a few bus stops downtown and one at the train station), but is spread out enough that walking or biking isn't a viable option for most residents.
imgabe 10y ago
Uber is not substituting public transport in this instance. They are augmenting it. They are substituting a parking lot, according to the article.
3pt14159 10y ago
Why do I care that my mass transit is public? Once the market can solve logistics we can regulate it, but we don't need it to be public any more than we need a public shoe ministry.
soulnothing 10y ago
The biggest pain in my daily commute is bus to train station. The time's don't mesh up and theres usually a 1 -> 1.5 hour lead time. I travel to Philadelphia, and in Pennsylvania septa had discounts via uber to several stations[1]. It's ~10$ per way to the station. It's realistically the best way for me to get there, but that's an additional 200 a month. I think mass transit needs to be rethought. On the one hand when I ride buses in Wilmington they are primarily empty. I can totally understand why over the past several years they have raised the fairs, decreased running times, and condensed lines and stops. On the other I can't get really get around without a car. Due to the car first mentality uber is not heavily in demand, and prices seem higher than when I was in Philadelphia. Uber has not even entered the vocabulary of alot of people around Wilmington. So which way do you go, the bus routes are expensive and require alot of man power. Yet there's limited demand. Do you put that in a private company? I really don't trust government to vendor relations. I know they easily get overcharged. I would literally toss money at a family subscription for uber or lyft. Locking in rides at a set rate. But that would require a subsidy. I've also seen as you said, rates start small then they raise and bankrupt another party. [1] http://www.septa.org/media/releases/2016/05-25-16a.htm http://www.septa.org/media/releases/2016/05-25-16a.htm
erikpukinskis 10y ago
Excepting major thoroughfares, public transport will be replaced by self-driving car service. The economics of busses running mostly empty on centralized don't make sense when you can have a fleet of variously sized vehicles roaming around picking people up and dropping them off. For almost all routes, the cost per mile, carbon footprint, and convenience will all be better than a bus or train. Major thoroughfares will still want to be subway/light rail/commuter rail/bus, for traffic alleviation purposes, and because high capacity is where public transit efficiency really shines. But think of it more like internet backbone—a way to quickly and efficiently get batched traffic through bottlenecks—not as the default mode of access. Think commuters disembarking rail cars and boarding a swarm of continuously replenished self-driving vehicles, from 2-seaters (faster) to microbuses (cheaper), on the other side of the platform. Those two modes of transport, maximum efficiency and maximum convenience, will squeeze out almost everything in between. Without centralized routes, there is no point to government involvement for the last mile (last five?) transit system, and Uber/Google/Tesla will coalesce close to cost plus 10% or whatever.

Is anyone else slightly apprehensive about Uber substituting as public transport? What if their motive is to bankrupt public transport agencies and then raise prices when people have no alternative?

jgalt212 10y ago

I think they'd bankrupt themselves first. It's hard to beat the government and their ability to tax at their own game.

hackuser 10y ago

I agree. It's also a risk for people living on very limited budgets; what do they do if Uber raises prices? How do they get to work? The grocery? The doctor? Private enterprise relies on business failure and distribution of resources to those who can pay the most for them. Some things can't fail (police, fire, transportation, water, medical, etc.) and are needed by everyone regardless of income. > What if their motive is to bankrupt public transport agencies and then raise prices when people have no alternative? Uber prides itself, IME, on very aggressive business tactics, concerned only for profit and not, for example, its own workers, local laws, etc. I would be surprised if they did otherwise than what you say.

mhink 10y ago
It sounds like the city described in the article (and others mentioned) is subsidizing Uber fares for people in the city. So, if Uber displaces public transport agencies, I suspect it'll end up being the city which gets stuck with the bill. That said, I don't think the situation is as dire as you're describing. Getting around in smaller American cities is _already_ difficult for many people- as you mentioned, those living on very limited budgets, but also the elderly and other people that can't drive themselves around and must rely on family and friends. So, in the end, I think it's less a matter of "replacing public transportation", and more a matter of "creating a realistic model for publicly-funded transportation in suburban and semi-rural America". This is not to say that I'm super chuffed with Uber being the one to do it. But I can see a future where municipal governments become comfortable with the idea, which would open the door to competition, just as we've seen in major cities where there are plenty of alternatives to Uber.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  It's cable cars being torn out for cars all over again.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    No. It's cable cars that don't exist being torn out for cars all over again. Suburban/exurban mass transit is pretty much non-existent other than commuter rail (in many areas). My adjacent city just spent something like 2 years and who knows how much money putting in a new parking garage for one of the MBTA stations that have been notorious for insufficient parking for pretty much forever. With no parking at all during the construction. Assuming the numbers and logistics worked out, something like this would have been very interesting.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      To have your mass transit beholden to corporate interests is the problem. I'd be much less concerned if governing bodies created a non-profit that built and ran the technical infrastructure for ridesharing.

ascagnel_ 10y ago

Two responses: * Uber is not substituting for public transport. It's replacing the "last mile" of suburban commuters driving to the local NJTransit station with a pool of drivers who can keep rolling throughout the day. * Uber replacing a mass-transit link (especially something like a train line into NYC) is unthinkable. The links for cars between NJ and NYC are already at or beyond capacity, and the planning is right now trying to drive commuters to use public transit when possible.

Stasis5001 10y ago

In this instance, Uber is making public transportation _more_ accessible. They are crowding out people driving from home to a parking lot. Anyway, the article mentions this is maybe ten to a hundred rides a day. This is either a PR thing or a prototype; time will tell.

ascagnel_ 10y ago
This is a prototype for Uber in a suburban area where public transit isn't as robust as what you'd get in a city. Summit itself doesn't have much by way of intra-city public transit (just a few bus stops downtown and one at the train station), but is spread out enough that walking or biking isn't a viable option for most residents.

imgabe 10y ago

Uber is not substituting public transport in this instance. They are augmenting it. They are substituting a parking lot, according to the article.

3pt14159 10y ago

Why do I care that my mass transit is public? Once the market can solve logistics we can regulate it, but we don't need it to be public any more than we need a public shoe ministry.

soulnothing 10y ago

The biggest pain in my daily commute is bus to train station. The time's don't mesh up and theres usually a 1 -> 1.5 hour lead time. I travel to Philadelphia, and in Pennsylvania septa had discounts via uber to several stations[1]. It's ~10$ per way to the station. It's realistically the best way for me to get there, but that's an additional 200 a month. I think mass transit needs to be rethought. On the one hand when I ride buses in Wilmington they are primarily empty. I can totally understand why over the past several years they have raised the fairs, decreased running times, and condensed lines and stops. On the other I can't get really get around without a car. Due to the car first mentality uber is not heavily in demand, and prices seem higher than when I was in Philadelphia. Uber has not even entered the vocabulary of alot of people around Wilmington. So which way do you go, the bus routes are expensive and require alot of man power. Yet there's limited demand. Do you put that in a private company? I really don't trust government to vendor relations. I know they easily get overcharged. I would literally toss money at a family subscription for uber or lyft. Locking in rides at a set rate. But that would require a subsidy. I've also seen as you said, rates start small then they raise and bankrupt another party. [1] http://www.septa.org/media/releases/2016/05-25-16a.htm http://www.septa.org/media/releases/2016/05-25-16a.htm

erikpukinskis 10y ago

Excepting major thoroughfares, public transport will be replaced by self-driving car service. The economics of busses running mostly empty on centralized don't make sense when you can have a fleet of variously sized vehicles roaming around picking people up and dropping them off. For almost all routes, the cost per mile, carbon footprint, and convenience will all be better than a bus or train. Major thoroughfares will still want to be subway/light rail/commuter rail/bus, for traffic alleviation purposes, and because high capacity is where public transit efficiency really shines. But think of it more like internet backbone—a way to quickly and efficiently get batched traffic through bottlenecks—not as the default mode of access. Think commuters disembarking rail cars and boarding a swarm of continuously replenished self-driving vehicles, from 2-seaters (faster) to microbuses (cheaper), on the other side of the platform. Those two modes of transport, maximum efficiency and maximum convenience, will squeeze out almost everything in between. Without centralized routes, there is no point to government involvement for the last mile (last five?) transit system, and Uber/Google/Tesla will coalesce close to cost plus 10% or whatever.