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Pool also appears to be the default option now, so I on a recent trip accidentally got a pool a couple times. I didn't know the first time, and forgot the secon

Pool also appears to be the default option now, so I on a recent trip accidentally got a pool a couple times. I didn't know the first time, and forgot the second. Second time was also a 'pool' with no additional riders, so it was a happy accident for a cheaper ride. Perhaps people bet on that as well?

iainmerrick 10y ago
If we're imagining a pleasant future where self-driving cars have solved congestion, isn't some kind of car pooling going to be necessary? It's fundamentally silly for millions of commuters to each travel in their own car, and robot cars aren't going to fix that. Buses make massively more efficient use of road space (when they're reasonably full, anyway). Robot cars should reduce accidents, and parking problems will go away, but they won't magically reduce congestion on commuter routes. But car-pooling will.
- Bedon292 10y ago
  Valid point, car pooling would definitely be a good thing. And I think people would be more willing if it was more efficient than it is. Uber Pool does not seem to match people very well. Scheduled rides could probably be very optimized, so its two minutes out of the way, for each person, and no one really minds. Also optimizations like, if the rider isn't there yet, don't even go for them and pass them on to the next car. Definitely plausible, but a pain in current formats.
  - callalex 10y ago
    You just described a bus.
    - iainmerrick 10y ago
      Something like Uber for buses would be great! Imagine an existing excellent bus network, like London's, but with completely dynamic routes, and a variety of bus sizes suitable for different times of day. Open the app and tell it where you're going, and it tells you which bus stop and bus number you need.
      - aianus 10y ago
        Uber tried this in Toronto already (called Uber Hop). I believe they had to stop as it is illegal to compete with the municipal bus system eyeroll. https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/meet-uberhop/ https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/meet-uberhop/
    - Bedon292 10y ago
      Not quite. Buses have fixed static routes. I described dynamic routes optimized to minimize delays for all users, while being picked up and dropped off at the exact address they want to be at, rather than some static bus stop.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > If we're imagining a pleasant future where self-driving cars have solved congestion, isn't some kind of car pooling going to be necessary Maybe, maybe not. Small one-person "pod" cars that link up into road trains automatically are also a possibility, and have basically the same benefit for congestion as sharing without actually sharing the same pod.
  - iainmerrick 10y ago
    That could work, but I'd bet against it! In the medium term at least. It would be a big R&D problem to make it work at all. Even if it worked, is a train like that really going to be as efficient as a bus? And finally, even if those obstacles are overcome, it seems like everyone has to buy the same model (or at least compatible models, and who's going to make that happen?) to get decent economies of scale. On the other hand -- in-flight refueling is a kind of similar problem that sounds similarly unlikely, but actually works! On the other other hand, that's a very specialized (and I'm guessing very expensive) system that isn't used by commercial airlines. I think pod-trains will go roughly the same way.

iainmerrick 10y ago

If we're imagining a pleasant future where self-driving cars have solved congestion, isn't some kind of car pooling going to be necessary? It's fundamentally silly for millions of commuters to each travel in their own car, and robot cars aren't going to fix that. Buses make massively more efficient use of road space (when they're reasonably full, anyway). Robot cars should reduce accidents, and parking problems will go away, but they won't magically reduce congestion on commuter routes. But car-pooling will.

Bedon292 10y ago
Valid point, car pooling would definitely be a good thing. And I think people would be more willing if it was more efficient than it is. Uber Pool does not seem to match people very well. Scheduled rides could probably be very optimized, so its two minutes out of the way, for each person, and no one really minds. Also optimizations like, if the rider isn't there yet, don't even go for them and pass them on to the next car. Definitely plausible, but a pain in current formats.
- callalex 10y ago
  You just described a bus.
  - iainmerrick 10y ago
    Something like Uber for buses would be great! Imagine an existing excellent bus network, like London's, but with completely dynamic routes, and a variety of bus sizes suitable for different times of day. Open the app and tell it where you're going, and it tells you which bus stop and bus number you need.
    - aianus 10y ago
      Uber tried this in Toronto already (called Uber Hop). I believe they had to stop as it is illegal to compete with the municipal bus system eyeroll. https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/meet-uberhop/ https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/meet-uberhop/
  - Bedon292 10y ago
    Not quite. Buses have fixed static routes. I described dynamic routes optimized to minimize delays for all users, while being picked up and dropped off at the exact address they want to be at, rather than some static bus stop.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> If we're imagining a pleasant future where self-driving cars have solved congestion, isn't some kind of car pooling going to be necessary Maybe, maybe not. Small one-person "pod" cars that link up into road trains automatically are also a possibility, and have basically the same benefit for congestion as sharing without actually sharing the same pod.
- iainmerrick 10y ago
  That could work, but I'd bet against it! In the medium term at least. It would be a big R&D problem to make it work at all. Even if it worked, is a train like that really going to be as efficient as a bus? And finally, even if those obstacles are overcome, it seems like everyone has to buy the same model (or at least compatible models, and who's going to make that happen?) to get decent economies of scale. On the other hand -- in-flight refueling is a kind of similar problem that sounds similarly unlikely, but actually works! On the other other hand, that's a very specialized (and I'm guessing very expensive) system that isn't used by commercial airlines. I think pod-trains will go roughly the same way.