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Hope this is as fantastic as this sounds. Many cities are starting to make this data publicly available, and the potential impact to urban planning, traffic red

by kosei 10y ago

Hope this is as fantastic as this sounds. Many cities are starting to make this data publicly available, and the potential impact to urban planning, traffic reduction, parking and more is enormous. That said, what's Uber's commercial angle? Licensing fees? "Movement makes all insights available under the Creative Commons, Attribution Non-Commercial license."

peatmoss 10y ago
Making friends. Uber is quite aware that their reputation within cities hasn't been the best. Internally, there is a loose federation of people who genuinely want to improve cities, and people who recognize the business value in not continuing to piss cities off.
- WillEngler 10y ago
  Yep. Conversely, it's interesting to see some urban planning folks warm up to ride sharing as a way to extend the reach of existing transit networks. But still a lot of hostility, to be sure.
  - peatmoss 10y ago
    I think urban planning folks have been, in principle, favorable to new mobility options that don't involve private vehicle ownership. I think some folks in the cities have been conflicted about some of Uber's lawlessness / relationship to labor.
cowsandmilk 10y ago
> Hope this is as fantastic as this sounds The experience in Boston was that Uber anonymized the data too much for it to be useful[1]. I would be very skeptical of this as it seems to be a program publicly touted as useful, but the e-mails obtained via FOIA requests show it to not be. I'm not sure what the solution is since privacy should be a concern. [1] https://www.boston.com/news/business/2016/06/16/bostons-uber-partnership-has-not-lived-up-to-promise https://www.boston.com/news/business/2016/06/16/bostons-uber...
- username223 10y ago
  An unsurprising quote from the article: > [Boston chief information officer Jascha Franklin-Hodge] said the data has been useful to show the volume of Uber rides in Boston and users’ typical wait times, but it has not done much to aid in city planning. In other words, that was just a PR offensive. Maybe this new iteration will be something else, but I would be skeptical.

by kosei 10y ago

peatmoss 10y ago

Making friends. Uber is quite aware that their reputation within cities hasn't been the best. Internally, there is a loose federation of people who genuinely want to improve cities, and people who recognize the business value in not continuing to piss cities off.

WillEngler 10y ago
Yep. Conversely, it's interesting to see some urban planning folks warm up to ride sharing as a way to extend the reach of existing transit networks. But still a lot of hostility, to be sure.
- peatmoss 10y ago
  I think urban planning folks have been, in principle, favorable to new mobility options that don't involve private vehicle ownership. I think some folks in the cities have been conflicted about some of Uber's lawlessness / relationship to labor.

cowsandmilk 10y ago

> Hope this is as fantastic as this sounds The experience in Boston was that Uber anonymized the data too much for it to be useful[1]. I would be very skeptical of this as it seems to be a program publicly touted as useful, but the e-mails obtained via FOIA requests show it to not be. I'm not sure what the solution is since privacy should be a concern. [1] https://www.boston.com/news/business/2016/06/16/bostons-uber-partnership-has-not-lived-up-to-promise https://www.boston.com/news/business/2016/06/16/bostons-uber...

username223 10y ago
An unsurprising quote from the article: > [Boston chief information officer Jascha Franklin-Hodge] said the data has been useful to show the volume of Uber rides in Boston and users’ typical wait times, but it has not done much to aid in city planning. In other words, that was just a PR offensive. Maybe this new iteration will be something else, but I would be skeptical.