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> you can see your trip, its aproximate cost, the driver's rating Here's the thing: I don't want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party

> you can see your trip, its aproximate cost, the driver's rating Here's the thing: I don't want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party that all available drivers are punctual and competent. It is not a choice I want to make. Too much responsibility is already dumped on consumers under the guise of choice. Quality control of services I utilize is something I expect to pay for.

fabioborellini 7y ago
Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere? Our "grand old" taxi company in my town who advertises for being the only reliable option with professional drivers failed on me five times on a row. On successive rides I got a standard neo-nazi lecture about immigrants, my Visa credit card was refused apparently for transaction costs, two of my drivers got lost and one tried to drive to my destination using mostly sidewalks for driving on. I sent feedback each time to only receive a generic "we are sorry, we have failed our quality controls and this will never happen again" copy-pasted message. Maybe it's more straightforward to advertise than getting rid of drivers who can't behave. With Uber I know my bad ranking (I have always rated my drivers 5 stars, so far) has at least some effect on the misbehaving driver.
- bbczfvhmj 7y ago
  “ Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere?” From what I hear.... London !
  - Zach_the_Lizard 7y ago
    It's also produced cabs with very high pollution [1], up to 30x that of a regular car. Here in New York we don't have the same kind of unusual taxicabs, but we do strictly regulate taxi and Uber drivers. I personally find taxis here insufferable. I live in Queens and regularly had to help them "remember" where Queens is. Or remember the TLC regulations about accepting a credit card. I've not had the same song and dance with Uber. If this is the quality that the regulations enforce, count me out. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/black-cabs-taxis-air-pollution-london-research-true-icct-a8688141.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/black-cabs-taxis-a...
- pnongrata 7y ago
  Some points about my personal experience with Uber in my city: 1. Drivers listening to evangelical stations very loudly, spewing hate between musics. Most get angry if you tell to lower the sound. God forbid you ask to change the station; 2. Many drivers trying to rig the system, which in turn costs me money. Uber gives me credit for most complaints, but I can only use it with Uber, so my lost money is good for them either way; 3. I've rated many drivers negatively. Whatever happened to them? Who can tell?
- CaptainZapp 7y ago
  Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere? Yes. I can provide you with multiple examples. Use a cab in Singapore or anywhere in Japan and be amazed. The "cabs are terrible" argument seems to me to be a very localized view. Terrible cabs exist. So does fantastic service via the most efficient route by a driver who actually knows the city.
chillydawg 7y ago
I think the driver ratings could be largely derived from app data. How close to pickup do they get on average? How close to drop off do they get on average? How erratic is their driving? Do they speed a lot? Other traffic violations? A lot can be gleaned from the GPS and other data. The only remaining factor would be the human side of things: are they nice, is their car nice to sit in?
eyko 7y ago
It's not like Black cabs in London are guaranteed to be safe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys
- Cougher 7y ago
  Given that there are something like 20,000 black cabs in London, I'm seeing your one outlier from 10 years ago as a pretty solid argument in favor of them. And that's before we start debating about the merits of driver vetting processes and vehicle maintenance requirements.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    Private hire drivers are vetted, and their cars have to undergo enhanced MOTs
    - Cougher 7y ago
      Color me convinced by your exhaustive comparison.
      - isostatic 7y ago
        What difference in vetting is there between Black Cab drivers and Minicab drivers in London? What difference in vehicle maintenence? The vetting process may be flawed, but it's flawed in both hackney carriage and phv licensing. This was acknowleged by say Milton Keynes, which gave a Hackney + PHV license to an applicant with convictions for rape and other serious sexual offences [0] I have no confidence in London that the vetting process works, and the authorities are far more interested in retaining an obsolete cartel. Rather than fix their vetting procedure (which has always allowed dodgy minicab firms, which were never a threat to the powerful black cab industry), they concentrate on Uber. [0] https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/pressreleases/2014/aug/taxi-licensing-in-milton-keynes https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/pressreleases/2014/aug/taxi...
    - lhopki01 7y ago
Terretta 7y ago
> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-realization-its-ratings-are-useless/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 stars, but feel bad every time. When the ride is quite good, 4 stars, and exceptional, 5 stars. Exceptional is the exception. Three stars doesn’t make you a bad rider or a bad driver, just average. If it’s not the bulk of the ratings you give, you’re an unreliable rater and not helping the ratings anyway.
- ward 7y ago
  I used to think like this (and still do for movies and such), but recall reading that a driver under 4.6 or 4.7 rating will barely get any clients matched any more.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    I desperately wish they’d just adopt an “it was fine” and a “something wrong or exceptional” button.
- newswasboring 7y ago
  Maybe they should scale your ratings based on your rating pattern. I don't know how to do it mathematically but there must be some way to normalize scores if you have enough data. Anybody knows how to do this?
  - jankassens 7y ago
    I’d start with assuming everyone’s experience is normal distributed. Someone who always voted 3 stars probably had the same experience as someone who always voted 5 stars. I’d try out computing the normal distribution of the rater and see where on the distribution this particular vote fell.
- 7y ago
Jommi 7y ago
You really want to rely on a single third party instead of a curation by democratic process?

fabioborellini 7y ago

Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere? Our "grand old" taxi company in my town who advertises for being the only reliable option with professional drivers failed on me five times on a row. On successive rides I got a standard neo-nazi lecture about immigrants, my Visa credit card was refused apparently for transaction costs, two of my drivers got lost and one tried to drive to my destination using mostly sidewalks for driving on. I sent feedback each time to only receive a generic "we are sorry, we have failed our quality controls and this will never happen again" copy-pasted message. Maybe it's more straightforward to advertise than getting rid of drivers who can't behave. With Uber I know my bad ranking (I have always rated my drivers 5 stars, so far) has at least some effect on the misbehaving driver.

bbczfvhmj 7y ago
“ Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere?” From what I hear.... London !
- Zach_the_Lizard 7y ago
  It's also produced cabs with very high pollution [1], up to 30x that of a regular car. Here in New York we don't have the same kind of unusual taxicabs, but we do strictly regulate taxi and Uber drivers. I personally find taxis here insufferable. I live in Queens and regularly had to help them "remember" where Queens is. Or remember the TLC regulations about accepting a credit card. I've not had the same song and dance with Uber. If this is the quality that the regulations enforce, count me out. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/black-cabs-taxis-air-pollution-london-research-true-icct-a8688141.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/black-cabs-taxis-a...
pnongrata 7y ago
Some points about my personal experience with Uber in my city: 1. Drivers listening to evangelical stations very loudly, spewing hate between musics. Most get angry if you tell to lower the sound. God forbid you ask to change the station; 2. Many drivers trying to rig the system, which in turn costs me money. Uber gives me credit for most complaints, but I can only use it with Uber, so my lost money is good for them either way; 3. I've rated many drivers negatively. Whatever happened to them? Who can tell?
CaptainZapp 7y ago
Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere? Yes. I can provide you with multiple examples. Use a cab in Singapore or anywhere in Japan and be amazed. The "cabs are terrible" argument seems to me to be a very localized view. Terrible cabs exist. So does fantastic service via the most efficient route by a driver who actually knows the city.

chillydawg 7y ago

I think the driver ratings could be largely derived from app data. How close to pickup do they get on average? How close to drop off do they get on average? How erratic is their driving? Do they speed a lot? Other traffic violations? A lot can be gleaned from the GPS and other data. The only remaining factor would be the human side of things: are they nice, is their car nice to sit in?

eyko 7y ago

It's not like Black cabs in London are guaranteed to be safe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys

Cougher 7y ago
Given that there are something like 20,000 black cabs in London, I'm seeing your one outlier from 10 years ago as a pretty solid argument in favor of them. And that's before we start debating about the merits of driver vetting processes and vehicle maintenance requirements.
- isostatic 7y ago
  Private hire drivers are vetted, and their cars have to undergo enhanced MOTs
  - Cougher 7y ago
    Color me convinced by your exhaustive comparison.
    - isostatic 7y ago
      What difference in vetting is there between Black Cab drivers and Minicab drivers in London? What difference in vehicle maintenence? The vetting process may be flawed, but it's flawed in both hackney carriage and phv licensing. This was acknowleged by say Milton Keynes, which gave a Hackney + PHV license to an applicant with convictions for rape and other serious sexual offences [0] I have no confidence in London that the vetting process works, and the authorities are far more interested in retaining an obsolete cartel. Rather than fix their vetting procedure (which has always allowed dodgy minicab firms, which were never a threat to the powerful black cab industry), they concentrate on Uber. [0] https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/pressreleases/2014/aug/taxi-licensing-in-milton-keynes https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/pressreleases/2014/aug/taxi...
  - lhopki01 7y ago

Terretta 7y ago

> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-realization-its-ratings-are-useless/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 stars, but feel bad every time. When the ride is quite good, 4 stars, and exceptional, 5 stars. Exceptional is the exception. Three stars doesn’t make you a bad rider or a bad driver, just average. If it’s not the bulk of the ratings you give, you’re an unreliable rater and not helping the ratings anyway.

ward 7y ago
I used to think like this (and still do for movies and such), but recall reading that a driver under 4.6 or 4.7 rating will barely get any clients matched any more.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  I desperately wish they’d just adopt an “it was fine” and a “something wrong or exceptional” button.
newswasboring 7y ago
Maybe they should scale your ratings based on your rating pattern. I don't know how to do it mathematically but there must be some way to normalize scores if you have enough data. Anybody knows how to do this?
- jankassens 7y ago
  I’d start with assuming everyone’s experience is normal distributed. Someone who always voted 3 stars probably had the same experience as someone who always voted 5 stars. I’d try out computing the normal distribution of the rater and see where on the distribution this particular vote fell.
7y ago

Jommi 7y ago

You really want to rely on a single third party instead of a curation by democratic process?