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Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future
- ceejayoz 3y agoI sure hope they’re throwing OSM some cash donations as a thanks.
- bri3d 3y agoDoes anyone know if Lyft plan to contribute their map corrections back to OSM? They mention other companies doing so in this blog post, but don't make it clear whether or not they, too, intend to. I'm curious to see how good Lyft Maps is, too. Uber Maps is, frankly, a disaster in my area, frequently suggesting illegal and/or impossible turns. I try to submit map feedback every trip (very hard as a rider, as most forms of available feedback seem to be to punish the driver rather than the platform), and it's still never been fixed. Most drivers seem to use Google Maps or Waze instead and if I see a driver using Uber Maps, I need to watch the trip and suggest several corrections. Ironically, I'm only a few miles from the office where most Uber Maps staff used to work.
- throwaway049 3y agoI've submitted a correction for an illegal turn instruction twice on Google maps. No reply. But my other corrections have been accepted.
- digdigdag 3y agoProviding feedback to large corporate machines is akin to screaming into the void at this point. Sometimes the void hears you and responds with a generous canned message. Other times you unsurprisingly get silence. That's why I became completely divested and disinterested in providing general feedback for maps, locations etc.
- Retric 3y agoMap creators include intentionally incorrect information (Map Traps) so people copying them are obviously copying them. I sometimes wonder if that’s the root cause of companies failing to correct some of their mistakes. https://www.gislounge.com/map-traps-intentional-mapping-errors-combat-plagiarism/ https://www.gislounge.com/map-traps-intentional-mapping-erro...
- bri3d 3y agoUsing anything that could cause incorrect directions as a trap location / trap street would be a ridiculously bad idea. I strongly suspect the reason is a more standard corporate one; the volume of corrections and signal to noise ratio is probably quite poor. In the case of my repeated Uber map correction attempt, I suspect that my correction isn't prioritized because of two factors: first, the turn which Uber Maps suggests, while both illegal and very dangerous, is not impossible (it's an illegal left turn accomplished by making a U-Turn around an island designed to prevent left turns). So, they probably see enough volume of "driver completed route as suggested" data signals to ignore any "but it's illegal and dangerous" complaints, a classic problem with "data driven" systems. And, Uber don't seem to have a real process for riders to submit mapping corrections, only drivers, so my request is unlikely to ever be routed to the correct queue to begin with.
- pietervdvn 3y agoMap Traps (as these are called) are normally pretty harmless, e.g. a non-existent, small cul-de-sac that doesn't exist. A turn restriction (which is quite invisible!) seldom is.
- Scoundreller 3y agoMeanwhile, in Toronto, I see some bigger driveways listed as roads on Google maps, and I always wonder if it’s a legally correct city survey artefact and I could park a car there etc. if I wanted, or just a trap/misclassification. https://maps.app.goo.gl/CXRh6LFRhgZo1P9k8?g_st=ic https://maps.app.goo.gl/CXRh6LFRhgZo1P9k8?g_st=ic
- 3y ago
- altairprime 3y agoThe way to get that corrected is to ask the local police to ticket illegal turns at that intersection for a day, indicating that Google refuses to correct the issue and is directing hundreds of violations a day at the intersection. Google ignores unenforced road signs that are frequently ignored by their data providers (drivers), so enforcement complaints from drivers are necessary to force the correction.
- throwaway049 3y agoTheir other data providers are me, as a user submitting a correction, and Streetview, which they could use to confirm the turn restriction.
- bsimpson 3y agoI don't understand how Maps verification works. I've added sidewalk vendors to the map with names like "coconut cakes lady," and had them approved instantly. I've also tried to rename streets, including the news article about the name change, and had them unceremoniously ignored. Same for adding a new bar to the map with a photo of the menu, even though other places I've added have had hundreds of thousands of views. There doesn't seem to be an underlying system. There's a famous traffic stop in Muine, Vietnam listed as something like "social security office." The photos are all of the traffic stop. The reviews are about the traffic stop. If you run the name on Maps through translate, it comes back "traffic stop." I've tried repeatedly changing the category to "traffic police" and been silently denied. There's a bar in downtown SF at the wrong address. Comments are about the address being wrong. There's even a photo that says "our address on Maps is wrong." Try to fix it in Maps? Denied.
- sushisource 3y agoI also find it consistently obnoxious that there is essentially no way to say "My driver was fine, but your platform did something stupid" when leaving feedback. At least, not without jumping through a million hoops. The arrogance of our industry is tiresome. I took a ride in SF a while ago and it predicted a 3 minute pick up time which turned out to be 25 minutes - no fault of the driver, and the only way I could complain about this was to click through like 4 levels of "other issue" and then jump through hoops sending emails back and forth with support.
- ryandrake 3y agoPick up time predictions are garbage, because ride shares allow cancelations. Last time I used a ride share, I had eight drivers accept and then cancel on me. The predicted departure time was always "8 minutes away" and then "looking for another driver" over and over. I probably waited an hour.
- jazzyjackson 3y agoTalking to a driver about this I was told that the platform is always re-routing drivers to maximize revenue for lyft, so when the app says "finding you another driver", it's not the driver that canceled, it's the platform decided that driver was better off, revenue wise, to complete a different fare. The fact that this is opaque to the end user just means we get mad at the workers and not the corporation, classic.
- londons_explore 3y agoThe fact that OP can see "finding another driver" 8 times suggests that perhaps there is some prioritization system, and OP was low priority - such that if any other request came in before him, then the driver would be re-routed.
- dylan604 3y agoPossible that those shitty tips you've been leaving are adding up in other ways? I live in a neighborhood that borders a part of town that is accepted as a "bad" part of town and is often confused as being part of that part of town. I have only ever not had the "finding another driver" twice from my house, and originally assumed it was location location location. I had a guest stay with me last summer, and they never received that treatment which led me to believe it was an account thing. We'd test by requesting a car at the same time. Their rates were cheaper, and they never had a new driver issue.
- uneekname 3y agoLyft is one of the biggest contributors to OSM. Here is a list of OSM accounts related to Lyft [0]. In many places where I've edited OSM, Lyft employees have contributed quality data where there wasn't any before. How (and, how respectfully) companies should contribute to OSM is an ongoing debate. But corporate influences are often a good thing, and I think nearly anyone would agree that Lyft's contributions to OSM have been resoundingly helpful. [0] https://github.com/OSM-DCT-Lyft/US/wiki/OSM-Team-Members https://github.com/OSM-DCT-Lyft/US/wiki/OSM-Team-Members
- bri3d 3y agoIsn't this the driverless car team, vs. the ride-mapping team? Regardless, it's good to see that they are contributing back to OSM. I agree that overall the use of OSM by anyone "lifts all ships" as long as users continue to contribute back. OSM is one of the most positive projects around lately in terms of taking something that used to be extremely expensive and highly restricted and democratizing it.
- ninja3925 3y agoI used to work for Lyft and I can confirm that both teams (driverless and ride-share) contribute. Ride-share scaled later which may give you that false impression. And Yes, it's a big investment for Lyft for the open source community.
- uneekname 3y agoThat may be true. But as a whole, it is worth noting that Lyft hires a significant number of people to edit OSM. Here is an interesting 2021 post by Jennings Anderson discussing paid edits on OSM, and how companies compare in their contributions: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings%20Anderson/diary/396271 https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings%20Anderson/diary... I agree about how successful OSM has been recently. In an age where Wikipedia for example seems relatively mature, it's fun to see OSM grow at such a pace.
- mistrial9 3y ago
- acslater00 3y agoYes - Lyft contributed the overwhelming majority of the new data back into OSM. The only exceptions were layers that didn't meet OSM community standards for various technical reasons. Source - I led this team
- mistrial9 3y agoyour team contributed more OSM changes than .. who? everyone else in the whole world?
- jaywalk 3y agoI'm pretty sure he meant that Lyft contributed the overwhelming majority of the changes they made to OSM.
- bri3d 3y agoThey're saying "we contributed the overwhelming majority of the data we collected and corrected, except for that which wasn't eligible for contribution." It really seems like Lyft operated in good faith here, they just didn't mention it in the blog post.
- endisneigh 3y agosome people's reading comprehension...
- NelsonMinar 3y agoThanks for making the contributions, we all benefit!
- idiotsecant 3y agoIf you had any pull in that decision, well done. You made the world a little bit better for everyone. Can't ask for much more than that sometimes.
- piebro 3y agoHere is an overview of which corporation contribute how many edits based on the osm account names affiliated with the corporations: https://piebro.github.io/openstreetmap-statistics/#b34d https://piebro.github.io/openstreetmap-statistics/#b34d Lyft is the eleventh most active company by edit count with a total of 4M edits and 1.5M edits in the last year. Disclaimer: I created the stats and website.
- ccooffee 3y ago> By late 2019, Lorimer and Justin Moore, then the head of engineering, were ready to form a team to “do the impossible” — create a home-grown mapping system. THE IMPOSSIBLE: A "home-grown" mapping system built on OpenStreetMaps? Lyft seems to really lack any imagination if _that_ was considered impossible.
- imbusy111 3y agoIt was impossible a few years ago, when the OSM data wasn't good enough and the cost of acquiring the data themselves was too high.
- bredren 3y agoI have thought that some major service migrated to OSM by 2019. I can’t remember which, or even if it was a success. But I didn’t realize the data was that bad just three years ago. Then again, Apple Maps started getting sorted out around then too iirc.
- 29083011397778 3y ago> Then again, Apple Maps started getting sorted out around then too iirc. And we assume completely coincidentally? Not that Apple Maps, like Google Maps, pulls in data volunteered by the OSM community (both corporate and personal members), packages and improves (sometimes "improves") it, then locks it away behind paid API calls? In this case and many others, the free and community built project enabled, assisted, or powered the multi-billion dollar tech conglomorate. I recognize I might sound bitter or dismissive of companies mapping the world and giving it away to consumers for free, but so much is built on openness that so many companies just eat without giving back.
- GeekyBear 3y ago> Not that Apple Maps, like Google Maps, pulls in data volunteered by the OSM... then locks it away You have that backwards, at least for some companies. > How Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are contributing to OSM At the State of the Map conference in Milan, the teams from Microsoft, Apple and Facebook presented their projects, describing how they are working with communities. https://www.theodi.org/article/how-are-facebook-apple-and-microsoft-contributing-to-openstreetmap/ https://www.theodi.org/article/how-are-facebook-apple-and-mi... I've never seen any cite for Google contributing their data to OSM.
- zitterbewegung 3y agoGreat can someone at Lyft either comment on if they will contribute what they made on top of OSM or if it is even useful to contribute back ? I think the answer is No and this is HN clickbait. I really want to be wrong.
- DoctorOW 3y agoThis is yet another "We found a community project providing us with billions of dollars in free work but don't find it worth the effort to contribute anything back"
- iLoveOncall 3y agoI may get downvoted, but if OSM was not fine with this exact situation happening, then they shouldn't license it the way they do. Nothing seems to indicate so far that they're not fine with the situation so it looks like everyone is happy.
- rPlayer6554 3y agoI think both sentiments can be valid. If OSM really needs those contributions they need to take responsibility for updating the license. But we as a community should encourage companies to give back to the OSS projects they benefit from.
- pietervdvn 3y agoWell, it is not as if the OSM-community is a monolithic one. Some people are hardline anti-corporate and don't like this; others are part of a big corporation and see this as business as usual. Even if Lyft would not give back in some form (spoiler: they do, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lyft https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lyft), it spreads awareness and drivers will figure out they can fix issues themselves.
- refulgentis 3y agoYou think they wanted to own more of their product, integrated OSM, and now if there's complaints or things to change they're like "sorry nah"? That doesn't sound right to me, I'm curious if you have any examples or sources
- reaperman 3y agoI think GP is saying they expect Lyft respond to complaints or things to change by fixing them in their internal OSM database, but maybe not propagate those changes back to canonical OSM for everyone else to enjoy.
- mistrial9 3y agothis is the "Digital Twins" story right here - private corporate walled gardens with total control and feeding off of commons.
- reaperman 3y agoThat's a curious use of an already established term, "Digital Twin"[0]. A digital twin is a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin
- mistrial9 3y agoyou are a bit late to the party.. this has been in motion for at least three years, see various standards efforts.
- reaperman 3y agoLink me? I'm not sure what you're referencing. For what it's worth, the concept and model of the digital twin that I referenced was first publicly introduced in 2002 by Michael Grieves, at a Society of Manufacturing Engineers conference in Troy, Michigan.
- patrickserrano 3y ago> Ninety-eight percent of drivers who try Lyft’s maps stick with them — rather than switching to Google, Apple, Waze, or any other app. I find this surprising because my personal experience is the exact opposite. At least in NYC, drivers use the Lyft (or Uber) app for managing riders but use a dedicated mapping application for navigating to the destination once you're picked up.
- sroussey 3y agoAnd it may be on another device or the car itself so the Lyft app still stays open.
- justaddwater57 3y agoAgreed. A lot of drivers in NYC (where I'm also based) seem to have multiple devices in the car. Maybe there's some flawed data gathering if a driver still is using the native Lyft app but running navigation on a separate device?
- travisporter 3y agoMaybe it’s to run uber and Lyft? I vaguely remember someone telling me this like 5 years ago
- RandallBrown 3y agoThey may have just never tried Lyft maps before.
- LeFantome 3y agoIf what you say is true, the Lyft app may still be using the Lyft map. That would lead Lyft to conclude that drivers were using their map. Another open application or another device would not show up in the Lyft analytics.
- open592 3y agoI'm sure they take into account whether the driver is following their app's suggested route. If the driver disregards the suggestions that would suggest the driver isn't using their maps.
- thallavajhula 3y agoThe way they made it sound seemed like they built a new solution for the maps. Them using OSM over Google Maps doesn't seem like it is too much of a big deal due to Lyft's limited presence.
- ikawe 3y agoIn some sense OSM is "just" the database — what things exist and where are those things. A mapping product like Google/Apple Maps includes a lot more functionality that often gets taken for granted. For instance: - A geocoding search engine to find places by name, address, or description - navigational directions - tiling and other data distribution (which is both software and hardware) - styling and UI There is a huge variety of open source options for this functionality, but it's hardly a plug and play thing, and quality varies wildly. Putting it all together is no small feat. Disclaimer: I work on Headway (https://about.maps.earth https://about.maps.earth) which is trying to make this kind of thing easier.
- otterley 3y agoThe tone of this article is troubling. First, the focus is on savings to Lyft, and not how this innovation benefits customers in any way. Second, it is highly antagonistic to Google - who is probably still a partner to Lyft in many other aspects (advertising etc). Taking shots at your partners is generally considered bad for business.
- acdha 3y agoSavings benefit Lyft customers directly by keeping the company solvent – since the rides aren’t being heavily subsidized, the rates are going to go up and things like this will reduce the sting. It also helps indirectly by giving them control. Google doesn’t do product development well and Maps has been stagnant or even regressing for years. Lyft can always flub it but now they have the incentives lined up where the only party needed to make what Lyft users want is Lyft. As for Google, they’re a big company and they can take criticism. It’s certainly not like they’re shy about canceling products or changing the terms any time some MBA thinks it’ll help their bonus, and I’d be quite surprised if they didn’t pass on the opportunity to keep a customer multiple times before now.
- uneekname 3y agoIt may be antagonistic, but Google Maps really isn't the one-stop shop it used to be in the mapping world. Companies like Lyft have been looking for alternatives for a while now.
- LeFantome 3y agoThe article I read talked a lot about the benefits to drivers. That translates fairly directly to the service being offered to customers. Having your driver more easily figure out where to pick you up or drop you off is a huge service win for customers. Keeping your driver more focussed on navigation translates not only to better trips but safer ones as well. The statement was that they did not want to rely on a 3rd party to generate 90% of the pixels your customers are looking at. How did you miss all this customer focus? I am not sure it is fair to say this was all about profit juicing for Lyft. My issue with the article is just the mind-boggling premise that leveraging an Open Source mapping project is “the impossible” vs using Google Maps. Also, there are lots of other options including of course ESRI.
- AlbertCory 3y agoGood for them (and I say this as someone who was actually in Google Maps, both in monetization and in regular development). Maps has been losing money for literally decades. I don't know if they've finally turned that around or not. In some parts of the world, they were still paying a 3rd party per lookup because they didn't own the data. I also don't know the numbers for their API charges, but I wouldn't be surprised if the totals are mostly symbolic, for VP's to defend themselves as "Hey, look, we're getting all we can out of it!"
- rabuse 3y agoI don't ever see Lyft being a profitable company. I've been betting against their stock since they hit the market, and it just keeps plummeting YoY.
- braza 3y agoI have been in a company that marginally that was in the same situation as Lyft, financially speaking, and for me sounds brave and bonkers that those folks still have time to blog post in a very stock-nose-diving situation.
- rabuse 3y agoSeriously. That's their focus as their value tanks? Maps?
- seizethecheese 3y agoWon’t this save them money? Seems appropriate.
- pcurve 3y ago"For instance, Google always presents drivers with the fastest route, regardless of tolls. But sometimes, paying a toll would shave only a minute or two off the ride, while adding significantly to the cost." Ah... the joy of NYC tolls. Even with EZ pass, a ride to JFK from NJ is almost $28 just in toll roundtrip. $37 without EZ pass. $37!!!
- acdha 3y agoThat seems fair for crowding into one of the most densely populated areas in the country, especially since going to JFK instead of flying out of Newark means you’re taking up space and polluting NYC without generating any positive value for the city. Tolls directly benefit the city by partially helping to pay for the extremely expensive infrastructure needed to make that trip work, and indirectly by encouraging people to make travel plans with fewer downsides for everyone around.
- pcurve 3y agoJFK and Newark don't have a lot of overlapping routes that I use. They used to pre-9/11, but a lot changed since then. Big international airlines and routes that I take don't fly out of Newark. Believe me, if I had the choice, I would. Thankfully, domestic routes are still decent from Newark, though often more expensive than LGA or JFK. This isn't just about the airport. I visit friends in Queens and spend money there. The toll is exactly the same as going to JFK.
- grishka 3y ago> and pickup and drop-off guides to heavily trafficked destinations, so drivers and riders can get in and out of the airport (or stadium or park) more easily Lyft doesn't have that?! I though this was a standard feature of taxi apps. Yandex Taxi allows you to call a taxi to a specific pole in the arrivals area at the airport in my city, for example.
- everybodyknows 3y ago> removing the distracting clutter of irrelevant stores, restaurants This much at least makes strategic sense, with Google continuing to ratchet up intrusive advertising. How long I wonder before we see, say, animated icons for "selected" cell phone stores?
- dpflan 3y agoThe title here is missing a key word from Lyft's post: "secret", for the "secret plan". I thought map ownership/dominance was a key idea, like a decade ago, when Lyft and Uber started. Interesting that the issue was OSM wasn't robust enough until now. Was Lyft actively assigning engineers to work on OSM (or waiting?); couldn't that have accelerated OSM's path to robustness? This idea certainly takes time to develop into reality, but it seems like a lackluster idea to post now, in hopes of making Lyft more robust itself, but it's hard to not be cynical about stock price bump PR releases.
- generativeai 3y agoSound like the company has not invented here syndrome. Maps is largely solved problem. Mapbox has a great product that is customizable. Perhaps the company could better spend their R&D to focus on products that directly imoroves it's market share and revenue.
- eklitzke 3y agoThey likely do use mapbox for rendering maps, as their SDK is really customizable, is designed to work with the OSM data format, and you don't need to pay mapbox to use it (at least for older versions). But mapbox is not necessarily a good solution for all of the routing requirements Lyft has. For example, at SFO ride hailing drivers are required to wait in a special parking lot outside of the airport, and then dispatching for rides is done based on which driver has been waiting in that lot the longest. You could probably make this work with mapbox, but it isn't necessarily a matter of just plugging it in and calling it done.
- cdbattags 3y agoSo which open source routing project do we believe they're using along with it? Valhalla? Edit: I'm co-founder and CTO of a heavy haul/oversize routing SaaS called Triple Axle (https://tripleaxle.com https://tripleaxle.com). We using OSM and Valhalla.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y agoCool startup! I did some work for a client in the trucking space a while back, and I came away with a new appreciation for what a fascinating vertical it is. If you don't mind me asking, how'd you end up in the space? It feels like the vertical has so much esoteric/specific knowledge. We ran into a few companies that were founded by truckers (or by people who had truckers in the family), and it seemed like already having all this knowledge gave them a big leg up.
- endisneigh 3y agoi'm very curious what's stopping someone from simply replicating Google map data into OSM. do you have to have provenance when sending over data?
- pookha 3y agoI like OpenStreetMaps but any business that uses them in their core app should be prepared for some wild shenanigans: https://mashable.com/article/mapbox-antisemitic-vandalism-snapchat https://mashable.com/article/mapbox-antisemitic-vandalism-sn... Facebook uses OpenStreetMaps and I'm pretty sure they had to design their own batch processes to validate that area's of interest weren't renamed racial slurs or for Pokimon creatures.
- sp8962 3y agoThat was an issue because of the validation pipeline Mapbox was using at the time, the vandalism had long been fixed in OpenStreetMap proper when the story hit the news. So, yes, you are going to need to make a trade off between potentially more incidents, but faster repair, and less incidents, but being stuck with your current validated release for a while if something goes wrong. PS: it is OpenStreetMap, no plural "s" PPS: Meta produces a publicly available validated version of OSM data.
- remote_phone 3y agoIt’s weird that Lyft is flexing on something that Uber did almost 10 years ago. Everything they talk about has been known and done by Uber for a very long time.
- nneonneo 3y agoLyft and Uber have been very disappointing at the local airport lately. Lyft pickups from the airport are supposedly cheap but the last time I tried getting one it let me wait for 20 minutes; I eventually gave up and got a taxi. Uber from the airport regularly surges, usually right after a flight lands, and their surge price puts them well above the price of the taxis that are ready and waiting to pick people up. I’m not even sure why anyone would take an Uber at surge prices - and it’s not like their regular price is that much cheaper than a taxi anyway. Also, the taxi companies have gradually been getting better at the app game. They’re still a ways off from Uber/Lyft’s usability, but they’re also less likely to be flaky and they never surge.
- maerF0x0 3y agoCan you please share what taxi apps you'd recommend?
- propogandist 3y agoI compared pricing from hotels next to the airport (that have free shuttle service) and they appear to be $20-30 cheaper on Uber vs the airport pickup point. Planning on trying this on my next trip.
- astrange 3y agoWhy does this post talk about Lyft in the third person?