4 ms·

Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

32 points by beardyw 1y ago

_Algernon_ 1y ago
It's basically a law of nature at this point that any attempt at revolutionizing public transit will end up reinventing the train.
- 1970-01-01 1y ago
  This isn't true. What Uber is attempting is on-demand and completely flexible bus routes. It's not revolutionary, but it is a logical innovation.
  - kj4211cash 1y ago
    I both agree and disagree. Microtransit is based on several small innovations on traditional fixed route bus service. Uber didn't invent microtransit.
  - kvakerok 1y ago
    My city is several years into on-demand bus routes. It's a clusterfck to say the least.
    - ajb 1y ago
      That's interesting. Which city?
afavour 1y ago
> Meanwhile, the federal government is cutting support for public services, including transit systems — many of which still haven’t fully recovered from Covid-era budget crunches. Though ridership nationwide is up to 85 percent of prepandemic levels, Bloomberg News recently estimated that transit systems across the country face a $6 billion budget shortfall. The gameplan is clear. Take the high value, richer customers from the public transit system as it declines and ensure its complete demise. Then you’re free to jack up the prices to whatever you want them to be.
- tptacek 1y ago
  I don't especially like Uber as a company, but it's not reasonable to spin a service that outcompetes a publicly-funded competitor as a conspiracy against the public, and in many of the cities Uber operates in, the transit authorities had been faceplanting all on their own without any help.
  - lmm 1y ago
    > it's not reasonable to spin a service that outcompetes a publicly-funded competitor as a conspiracy against the public Hardly a conspiracy theory to think Uber might be trying to undercut their competitors and put them out of business before raising their prices when they have an established history of doing exactly that.
    - steveBK123 1y ago
      Yeah I mean.. NYC Ubers are probably 3x the price they were 10 years ago.
  - ahtihn 1y ago
    It's pretty easy to outcompete public transit on specific profitable lines. The problem is that public transit has to serve a lot of unprofitable lines and by having a private competitor putting pressure on the only parts that actually make money, the overall economics of public transit become much worse.
    - tptacek 1y ago
      Right, I think everybody gets that. But: they have private competitors. They can't just define that problem away. Most people don't take busses or private shuttles; they just drive.
    - kalleboo 1y ago
      The same as package delivery - Amazon takes the easiest portion, FedEx/UPS the middle tier, and then USPS gets handed off all the most difficult addresses
xnx 1y ago
Wired 1908: "Henry Ford Just Reinvented the Horse Again" Also, dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985861
r721 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
- tionate 1y ago
  Hong Kong has the same concept in their mini buses, in particular the red ones. Whether they wait until full is up to the driver though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus
- beAbU 1y ago
  South Africa has minubus taxis that operate the same way. Although they are despised by most other road users (very bad reputation for reckless driving and poor vehicle maintenance) they do serve as the main form of transport for the vast majority of the population. I think they are much quicker, flexible and localised than larger buses.
tptacek 1y ago
People love this "reinvented the bus" line, but: aren't they just saying "Uber has started a bus service"? The connotation is always somehow that Uber or its customers are too dumb to realize that busses exist. There's a reason people take private shuttles instead of the number 66 bus cross-town.
curtisszmania 1y ago
[dead]
raincole 1y ago
If the exact idea were born in any other country than the US, HN would be celebrating it. No kidding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43980845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43980845
- Spivak 1y ago
  In Shanghai additional routes are part of the normal public transportation system and aren't a private company who is competing with public transportation. It changes the tone quite a bit, even if the underlying idea is pretty good.
kj4211cash 1y ago
I worked on the earlier iteration of this at Uber. I was curious why more people didn't call it out at the time. Yes, using cell phones and Uber's market share to make demand responsive microtransit is an interesting idea. Yes, it can work relatively well in areas where there isn't enough demand for fixed route bus service but there is sufficient demand for this type of service. On the other hand, every public transit nerd will tell you that microtransit has serious limitation and is often used to negative effect in areas that would be better served by fixed route bus service. The sad thing for me was that almost no one at Uber knew anything about public transit or transportation in general. The claim that it's just a bunch of tech bros reinventing the bus (again) sadly rings very true to me. As someone that was there.
mrweasel 1y ago
> “But it’s more like they’re reinventing a worse bus.” Okay, but if their customers where not taking the bus before, it's still better. What I think Uber gets right is that these are probably smaller than your regular busses, which makes them more appealing, bring a bigger sense of safety to some users. Uber and Lyft are still weird, wasn't the whole point of ride sharing that you'd jump in a car with someone going in the same direction as you? Not that people would operate their own cars as a taxi.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  The whole point of the fig leaf naming it ride sharing was to make operating private taxis seem like a wholesome thing that shouldn’t be regulated like taxis.
dmurray 1y ago
> During Uber’s big announcement, Kansal showed a video of one possible Route Share ride in the Big Apple. It covered about 3 miles from Midtown to Lower Manhattan, which would take about 30 minutes and cost $13. Definitely a weird choice for the presentation: the best-served part of the best-served city in the US for public transport. Why not pick literally anywhere else?
tuyguntn 1y ago
I wonder what's the purpose of collecting tax from citizens, if there is no properly run public transportation system, medical system and education. Why should anyone pay extra from their income, if private companies are going to profit from providing a service to the public which was intended to be built using taxes by the government?
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  If this is more than just a rhetorical question, you can get copies of the federal, state, and municipal budgets to see where the money collected is actually spent.
- xnx 1y ago
  > I wonder what's the purpose of collecting tax from citizens, In my city, it's to pay interest on debt, overly generous pensions to retirees, and settlements to police lawsuits.
aga98mtl 1y ago
I do not understand why Wired exist. Who wants news about technology from a techno-pessimist angle?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Dollar_K 1y ago
[dead]

32 points by beardyw 1y ago

It's basically a law of nature at this point that any attempt at revolutionizing public transit will end up reinventing the train.

1970-01-01 1y ago
This isn't true. What Uber is attempting is on-demand and completely flexible bus routes. It's not revolutionary, but it is a logical innovation.
- kj4211cash 1y ago
  I both agree and disagree. Microtransit is based on several small innovations on traditional fixed route bus service. Uber didn't invent microtransit.
- kvakerok 1y ago
  My city is several years into on-demand bus routes. It's a clusterfck to say the least.
  - ajb 1y ago
    That's interesting. Which city?

afavour 1y ago

> Meanwhile, the federal government is cutting support for public services, including transit systems — many of which still haven’t fully recovered from Covid-era budget crunches. Though ridership nationwide is up to 85 percent of prepandemic levels, Bloomberg News recently estimated that transit systems across the country face a $6 billion budget shortfall. The gameplan is clear. Take the high value, richer customers from the public transit system as it declines and ensure its complete demise. Then you’re free to jack up the prices to whatever you want them to be.

tptacek 1y ago
I don't especially like Uber as a company, but it's not reasonable to spin a service that outcompetes a publicly-funded competitor as a conspiracy against the public, and in many of the cities Uber operates in, the transit authorities had been faceplanting all on their own without any help.
- lmm 1y ago
  > it's not reasonable to spin a service that outcompetes a publicly-funded competitor as a conspiracy against the public Hardly a conspiracy theory to think Uber might be trying to undercut their competitors and put them out of business before raising their prices when they have an established history of doing exactly that.
  - steveBK123 1y ago
    Yeah I mean.. NYC Ubers are probably 3x the price they were 10 years ago.
- ahtihn 1y ago
  It's pretty easy to outcompete public transit on specific profitable lines. The problem is that public transit has to serve a lot of unprofitable lines and by having a private competitor putting pressure on the only parts that actually make money, the overall economics of public transit become much worse.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    Right, I think everybody gets that. But: they have private competitors. They can't just define that problem away. Most people don't take busses or private shuttles; they just drive.
  - kalleboo 1y ago
    The same as package delivery - Amazon takes the easiest portion, FedEx/UPS the middle tier, and then USPS gets handed off all the most difficult addresses

xnx 1y ago

Wired 1908: "Henry Ford Just Reinvented the Horse Again" Also, dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985861

r721 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka

tionate 1y ago
Hong Kong has the same concept in their mini buses, in particular the red ones. Whether they wait until full is up to the driver though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus
beAbU 1y ago
South Africa has minubus taxis that operate the same way. Although they are despised by most other road users (very bad reputation for reckless driving and poor vehicle maintenance) they do serve as the main form of transport for the vast majority of the population. I think they are much quicker, flexible and localised than larger buses.

tptacek 1y ago

People love this "reinvented the bus" line, but: aren't they just saying "Uber has started a bus service"? The connotation is always somehow that Uber or its customers are too dumb to realize that busses exist. There's a reason people take private shuttles instead of the number 66 bus cross-town.

curtisszmania 1y ago

[dead]

raincole 1y ago

If the exact idea were born in any other country than the US, HN would be celebrating it. No kidding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43980845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43980845

Spivak 1y ago
In Shanghai additional routes are part of the normal public transportation system and aren't a private company who is competing with public transportation. It changes the tone quite a bit, even if the underlying idea is pretty good.

kj4211cash 1y ago

I worked on the earlier iteration of this at Uber. I was curious why more people didn't call it out at the time. Yes, using cell phones and Uber's market share to make demand responsive microtransit is an interesting idea. Yes, it can work relatively well in areas where there isn't enough demand for fixed route bus service but there is sufficient demand for this type of service. On the other hand, every public transit nerd will tell you that microtransit has serious limitation and is often used to negative effect in areas that would be better served by fixed route bus service. The sad thing for me was that almost no one at Uber knew anything about public transit or transportation in general. The claim that it's just a bunch of tech bros reinventing the bus (again) sadly rings very true to me. As someone that was there.

mrweasel 1y ago

> “But it’s more like they’re reinventing a worse bus.” Okay, but if their customers where not taking the bus before, it's still better. What I think Uber gets right is that these are probably smaller than your regular busses, which makes them more appealing, bring a bigger sense of safety to some users. Uber and Lyft are still weird, wasn't the whole point of ride sharing that you'd jump in a car with someone going in the same direction as you? Not that people would operate their own cars as a taxi.

sokoloff 1y ago
The whole point of the fig leaf naming it ride sharing was to make operating private taxis seem like a wholesome thing that shouldn’t be regulated like taxis.

dmurray 1y ago

> During Uber’s big announcement, Kansal showed a video of one possible Route Share ride in the Big Apple. It covered about 3 miles from Midtown to Lower Manhattan, which would take about 30 minutes and cost $13. Definitely a weird choice for the presentation: the best-served part of the best-served city in the US for public transport. Why not pick literally anywhere else?

tuyguntn 1y ago

I wonder what's the purpose of collecting tax from citizens, if there is no properly run public transportation system, medical system and education. Why should anyone pay extra from their income, if private companies are going to profit from providing a service to the public which was intended to be built using taxes by the government?

amanaplanacanal 1y ago
If this is more than just a rhetorical question, you can get copies of the federal, state, and municipal budgets to see where the money collected is actually spent.
xnx 1y ago
> I wonder what's the purpose of collecting tax from citizens, In my city, it's to pay interest on debt, overly generous pensions to retirees, and settlements to police lawsuits.

aga98mtl 1y ago

I do not understand why Wired exist. Who wants news about technology from a techno-pessimist angle?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Dollar_K 1y ago

[dead]