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I don't get what's the point of Waymo in cities like Singapore or Tokyo with perfect public transport, one can understand appeal in US, but in Europe or Eastern
by Markoff 14d ago
I don't get what's the point of Waymo in cities like Singapore or Tokyo with perfect public transport, one can understand appeal in US, but in Europe or Eastern Asia?
Heck even here in Prague with less than perfect public transport I don't get people using taxi/uber, only reasonable scenarios to me are multiple people with lots of baggage on the way from airport or people going in night from pub/event after most of the public transport stopped operating (though buses/trams run 24/7, just less frequent in night).
In ~10 years living in Prague I used taxi I think only twice - with wife delivering baby on the way to hospital and with wife returning with newborn back home from hospital.
- w00kie 14d agoI don't think you're factoring in the weather: Tokyo is incredibly hot and humid in Summer (even more than Singapore, but there it's like that all year round), has a long rainy season in late-spring/early-summer and regular typhoons in late-summer/early-fall. Basically, for more than half of the year you're severely pondering the convenience of taking a cab over walking in the heat/rain. Even then, the vast majority of people taking taxis regularly are business people going to and from business meetings and expensing it away, as evidenced by the heavily targeted ads for BtoB SaaS playing on the screens in the back of Tokyo taxis.
- Markoff 14d agopublic transport has usually roof, same as car, so not exactly sure what has weather to do with anything and yes, sure there are business people, they can enjoy getting stuck in traffic
- tzs 14d agoSingapore currently has around 13000 taxis and Tokyo has around 50000 so clearly a lot of people in those cities do not consider the non-car based public transportation to be perfect. Those are actual taxis. If we include services similar to Uber that adds another 60000 to Singapore.