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"They've nailed the difficult math behind the logistics issues - basically a scaled version of the traveling salesman problem." This is so much bullshit it mak

• jcliff 12y ago
  so hostile. even if it's not a general solution, it's working. perhaps it's time for you to put down the books and build something.
• encoderer 12y ago
  It's not strictly "traveling salesman" but it is a real and challenging logistical problem. I've chatted w/ some Uber engineers about this and the story I was told is that originally they were using Google Maps estimates. But the data is really important to capacity planning and giving travel time estimates within their app. And it was often very wrong. They even had a number -- something like "if you multiply google maps estimates by 1.5 they will actually be more accurate". So building a better version of this in-house, based on the millions of miles previously driven, was a very important and challenging problem.
  • phil21 12y ago
    Has anyone ever actually used the travel time estimates in their app? I've taken hundreds of rides, and I don't think I've even once looked. I find it to be a completely pointless part of the whole product - I already know roughly how far away something is, and how bad traffic may be. When I call an Uber, I simply look at the surrounding map and see where the cars are to get a decent estimate. The one they give is usually off by quite a bit, depending on who accepts the hail.
    • encoderer 12y ago
      Yes, every time I open the app and it tells me how long it will take an Uber to arrive at my location.