4 ms·

This article makes me almost sure that this company will not exist for much longer. Such a complicated and twisted thinking about a conceptually simple microeco

by jhh 12y ago

This article makes me almost sure that this company will not exist for much longer. Such a complicated and twisted thinking about a conceptually simple microeconomic question is not a good sign. Why not just force drivers to accept any ride? Congratulations you now have 100% reliability.

swagasaurus-rex 12y ago
You can force an app to inform a driver that they must pick up a client. You cannot force a person to turn the ignition and pick up a stranger. This is a choice that has to be incentivized.
ajju 12y ago
JHH: Sorry you feel that way. We can't force drivers to accept a ride because they are not our employees, because they sometimes work with both us and another app, and because the real world intervenes to make 100 percent reliability impossible. However, I should definitely have explained this better in my post. Here's what I said to another commenter below. Our minimum reliability rate is 50% but a vast majority of our rides are done by what we call our exclusive drivers who have a 70% (soon 80%) reliability rate requirement with additional perks. I will update the post to clarify this! There are multiple reasons why a driver might not accept a ride but they all revolve around the fact that drivers are not our employees and they often are unable to or forget to become unavailable when they should be: - She just took a break to have lunch (should have turned the app to unavailable but forgot) - She is a taxi driver (we have both taxi and personal drivers on the platform) and just picked up a ride on the street and got a 2nd ride before she could turn unavailable (we measure volume in rides/second at busy times) - She drives for other platforms as well and accepted a ride request on it before she could turn unavailable - Drivers have 15 seconds to accept a ride before it "goes away". Sometimes the real world intervenes and you can't accept the ride in 15 seconds, especially if you are driving and not pulled over. One more data points: - I can't speak for Uber/Lyft but if you talk to their drivers you will see that their requirements are similar if not lower.
- jhh 12y ago
  Sorry. I regtretted my comment the minute I sent it. I wish you all the best for your product. I meant the thing about forcing the driver in a sarcastic way.
  - ajju 12y ago
    No worries. Appreciate the good wishes.

by jhh 12y ago

swagasaurus-rex 12y ago

You can force an app to inform a driver that they must pick up a client. You cannot force a person to turn the ignition and pick up a stranger. This is a choice that has to be incentivized.

ajju 12y ago

JHH: Sorry you feel that way. We can't force drivers to accept a ride because they are not our employees, because they sometimes work with both us and another app, and because the real world intervenes to make 100 percent reliability impossible. However, I should definitely have explained this better in my post. Here's what I said to another commenter below. Our minimum reliability rate is 50% but a vast majority of our rides are done by what we call our exclusive drivers who have a 70% (soon 80%) reliability rate requirement with additional perks. I will update the post to clarify this! There are multiple reasons why a driver might not accept a ride but they all revolve around the fact that drivers are not our employees and they often are unable to or forget to become unavailable when they should be: - She just took a break to have lunch (should have turned the app to unavailable but forgot) - She is a taxi driver (we have both taxi and personal drivers on the platform) and just picked up a ride on the street and got a 2nd ride before she could turn unavailable (we measure volume in rides/second at busy times) - She drives for other platforms as well and accepted a ride request on it before she could turn unavailable - Drivers have 15 seconds to accept a ride before it "goes away". Sometimes the real world intervenes and you can't accept the ride in 15 seconds, especially if you are driving and not pulled over. One more data points: - I can't speak for Uber/Lyft but if you talk to their drivers you will see that their requirements are similar if not lower.

jhh 12y ago
Sorry. I regtretted my comment the minute I sent it. I wish you all the best for your product. I meant the thing about forcing the driver in a sarcastic way.
- ajju 12y ago
  No worries. Appreciate the good wishes.