5 ms·

I don't get it - he's giving up the ability to pick up riders at the cub, so where will his riders come from? Or does this loophole mean he CAN still pick up a

I don't get it - he's giving up the ability to pick up riders at the cub, so where will his riders come from? Or does this loophole mean he CAN still pick up at the curb? I did not understand the whole TCP vs TNC business.

jmckib 12y ago
Not sure if this is full answer, but from the article: > Kim said he would do just fine because he has built a loyal customer base over the company's 80-year history and now receives an additional 2,000 hails daily through the hailing app Flywheel, which he hopes would adapt with him.
- xsmasher 12y ago
  Thanks, my skimming was poor.
ajju 12y ago
xsmasher - good question :) presumably his rides could come from apps like Uber and Summon (disclosure: founder). I will say that as someone whose platform supports taxi, tncs and tcp cars there is a good chance this is just posturing by the person mentioned to achieve some other goals.
njloof 12y ago
Have you ever tried to hail a taxi in San Francisco? Can't be done anyway.
- meej 12y ago
  Can't get one dispatched, either. Uber had a blog post a few years ago [1] where they highlighted some findings from a SFMTA report on cab availability. The report found that 35% of dispatched cabs never showed up, except on weekends, when 72% never showed. [1] http://blog.uber.com/2011/04/11/uberdata-the-hidden-cost-of-cabs/ http://blog.uber.com/2011/04/11/uberdata-the-hidden-cost-of-...
  - com2kid 12y ago
    Wow those are some horrible numbers. Am I just lucky that cabs in Seattle are reliable? I've never had a no-show, and cabs have always been on time here +/- 5 minutes of the requested pick up time. Then again my sole need for cabs has always been "I need to go to the airport at 4:30am", a need for which I imagine Uber would not be appropriate.
    - x0x0 12y ago
      cabs in sf are an utter shitshow. Uber's original innovation was -- and this is only remarkable in sf -- they where a taxi that came. I was on crutches for 9 months and took cabs daily to work from near mission and 23rd. All these cab companies are utter assholes: I booked cabs 3-5 days a week, from a population hub, and tipped well, but none of them could provide decent service. Each one would say "10-15 minutes" when I would ask how long the cab would take to arrive. I collected stats for a couple months: the median time was over 30 minutes and the 90th percentile was 1.5 hours. I even had a cabbie come more than 50 minutes after promised; I'd already begged a friend to drive me to work. Dude had the big old brass balls to call my cell and bitch that I hadn't cancelled, after I'd waited over three times their maximum arrival estimate. One dispatcher even admitted on the phone that they just tell everyone near where I live 10-15 minutes. Uber in other cities may have a harder row to hoe, but in sf, merely being a cab that comes (or -- and this is amazing -- treating your customers with a tiny bit of respect and telling them you won't come if you can't) gets you really far. Fuck sf taxes -- yellow, desoto, luxor -- I hope all those assholes get unemployed. I'm not sure Uber is a good thing in a city with working transport systems, but that doesn't describe sf. They made my life even harder than it already was; there's no good reason I should have had to call cabs more than an hour and a half before I wanted to be to work (an 18 minute drive) just to have a greater than 90% chance of making it. And when you have doctors appointments or surgeries or something else with a hard start time, I have no idea what you're supposed to do in sf besides use Uber. Hire a black car maybe?
      - com2kid 12y ago
        Wow that is terrible. In Seattle, I use an online reservation system for Orange Cab, and they just show up on time the next day! For Yellow Cab, well, they have a phone dispatch still, I actually switched over to Orange Cab just because Yellow's dispatchers are rather rude.
jonknee 12y ago
Basically he's paying $2,200 per month per car for the ability for a car to pick up from the curb (and SFO apparently). He thinks he can not do that and instead rely on fares that were hailed through an app (or dispatcher I'd assume). He'll have lower revenue, but also significantly lower cost.

jmckib 12y ago

Not sure if this is full answer, but from the article: > Kim said he would do just fine because he has built a loyal customer base over the company's 80-year history and now receives an additional 2,000 hails daily through the hailing app Flywheel, which he hopes would adapt with him.

xsmasher 12y ago
Thanks, my skimming was poor.

ajju 12y ago

xsmasher - good question :) presumably his rides could come from apps like Uber and Summon (disclosure: founder). I will say that as someone whose platform supports taxi, tncs and tcp cars there is a good chance this is just posturing by the person mentioned to achieve some other goals.

njloof 12y ago

Have you ever tried to hail a taxi in San Francisco? Can't be done anyway.

meej 12y ago
Can't get one dispatched, either. Uber had a blog post a few years ago [1] where they highlighted some findings from a SFMTA report on cab availability. The report found that 35% of dispatched cabs never showed up, except on weekends, when 72% never showed. [1] http://blog.uber.com/2011/04/11/uberdata-the-hidden-cost-of-cabs/ http://blog.uber.com/2011/04/11/uberdata-the-hidden-cost-of-...
- com2kid 12y ago
  Wow those are some horrible numbers. Am I just lucky that cabs in Seattle are reliable? I've never had a no-show, and cabs have always been on time here +/- 5 minutes of the requested pick up time. Then again my sole need for cabs has always been "I need to go to the airport at 4:30am", a need for which I imagine Uber would not be appropriate.
  - x0x0 12y ago
    cabs in sf are an utter shitshow. Uber's original innovation was -- and this is only remarkable in sf -- they where a taxi that came. I was on crutches for 9 months and took cabs daily to work from near mission and 23rd. All these cab companies are utter assholes: I booked cabs 3-5 days a week, from a population hub, and tipped well, but none of them could provide decent service. Each one would say "10-15 minutes" when I would ask how long the cab would take to arrive. I collected stats for a couple months: the median time was over 30 minutes and the 90th percentile was 1.5 hours. I even had a cabbie come more than 50 minutes after promised; I'd already begged a friend to drive me to work. Dude had the big old brass balls to call my cell and bitch that I hadn't cancelled, after I'd waited over three times their maximum arrival estimate. One dispatcher even admitted on the phone that they just tell everyone near where I live 10-15 minutes. Uber in other cities may have a harder row to hoe, but in sf, merely being a cab that comes (or -- and this is amazing -- treating your customers with a tiny bit of respect and telling them you won't come if you can't) gets you really far. Fuck sf taxes -- yellow, desoto, luxor -- I hope all those assholes get unemployed. I'm not sure Uber is a good thing in a city with working transport systems, but that doesn't describe sf. They made my life even harder than it already was; there's no good reason I should have had to call cabs more than an hour and a half before I wanted to be to work (an 18 minute drive) just to have a greater than 90% chance of making it. And when you have doctors appointments or surgeries or something else with a hard start time, I have no idea what you're supposed to do in sf besides use Uber. Hire a black car maybe?
    - com2kid 12y ago
      Wow that is terrible. In Seattle, I use an online reservation system for Orange Cab, and they just show up on time the next day! For Yellow Cab, well, they have a phone dispatch still, I actually switched over to Orange Cab just because Yellow's dispatchers are rather rude.

jonknee 12y ago

Basically he's paying $2,200 per month per car for the ability for a car to pick up from the curb (and SFO apparently). He thinks he can not do that and instead rely on fares that were hailed through an app (or dispatcher I'd assume). He'll have lower revenue, but also significantly lower cost.