9 ms·

Introducing Driver Destination

341 points by kyleslattery 12y ago

monksy 12y ago
That seems like it's going after a very small segment of the market.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  It will be, but it is appealing to a large casual set of the market, and it could reduce congestion significantly in a city if it gets enough traction.
  - jdawg77 12y ago
    Can't up-vote this one enough; worked at a startup for a while tackling all sorts of traffic related stuff with proprietary IP, industry veterans & more. Suffice to say that there are tons of papers out there which clearly say taking N% of the number of cars off the road reduces congestion by Y% - a very much larger impact than the number of cars taken off. This is because traffic, in general, is really caused by a small number of cars. It seems like it's everywhere but the root cause (there was a paper even on HN that talked about it) is that people can't follow each other at an even speed. This uneven speed then results in more braking, more backup, etc. A few cars in the lead who don't accelerate properly can have a disproportionately negative impact on traffic flow and average speed.
    - jordanthoms 12y ago
      It's the same problem with queues - the people at the front don't have as much incentive to move quickly, since they're already at the front of the queue. Probably the only way to really solve it is autonomous cars.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  I don't think this is a small market at all. I was in SF a few weeks ago and was shocked by how cheap and effective Lyft Line is - it ended up being comparably priced to public transportation in terms of getting around the city. (A tad more expensive, yes, but not an order of magnitude more, as I would have expected). I've already heard of people using Lyft Line in this way (making money on the way to work), and I imagine that many more people now will, since it's officially supported. Think about how many people already carpool. Now think about how many people don't carpool, simply because of the hassles of coordinating transportation with another person. Lyft Line addresses that burden. I used to carpool on my morning commute with about four people, and it was awful trying to coordinate times, or remember who wasn't going to be joining us today because they had to go in early, or who was running late... all sorts of headaches. Because Lyft Line is on-demand, drivers don't have to worry about most of that. The downside is that you don't get the benefit of carpooling with the same people every day, but not everyone would mind that - and in any case, this feature seems aimed at ad-hoc trips (like running errands), not just regular commutes.
  - ufmace 12y ago
    Hmm, this makes me wonder if there's room in the market for an app specifically targeted towards people who want to find carpool partners and coordinate schedules among carpool groups.
    - findjashua 12y ago
      What advantage would this app offer over the Lyft app?
      - ufmace 12y ago
        Lyft seems to be oriented around passengers and vehicles being commodities. This is probably the best move for general taxi service, but work carpoolers may want to either form their own group among friends, or try a couple of groups and stick with one that works for them. Maybe there's value in focusing on helping pre-existing groups coordinate schedules, with finding new groups being more of an afterthought, rather than an implied expectation of a new, anonymous driver and passenger every day.
- thetrumanshow 12y ago
  I'm not so sure. Business and recreational travel, which I'm guessing is most of Lyft/Uber's business, accounts for a very small portion of all travel. This however, attempts to unlock business in all point-to-point travel... which is monstrous. I would certainly join if the network effects were similar to that of Facebook and hitching a ride was a simple affair.
- tomhallett 12y ago
  Let's imagine it is a small market and has very minimal impact (which I would disagree with), it is still showing that lyft is trying to build a better product/infrastructure to taxis, not just a comparable alternative. Ie it doesn't matter how much taxis up their game with mobile apps, seamless payments, etc - they still won't offer this type of solution.
- pbreit 12y ago
  Well, there are over 130 million commuters in the US alone making 2 trips per day, the vast majority driving. Quite possibly one of the largest segments in all of global commerce. But you think it's small?
- prostoalex 12y ago
  The market for casual rides seems to be heavily biased towards rides to/fro airport (I have nothing but personal observation to back this up though), so nothing wrong with going after meaty segments.
- firebones 12y ago
  Small, but repeating daily, and predictable. Of course, if it is too repeatable, I guess drivers/riders could just forego the middleman.
zyxley 12y ago
Procedural carpooling. Neat.
belzebub 12y ago
In a similar vein this could be used to replace restaurant delivery drivers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
eli 12y ago
Shared carpooling (called "slugging" here) has a been a viable commuting option for people in the DC area for decades. No money changes hands; the point is that a car with 3+ people can use the much faster HOV lanes. http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp
- nemothekid 12y ago
  Likewise in SF/Oakland - http://sfcasualcarpool.com/ http://sfcasualcarpool.com/
- cwilson 12y ago
  The thing is, I've never heard that term until now. I lived in the DC area for two years and worked with quite a few commuters. It's cool that it's a concept but there hasn't been mainstream adoption to the point where it's as easy as an app in your pocket until now. If a tree falls in the woods...
  - eli 12y ago
    I don't have hard data, but I think it's more common than you think. We have one employee who does it every day and I know 1 or 2 others. I would imagine everyone who lives in e.g. Woodbridge knows about slugging.
  - rhino369 12y ago
    It's a fairly ubiquitous concept in DC. Hell, the website Zoe goes to work from in House of Cards is named after it.
    - eli 12y ago
      Hm, I'd assumed that was a reference to the newspaper/typesetting term "slugline". But maybe it's both.
      - rhino369 12y ago
        That might be it actually.
DINKDINK 12y ago
Sidecar has had this functionality for a long time.
- cheeze 12y ago
  While that may be true, Sidecar isn't in many locations. It looks like it is in Seattle, however I've never heard of it until now, nor do I know anybody that uses it...
awwstn 12y ago
This is really great – though I wonder if Lyft runs the risk of people making the connection once (i.e. finding a person with similar commute times/locations who is willing to pay for rides) and deciding to arrange a paid carpool that doesn't go through Lyft.
- discodave 12y ago
  Even if that happens, Lyft is recieving revenue they wouldn't have otherwise. i.e. it may decrease the potential revenue from this use case but not the profitability.
- zdean 12y ago
  I think there are a lot of people that this would be a good idea for. I use my car to get to/from work, but I also like having it to use during the workday (lunch, errands, etc.). I'd be up for giving rides in the morning/afternoon but still having use of my car the rest of the time. Plus it sounds ad hoc, so I don't have to commit to someone beyond just the one time.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bengali3 12y ago
  i've thought about that for myself with some neighbors but I feel my schedule would be too hectic to be a consistant driver or passenger. Having a network available would offer me the flexibility every morning to drive or ride with zero commitment. This may work out for others though.
- greenpizza13 12y ago
  I think when you read the safety guidelines this idea is a non-starter. Using Lyft you get guaranteed payment, 1M of insurance while driving someone else, and the app tracking your location and keeping you safe. When you circumvent the system you take on a lot of risk, especially if the person you are driving gets injured.
nostromo 12y ago
The TechCrunch article is much more informative. http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/25/lyft-driver-destination/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/25/lyft-driver-destination/
- findjashua 12y ago
  not a statement you get to hear very often!
pinaceae 12y ago
ass backwards. you want the next bn dollar idea? while I am at work, my car sits in the parking lot of the building for 8-10hours, unused. i don't want to be a lyft/uber driver. i want MY CAR to work for uber/lyft in its off hours. have a driver pick it up in the morning at the office, then return it when i want to get home (full gas tank and cleaned car for an extra fee). someone takes this and get rich.
- jordanthoms 12y ago
  Most of the cost is in the driver and driver recruitment, not the car. An additional car which isn't available at rush hour and has to be driven back to a specified point when you need it (and the driver is then going to need to get another ride to get to their next car) probably isn't worth much at all.
- rhino369 12y ago
  Do the math on how much it would cost for you to just uber in and out of work every day.
- 001sky 12y ago
  awesome idea, certainly a taxi-medalion that was portable in nyc could be a godsend to people who don't want to do opposite side parking. Also, places with a lot of vacation or second homes would be a candidate if they keep a second car/suv etc there. I'd worry that there is not enough of the right kind of demand tho. Most people are not getting taxis during mid-day. And the people who work professionally have different needs for layout and might be too harsh on your gear. There is a reason you cannot lease a pickup at any reasonable rate (unlike, say a BMW or Mercedes). The lack of use during the day is priced into the latter, and priced out of the former (would be used/abused with low and unpredictable residual).
- cylinder 12y ago
  how is someone going to get to your workplace to pickup the car (assuming you are talking about a suburban office park and not a CBD/downtown)
  - 12y ago
michaelvkpdx 12y ago
Trying to charge people for carpooling, something we've traditionally done for free. The "sharing economy" isn't about sharing- it's about monetizing free things and taking a cut. This is not in any way improving humanity. It's a step backwards.
- kazinator 12y ago
  I agree with you; this needs to be a FOSS application, with a "parasite free" network of peer-to-peer nodes to connect users.
- Brian-Puccio 12y ago
  I live on on the south shore Long Island in the suburbs of NYC. My community is a fairly dense, walkable community, but most jobs are located in office parks in the burbs or a commuter rail ride away in the city (or possibly Brooklyn/Queens). After seeing the same cars every morning drive the same stretches of highway for a while, I thought I'd have a brilliant idea. Create a website where people can post their commutes to possibly look for people to share with. The site would have been free to use (it would be a portfolio piece but I wouldn't turn down a donation here or there) and wouldn't encourage or prohibit any financial exchange between users. Turns out NYS already has a site for that: http://www.511ny.org/rideshare/ http://www.511ny.org/rideshare/ So I guess if the site exists and no one is using it (and I didn't know about it until I started thinking about attempting to make my own) the issue is publicity. So I posted flyers around town, at the commuter rail station, at the farmers' market. I'm not sure if there was an uptick in rideshares, but you're right, Michael (of Portland?). Here's something that's been done for a while, for free, with the state even trying to encourage it. Most cars are still empty. If Lyft can, but offering a financial incentive, get this to take off, maybe it is an improvement. I think it's possible that: free ride sharing > monetized ride sharing > no ride sharing Maybe there's some pitfalls I haven't thought of though ...
  - prostoalex 12y ago
    Lyft actually had its start as ZimRide, a carpool posting service that would live on top of Facebook http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/29/6000-words-about-a-pink-mustache/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/29/6000-words-about-a-pink-mus...
kosei 12y ago
Very interesting. The most important thing to me personally is convenience, which is an itch that I believe this scratches. If I'm able to input that I'm going somewhere and this will help automatically direct me to people I can pickup and drop off on the way, it avoids the huge hassle of coordination. Additionally, it (presumably) helps with the issue of liability?
smokey_the_bear 12y ago
This could work really well for things like getting to Tahoe on the weekends too.
- evanb 12y ago
  In that case, most people would want to ensure round-trips, though.
  - r00fus 12y ago
    That's not an issue with going to work? This ride-sharing idea only works if both ends of the trip have sufficient traffic to promote carpooling.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Within major metro areas there are many options for getting home, from car sharing to regular taxis to busses and trains. The same does not apply to a trip to Tahoe.
muzz 12y ago
This is more inline with what the founders worked on originally, a ride-sharing service called ZimRide
Rambition 12y ago
20 years ago, I lived in a house that had a city implemented carpool pickup spot in the East Bay - every morning carpoolers would line up and wait for a rid into SF to get through via the carpool lane, back when the toll was only $2. Since it was city property, I don't believe my parents got anything out of it, and we couldn't park in front of our house Mon - Fri mornings, my brother did have the enterprising idea of selling coffee in the mornings, much like a lemonade stand with a forced audience. Seems like there was a demand for this type of service 20 years back though, interesting to see it is still an issue that companies are looking to solve today.
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  That still happens very widely, it's a bit more formalized today: http://sfcasualcarpool.com/ http://sfcasualcarpool.com/ Paying is optional, usually the passengers throw the driver a dollar or two, but it's pretty widespread: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?vpsrc=6&ll=37.84829,-122.266159&t=m&ie=UTF8&msa=0&spn=0.216881,0.479965&z=11&mid=zql22s-6L4ys.kPiNnZXPWtzo https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?vpsrc=6&ll=37.84829...
- prawn 12y ago
  I'm surprised that shopping centres/malls don't support these sorts of things outside peak hours. When people are dropped back at the end of their day, they could do some last minute shopping, or grab coffee or whatever.
jrkelly 12y ago
So lyft for the burbs and uber for the cities, then? Burbs require non-professional drivers (i.e. daily commuters) to become drivers since ride request density isn't high enough to support professional drivers.
fraserharris 12y ago
The messaging here is off. "Driver Destination" implies it has generalized applications -> be a Lyft driver where ever you are going. In practice, they need to get traction in the one big market for this: commuters. Better marketing will call it what it is: Lyft Commute - share a ride from home to work (claiming the product name 'Commute' also stops Uber from using it)
- RockyMcNuts 12y ago
  Works anywhere there are a lot of people on similar route, not necessarily commute. Drop someone off at airport, pick someone up who's going near your house or anywhere along your route. Same for big game, weekend rush to the beach communities, other events. It's a good natural counterbalance for 'surge pricing', since whenever there is big demand there are probably people on overlapping routes.
- oldspiceman 12y ago
  Agreed. 'Driver Destination' sounds whack.
unicornporn 12y ago
So, will this work in Sweden? The Google Play page says nothing about geographical restrictions, but it speaks about "DMV checks" which I have no idea what it is. Seems Americans sometimes forget that the internet is a global network.
- cheeze 12y ago
  Is Lyft in Sweden as it is? While I agree that many things on the internet are America-centric, it wouldn't surprise me that a company based in America makes an announcement about a feature that they are rolling out, in America.
kalvin 12y ago
I'm happy Lyft is demonstrating that it actually cares about its core/founding values of decreasing car usage. They could have viewed this as a distraction to expanding its existing dedicated-driver model, in order to better compete against Uber. (Lyft Line is just multiple passengers; Sidecar already does "driver destination" aka real carpooling, but they're also playing a different game focusing on drivers in general, and don't have the scale Lyft does) If they can get traction, they'll have cracked a problem that many people have tried to solve and failed at: how do you get Americans to carpool? Context: Lyft's founders pivoted into Lyft from Zimride after five years of building white-labeled carpool sites for colleges/companies + a public long-distance carpool/rideshare board, and discovering that a) that's not a VC-scale business, and b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start Anyway, I use Lyft over Uber when possible for many reasons, but this is one-- they started out trying to improve society in a particular way, and still are, even as they've changed their approach. And I think they should be commended for setting an example for how to achieve an activist-y goal through a startup/company. Or since it's not achieved yet, at least trying. (I have no affiliation with Lyft, see my profile.)
- username223 12y ago
  > that's not a VC-scale business It's depressing that "VC-scale" (i.e. convincing some rich dude he can flip his investment soon for a 1000% return, possibly by unloading shares on unsuspecting rubes) is what matters. What ever happened to making something people want, then selling it at a profit?
  - johnny99 12y ago
    Nothing, but you get a bank loan for that, or bootstrap. VC money comes with strings, including the expectation of high growth. I agree very much with your sentiment, but I think the solution isn't changing VC, it's finding other kinds of capital.
- onion2k 12y ago
  b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start 90% of Americans didn't pay non-professional strangers for a ride before Uber came along. 90% of Americans didn't share what they were having for lunch before Instagram. 90% of Americans didn't share the hilarious list of "cats who forgot how to cat" before Buzzfeed. The point being it's pretty much impossible to predict what product will be a success based on past market behaviour. Saying something won't work is very often right, but it's a sucky reason not to try.
mmanfrin 12y ago
Man, I was thinking about this last night, how I could use my morning and evening commutes to take people home on my way home -- since I'd either stay in the city (killing time for traffic to die down), or be paid to sit in my normal evening traffic home across the bay. Only hiccup would be if I had a fare taking me to the south bay, but that seems a reasonable gamble.
- prawn 12y ago
  Same with me this morning. Drove past someone at a bus stop and thought "They're going to sit there for another 10+ minutes, then pay $3+ to get to their destination with a stop every couple of blocks. Meanwhile, I'm going past right now using one seat out of five."
allendoerfer 12y ago
Flinc [0], a start-up from Germany, does exactly this but in real time, too. It can hook up with the drivers navigation software so they are only asked to pick someone up, when it does not change their own route. I highly prefer this model over the classic Uber/Lyft service, because it actually delivers on the promises of the sharing economy. Resources are shared, from which both parties and the general public benefit. Its not just taxis with lower wages. Of course, critical mass is a bigger problem with this model, but there is the obvious entry point of white-label ride sharing platforms for companies, which flinc does, too. I think, it is about as cool as it gets, until I get my self-driving car, which transports passengers on-demand the whole day after it drove me to work, from time to time being recharged on inductive parking spots, powered by green energy. [0]: https://flinc.org/ https://flinc.org/
tcdent 12y ago
Having grown up with California's carpool lanes (a lane reserved for vehicles with two or more riders) I've always expected the number of commuters that are able to take advantage of it has to be minimal. In my experience, having that additional passenger only happens on special occasions; it never happens on the morning commute. This is what the carpool lane has always needed to be successful; networking.
zan2434 12y ago
This is brilliant. Lyft is doing everything right as of late.
judk 12y ago
I remember when this was called carpooling. Weird to put the branding on it. But these days nothing counts unless it's in service of some corporate brand.
DigitalSea 12y ago
I am late to the Lyft party, but after recently leaving Uber because I did not agree with their questionable business ethics and attitude toward their customers, I must say I find the whole Lyft experience somewhat refreshing. Funnily enough, my first Lyft driver I had a week or so ago was telling me he leaves home a couple of hours earlier, does a couple of trips close by to his work and then on the way home from work he turns the app on and most of the time he is fortunate to get a ride that is going the same direction, so it pays his way home. Not an entirely new premise, car-pooling has always been a thing, but for my driver (his name was Brett) this is going to be an awesome feature and I imagined many other Lyft drivers. I like the feature of the app that allows you to tip drivers a little something extra when a driver has gone beyond what you are paying them for. In my first experience, Brett offered me and my pregnant wife a muesli bar, bottled water and even held an umbrella for us while we got in and out of the car. Seriously good job Lyft, you have a superior app/service and great drivers, you just need to get the numbers up and get some more brand awareness.

341 points by kyleslattery 12y ago

monksy 12y ago

That seems like it's going after a very small segment of the market.

mahyarm 12y ago
It will be, but it is appealing to a large casual set of the market, and it could reduce congestion significantly in a city if it gets enough traction.
- jdawg77 12y ago
  Can't up-vote this one enough; worked at a startup for a while tackling all sorts of traffic related stuff with proprietary IP, industry veterans & more. Suffice to say that there are tons of papers out there which clearly say taking N% of the number of cars off the road reduces congestion by Y% - a very much larger impact than the number of cars taken off. This is because traffic, in general, is really caused by a small number of cars. It seems like it's everywhere but the root cause (there was a paper even on HN that talked about it) is that people can't follow each other at an even speed. This uneven speed then results in more braking, more backup, etc. A few cars in the lead who don't accelerate properly can have a disproportionately negative impact on traffic flow and average speed.
  - jordanthoms 12y ago
    It's the same problem with queues - the people at the front don't have as much incentive to move quickly, since they're already at the front of the queue. Probably the only way to really solve it is autonomous cars.
chimeracoder 12y ago
I don't think this is a small market at all. I was in SF a few weeks ago and was shocked by how cheap and effective Lyft Line is - it ended up being comparably priced to public transportation in terms of getting around the city. (A tad more expensive, yes, but not an order of magnitude more, as I would have expected). I've already heard of people using Lyft Line in this way (making money on the way to work), and I imagine that many more people now will, since it's officially supported. Think about how many people already carpool. Now think about how many people don't carpool, simply because of the hassles of coordinating transportation with another person. Lyft Line addresses that burden. I used to carpool on my morning commute with about four people, and it was awful trying to coordinate times, or remember who wasn't going to be joining us today because they had to go in early, or who was running late... all sorts of headaches. Because Lyft Line is on-demand, drivers don't have to worry about most of that. The downside is that you don't get the benefit of carpooling with the same people every day, but not everyone would mind that - and in any case, this feature seems aimed at ad-hoc trips (like running errands), not just regular commutes.
- ufmace 12y ago
  Hmm, this makes me wonder if there's room in the market for an app specifically targeted towards people who want to find carpool partners and coordinate schedules among carpool groups.
  - findjashua 12y ago
    What advantage would this app offer over the Lyft app?
    - ufmace 12y ago
      Lyft seems to be oriented around passengers and vehicles being commodities. This is probably the best move for general taxi service, but work carpoolers may want to either form their own group among friends, or try a couple of groups and stick with one that works for them. Maybe there's value in focusing on helping pre-existing groups coordinate schedules, with finding new groups being more of an afterthought, rather than an implied expectation of a new, anonymous driver and passenger every day.
thetrumanshow 12y ago
I'm not so sure. Business and recreational travel, which I'm guessing is most of Lyft/Uber's business, accounts for a very small portion of all travel. This however, attempts to unlock business in all point-to-point travel... which is monstrous. I would certainly join if the network effects were similar to that of Facebook and hitching a ride was a simple affair.
tomhallett 12y ago
Let's imagine it is a small market and has very minimal impact (which I would disagree with), it is still showing that lyft is trying to build a better product/infrastructure to taxis, not just a comparable alternative. Ie it doesn't matter how much taxis up their game with mobile apps, seamless payments, etc - they still won't offer this type of solution.
pbreit 12y ago
Well, there are over 130 million commuters in the US alone making 2 trips per day, the vast majority driving. Quite possibly one of the largest segments in all of global commerce. But you think it's small?
prostoalex 12y ago
The market for casual rides seems to be heavily biased towards rides to/fro airport (I have nothing but personal observation to back this up though), so nothing wrong with going after meaty segments.
firebones 12y ago
Small, but repeating daily, and predictable. Of course, if it is too repeatable, I guess drivers/riders could just forego the middleman.

zyxley 12y ago

Procedural carpooling. Neat.

belzebub 12y ago

In a similar vein this could be used to replace restaurant delivery drivers.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

eli 12y ago

Shared carpooling (called "slugging" here) has a been a viable commuting option for people in the DC area for decades. No money changes hands; the point is that a car with 3+ people can use the much faster HOV lanes. http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp

nemothekid 12y ago
Likewise in SF/Oakland - http://sfcasualcarpool.com/ http://sfcasualcarpool.com/
cwilson 12y ago
The thing is, I've never heard that term until now. I lived in the DC area for two years and worked with quite a few commuters. It's cool that it's a concept but there hasn't been mainstream adoption to the point where it's as easy as an app in your pocket until now. If a tree falls in the woods...
- eli 12y ago
  I don't have hard data, but I think it's more common than you think. We have one employee who does it every day and I know 1 or 2 others. I would imagine everyone who lives in e.g. Woodbridge knows about slugging.
- rhino369 12y ago
  It's a fairly ubiquitous concept in DC. Hell, the website Zoe goes to work from in House of Cards is named after it.
  - eli 12y ago
    Hm, I'd assumed that was a reference to the newspaper/typesetting term "slugline". But maybe it's both.
    - rhino369 12y ago
      That might be it actually.

DINKDINK 12y ago

Sidecar has had this functionality for a long time.

cheeze 12y ago
While that may be true, Sidecar isn't in many locations. It looks like it is in Seattle, however I've never heard of it until now, nor do I know anybody that uses it...

awwstn 12y ago

This is really great – though I wonder if Lyft runs the risk of people making the connection once (i.e. finding a person with similar commute times/locations who is willing to pay for rides) and deciding to arrange a paid carpool that doesn't go through Lyft.

discodave 12y ago
Even if that happens, Lyft is recieving revenue they wouldn't have otherwise. i.e. it may decrease the potential revenue from this use case but not the profitability.
zdean 12y ago
I think there are a lot of people that this would be a good idea for. I use my car to get to/from work, but I also like having it to use during the workday (lunch, errands, etc.). I'd be up for giving rides in the morning/afternoon but still having use of my car the rest of the time. Plus it sounds ad hoc, so I don't have to commit to someone beyond just the one time.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bengali3 12y ago
i've thought about that for myself with some neighbors but I feel my schedule would be too hectic to be a consistant driver or passenger. Having a network available would offer me the flexibility every morning to drive or ride with zero commitment. This may work out for others though.
greenpizza13 12y ago
I think when you read the safety guidelines this idea is a non-starter. Using Lyft you get guaranteed payment, 1M of insurance while driving someone else, and the app tracking your location and keeping you safe. When you circumvent the system you take on a lot of risk, especially if the person you are driving gets injured.

nostromo 12y ago

The TechCrunch article is much more informative. http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/25/lyft-driver-destination/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/25/lyft-driver-destination/

findjashua 12y ago
not a statement you get to hear very often!

pinaceae 12y ago

ass backwards. you want the next bn dollar idea? while I am at work, my car sits in the parking lot of the building for 8-10hours, unused. i don't want to be a lyft/uber driver. i want MY CAR to work for uber/lyft in its off hours. have a driver pick it up in the morning at the office, then return it when i want to get home (full gas tank and cleaned car for an extra fee). someone takes this and get rich.

jordanthoms 12y ago
Most of the cost is in the driver and driver recruitment, not the car. An additional car which isn't available at rush hour and has to be driven back to a specified point when you need it (and the driver is then going to need to get another ride to get to their next car) probably isn't worth much at all.
rhino369 12y ago
Do the math on how much it would cost for you to just uber in and out of work every day.
001sky 12y ago
awesome idea, certainly a taxi-medalion that was portable in nyc could be a godsend to people who don't want to do opposite side parking. Also, places with a lot of vacation or second homes would be a candidate if they keep a second car/suv etc there. I'd worry that there is not enough of the right kind of demand tho. Most people are not getting taxis during mid-day. And the people who work professionally have different needs for layout and might be too harsh on your gear. There is a reason you cannot lease a pickup at any reasonable rate (unlike, say a BMW or Mercedes). The lack of use during the day is priced into the latter, and priced out of the former (would be used/abused with low and unpredictable residual).
cylinder 12y ago
how is someone going to get to your workplace to pickup the car (assuming you are talking about a suburban office park and not a CBD/downtown)
- 12y ago

michaelvkpdx 12y ago

Trying to charge people for carpooling, something we've traditionally done for free. The "sharing economy" isn't about sharing- it's about monetizing free things and taking a cut. This is not in any way improving humanity. It's a step backwards.

kazinator 12y ago
I agree with you; this needs to be a FOSS application, with a "parasite free" network of peer-to-peer nodes to connect users.
Brian-Puccio 12y ago
I live on on the south shore Long Island in the suburbs of NYC. My community is a fairly dense, walkable community, but most jobs are located in office parks in the burbs or a commuter rail ride away in the city (or possibly Brooklyn/Queens). After seeing the same cars every morning drive the same stretches of highway for a while, I thought I'd have a brilliant idea. Create a website where people can post their commutes to possibly look for people to share with. The site would have been free to use (it would be a portfolio piece but I wouldn't turn down a donation here or there) and wouldn't encourage or prohibit any financial exchange between users. Turns out NYS already has a site for that: http://www.511ny.org/rideshare/ http://www.511ny.org/rideshare/ So I guess if the site exists and no one is using it (and I didn't know about it until I started thinking about attempting to make my own) the issue is publicity. So I posted flyers around town, at the commuter rail station, at the farmers' market. I'm not sure if there was an uptick in rideshares, but you're right, Michael (of Portland?). Here's something that's been done for a while, for free, with the state even trying to encourage it. Most cars are still empty. If Lyft can, but offering a financial incentive, get this to take off, maybe it is an improvement. I think it's possible that: free ride sharing > monetized ride sharing > no ride sharing Maybe there's some pitfalls I haven't thought of though ...
- prostoalex 12y ago
  Lyft actually had its start as ZimRide, a carpool posting service that would live on top of Facebook http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/29/6000-words-about-a-pink-mustache/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/29/6000-words-about-a-pink-mus...

kosei 12y ago

Very interesting. The most important thing to me personally is convenience, which is an itch that I believe this scratches. If I'm able to input that I'm going somewhere and this will help automatically direct me to people I can pickup and drop off on the way, it avoids the huge hassle of coordination. Additionally, it (presumably) helps with the issue of liability?

smokey_the_bear 12y ago

This could work really well for things like getting to Tahoe on the weekends too.

evanb 12y ago
In that case, most people would want to ensure round-trips, though.
- r00fus 12y ago
  That's not an issue with going to work? This ride-sharing idea only works if both ends of the trip have sufficient traffic to promote carpooling.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Within major metro areas there are many options for getting home, from car sharing to regular taxis to busses and trains. The same does not apply to a trip to Tahoe.

muzz 12y ago

This is more inline with what the founders worked on originally, a ride-sharing service called ZimRide

Rambition 12y ago

20 years ago, I lived in a house that had a city implemented carpool pickup spot in the East Bay - every morning carpoolers would line up and wait for a rid into SF to get through via the carpool lane, back when the toll was only $2. Since it was city property, I don't believe my parents got anything out of it, and we couldn't park in front of our house Mon - Fri mornings, my brother did have the enterprising idea of selling coffee in the mornings, much like a lemonade stand with a forced audience. Seems like there was a demand for this type of service 20 years back though, interesting to see it is still an issue that companies are looking to solve today.

mikeyouse 12y ago
That still happens very widely, it's a bit more formalized today: http://sfcasualcarpool.com/ http://sfcasualcarpool.com/ Paying is optional, usually the passengers throw the driver a dollar or two, but it's pretty widespread: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?vpsrc=6&ll=37.84829,-122.266159&t=m&ie=UTF8&msa=0&spn=0.216881,0.479965&z=11&mid=zql22s-6L4ys.kPiNnZXPWtzo https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?vpsrc=6&ll=37.84829...
prawn 12y ago
I'm surprised that shopping centres/malls don't support these sorts of things outside peak hours. When people are dropped back at the end of their day, they could do some last minute shopping, or grab coffee or whatever.

jrkelly 12y ago

So lyft for the burbs and uber for the cities, then? Burbs require non-professional drivers (i.e. daily commuters) to become drivers since ride request density isn't high enough to support professional drivers.

fraserharris 12y ago

The messaging here is off. "Driver Destination" implies it has generalized applications -> be a Lyft driver where ever you are going. In practice, they need to get traction in the one big market for this: commuters. Better marketing will call it what it is: Lyft Commute - share a ride from home to work (claiming the product name 'Commute' also stops Uber from using it)

RockyMcNuts 12y ago
Works anywhere there are a lot of people on similar route, not necessarily commute. Drop someone off at airport, pick someone up who's going near your house or anywhere along your route. Same for big game, weekend rush to the beach communities, other events. It's a good natural counterbalance for 'surge pricing', since whenever there is big demand there are probably people on overlapping routes.
oldspiceman 12y ago
Agreed. 'Driver Destination' sounds whack.

unicornporn 12y ago

So, will this work in Sweden? The Google Play page says nothing about geographical restrictions, but it speaks about "DMV checks" which I have no idea what it is. Seems Americans sometimes forget that the internet is a global network.

cheeze 12y ago
Is Lyft in Sweden as it is? While I agree that many things on the internet are America-centric, it wouldn't surprise me that a company based in America makes an announcement about a feature that they are rolling out, in America.

kalvin 12y ago

I'm happy Lyft is demonstrating that it actually cares about its core/founding values of decreasing car usage. They could have viewed this as a distraction to expanding its existing dedicated-driver model, in order to better compete against Uber. (Lyft Line is just multiple passengers; Sidecar already does "driver destination" aka real carpooling, but they're also playing a different game focusing on drivers in general, and don't have the scale Lyft does) If they can get traction, they'll have cracked a problem that many people have tried to solve and failed at: how do you get Americans to carpool? Context: Lyft's founders pivoted into Lyft from Zimride after five years of building white-labeled carpool sites for colleges/companies + a public long-distance carpool/rideshare board, and discovering that a) that's not a VC-scale business, and b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start Anyway, I use Lyft over Uber when possible for many reasons, but this is one-- they started out trying to improve society in a particular way, and still are, even as they've changed their approach. And I think they should be commended for setting an example for how to achieve an activist-y goal through a startup/company. Or since it's not achieved yet, at least trying. (I have no affiliation with Lyft, see my profile.)

username223 12y ago
> that's not a VC-scale business It's depressing that "VC-scale" (i.e. convincing some rich dude he can flip his investment soon for a 1000% return, possibly by unloading shares on unsuspecting rubes) is what matters. What ever happened to making something people want, then selling it at a profit?
- johnny99 12y ago
  Nothing, but you get a bank loan for that, or bootstrap. VC money comes with strings, including the expectation of high growth. I agree very much with your sentiment, but I think the solution isn't changing VC, it's finding other kinds of capital.
onion2k 12y ago
b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start 90% of Americans didn't pay non-professional strangers for a ride before Uber came along. 90% of Americans didn't share what they were having for lunch before Instagram. 90% of Americans didn't share the hilarious list of "cats who forgot how to cat" before Buzzfeed. The point being it's pretty much impossible to predict what product will be a success based on past market behaviour. Saying something won't work is very often right, but it's a sucky reason not to try.

mmanfrin 12y ago

Man, I was thinking about this last night, how I could use my morning and evening commutes to take people home on my way home -- since I'd either stay in the city (killing time for traffic to die down), or be paid to sit in my normal evening traffic home across the bay. Only hiccup would be if I had a fare taking me to the south bay, but that seems a reasonable gamble.

prawn 12y ago
Same with me this morning. Drove past someone at a bus stop and thought "They're going to sit there for another 10+ minutes, then pay $3+ to get to their destination with a stop every couple of blocks. Meanwhile, I'm going past right now using one seat out of five."

allendoerfer 12y ago

Flinc [0], a start-up from Germany, does exactly this but in real time, too. It can hook up with the drivers navigation software so they are only asked to pick someone up, when it does not change their own route. I highly prefer this model over the classic Uber/Lyft service, because it actually delivers on the promises of the sharing economy. Resources are shared, from which both parties and the general public benefit. Its not just taxis with lower wages. Of course, critical mass is a bigger problem with this model, but there is the obvious entry point of white-label ride sharing platforms for companies, which flinc does, too. I think, it is about as cool as it gets, until I get my self-driving car, which transports passengers on-demand the whole day after it drove me to work, from time to time being recharged on inductive parking spots, powered by green energy. [0]: https://flinc.org/ https://flinc.org/

tcdent 12y ago

Having grown up with California's carpool lanes (a lane reserved for vehicles with two or more riders) I've always expected the number of commuters that are able to take advantage of it has to be minimal. In my experience, having that additional passenger only happens on special occasions; it never happens on the morning commute. This is what the carpool lane has always needed to be successful; networking.

zan2434 12y ago

This is brilliant. Lyft is doing everything right as of late.

judk 12y ago

I remember when this was called carpooling. Weird to put the branding on it. But these days nothing counts unless it's in service of some corporate brand.

DigitalSea 12y ago

I am late to the Lyft party, but after recently leaving Uber because I did not agree with their questionable business ethics and attitude toward their customers, I must say I find the whole Lyft experience somewhat refreshing. Funnily enough, my first Lyft driver I had a week or so ago was telling me he leaves home a couple of hours earlier, does a couple of trips close by to his work and then on the way home from work he turns the app on and most of the time he is fortunate to get a ride that is going the same direction, so it pays his way home. Not an entirely new premise, car-pooling has always been a thing, but for my driver (his name was Brett) this is going to be an awesome feature and I imagined many other Lyft drivers. I like the feature of the app that allows you to tip drivers a little something extra when a driver has gone beyond what you are paying them for. In my first experience, Brett offered me and my pregnant wife a muesli bar, bottled water and even held an umbrella for us while we got in and out of the car. Seriously good job Lyft, you have a superior app/service and great drivers, you just need to get the numbers up and get some more brand awareness.