Those Silicon Valley geniuses have done it again!
Next week- “it’s like the subway, but with AI!”
NOW INTRODUCING: Public transports! But private! And dIsRuPTiVe!
And focusing on shareholder profits and ripping of the customer
When public transportation was first introduced in most places, it was run by private companies for profit. This changed mostly because it wasn’t profitable to compete with cars when those became popular.
Of course there still are private companies running public transport: long distance buses and trains in many places, and commercial aviation is really also a form of public transportation.
So there is nothing novel about buses being run by private companies for profit.
For me it’s the marketing that makes me roll my eyes. Shuttle instead of bus when in the United States. (Curiously, in other countries it’s called bus.)
The only time I hear shuttle used is for a thing that transports between two locations specifically. A “shuttle” from the airport to a hotel or whatever, for example. This seems to match the definition of shuttle also, so I think it’s correct. It has nothing to do with marketing, rather actually using the proper term.
Not to add a wrinkle but a bus also goes between two points.
A bus goes between many points usually.
It’s not a brilliant new idea, it’s a good old one. Jitneys are back baby!
Just waiting for them to reinvent light rail
How about Uber Feet, where you pay to walk somewhere?
Yeah, my nearest grocery store is a 1h15m walk or an 8 minute drive.
Just use uber sprint
They got bought by Uber tmobile though, so the prices jumped
Which costs extra, of course
Uber Feet XL
You joke but how about exoskeletal legs that you rent? Like those scooter rentals
Uber Rickshaw
Because only poors should walk
Never heard of the Hyperloop eh?
silicon valley invented the marshrutka
Wait they didn’t have them in the US? We’ve had uber shuttles for years in India
If you click the article link, then use a process called “reading”, you would see:
The company has already launched similar services abroad in Egypt, Nigeria, and India. Now it’s bringing the concept to the United States.
This person was just expressing their surprise. Why are you so pissy lmao
Yeah, they knew this by reading the article, it seemed like. They were relating it to their experience, mentioned in the article, about it existing there. They were just surprised to find out they had it before the US. This doesn’t really denote them not having read the article.
God forbid I react to the article after reading it
Do people consider shuttles and buses the same thing? Because this sounds like a shuttle, which as far as I’m aware is completely different from a bus. I take a shuttle to the airport, which requires a reservation and ~$50 whereas I take a bus to get around town and it’s typically free.
Essentially it sounds like they are trying to dip into the shuttle market, not the inner-city bus market. Though maybe both?
I think the point is, unlike buses with fixed routes, such shuttles could deliver people to places that face temporary massive traffic - like concert venues or whatnot.
There is no need to constantly run huge amounts of buses there, but at some point of time there’s a lot of people willing to go - and such shuttles, flexible in their routes, may be the solution.
Because nobody in any public transit board has ever implemented such a thing?
In North Carolina, park and ride busses for the state fair have long been a thing, among a litany of several other examples.
Just because it’s not a completely new concept doesn’t mean it’s stupid.
It can bring value even if it’s a small iterative innovation over existing buses.
I spent way too long ignoring the park and rides at major events. Then I started paying attention and they always had them and it was always so much nicer. No more excessively long walking, no more mpossible traffic getting in and out.
As long as the event clearly highlights park and ride options, it’s fantastic and has been going on forever. These events pay the bus charter companies to generally provide rides free of charge to the riders.
There’s a bus stop at our local sports arena, and they do a dynamic scheduling thing for events, so no it’s exactly like our bus system
Good? We need more bus routes
We don’t need to make them Uber chartered bus routes.
We need whoever is willing to provide them
Why not? The more the merrier, and you, the customer, have a choice.
Until the city decides to get rid of the subsidized bus system because “Uber is a better service and covers the routes anyway” and then they jack the price sky-high.
Exactly. How people haven’t realized this yet is fuckin unconceivable. Trusting a for-profit company—with a history of the exact problematic behavior we’re worried about—is beyond stupid. They can operate at a loss for a long time. Just to fuck other businesses out of the market so they can charge as much as they want. It’s literally their business model.
The private sector takes the profitable popular routes first, which the public system is already serving, meaning the public system would not longer be able to use the fare revenue from the popular routes to subsidize the geographical coverage unpopular ones which are nevertheless needed to get the full network effect
Uber is a bad faith actor, their business model is entirely monopoly-seeking. If they’re trying to expand into bus routes, the goal will be to reduce the choices available to just Uber.
What if you, the customer, are a poor person? Is Uber going to subsidize a bus pass for you to charter one of Uber’s buses to their job?
From my own experience, if you’re poor, you use a regular bus. If you want to get somewhere faster, you pay more and catch a shuttle. If you want comfort, you pay even more and get a taxi. And all modes of transport are always full to the brim. The more the merrier, always.
But…that’s our point. Uber taking over bus routes would ultimately void that choice. Public transportation is a public service. Letting a VC-funded for-profit company weasel their way into that space is never going to not fuck poor people. It’ll fuck everyone, but it’ll make “public transportation” unaffordable. And, really, when you’re poor, “if you want to get somewhere faster” isn’t really an option. That’s…the thing with being poor. You don’t have the extra money to spend to catch a shuttle and you don’t have the luxury of paying for comfort. Not to mention, even in the best case scenario, where busses would keep their existing schedule and routes (though the likelihood of this happening is slim) and we’d just get more busses? It’d clog the system, ultimately slowing bus routes.
So, no. Not “the more the merrier” when it comes to private companies elbowing their way into public service, and especially not when we’re talking about fuckin traffic.
It works just fine elsewhere.
Like where? Kids school lunches? Oh, no…wait…a bunch of literal children have school lunch debt. Well, maybe family visits for prisoners? Oh, no, they’ve now barred people from visiting inmates and a private company now forces them to pay to do a shitty video chat. Okay, well maybe the American healthcare system? Nope. I guess that one’s killing a whole bunch of people and drowning families in debt for simple procedures and charging people $80 for a Tylenol and charging mothers for letting them hold their own fucking child.
I’m sure there’s a great example where a private company is doling out their services at a loss as a public good, right?
Reducing public transportation is not a solution to fight poverty.
Uber is not public transportation.
It is. Just like taxi.
no bus company subsidizes passes, local governments do
Local governments… you mean the thing Uber hates and does everything they can to defy?
oh yeah they would hate for local governments to give them money
If that means proper regulations (as it should) I bet they would hate it.
