Interesting Links for 05-10-2016

[andrewducker]

2016 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards (tags: funny animals photos ) On Writing For Half-Life (tags: writing design games valve ) Don't want to build a car park? Why not subsidize Uber instead? (tags: transport usa ) Finance sector should junk the jargon (tags: banking finance language ) I really hope Netflix don't fuck up A Series Of

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I have long thought that one of the benefits to come from driverless cars is the land currently used for car parking freed up. If Uber and a small town can make it pay to run a basically a micro-bus scheme when they are paying drivers then I expect driverless cars (when they arrive in 2035) will make those sorts of schemes workable in millions of places.

[andrewducker]

I'm fine with that - but I wish it wasn't Uber. I'd much rather have a taxi company that employed qualified drivers.

[danieldwilliam]

Well yes. Uber do not stike me as the acceptable face of capitalism. In several ways.

I wonder if the reason Uber can make it pay at $2 a trip is that their not paying their drivers very much.

Or is there some car-sharing involved in the process?

[theweaselking]

Not so much "car sharing" as "the driver's own personal vehicle". All expenses related to the car are paid 100% by the driver, not Uber.

[danieldwilliam]

I mean more than one commuter sharing the ride to or from the station.

So income per trip of  $2 times 2-4 passengers.

[theweaselking]

I misunderstood your comment completely!

.... I think it's standard for one person to order the Uber, then X people get in? The same driver can't pick up more than one passenger in the app, I think.

Let me go ask the office Uber user.

[theweaselking]

So, having asked the resident office Uber user: No! No, they're not getting double-fares for double-people.

One Uber call inherently means up to 4 passengers, with no additional cost per passenger. Uber XL (for people with SUVs, full-sized vans, etc) is "up to 6 passengers", no additional charge per passenger.

There is an option in the app to split the fare with another user. It's still the same price, but now it's divided 50/50 (or 33/33/33, etc) among all the uber users who've clicked the button to say they're going to the same place in the same car and want to split the fee.

Oh, and:
Uber takes the flat fee ($1.85 here), then the driver takes 80% of what's left. So if the whole ride is $8, Uber takes the first $1.85 and then 20% of the remaining $6.15. The driver gets the other 80% of the $6.15.

[danieldwilliam]

Thanks, that interesting and informative.

The scenario I was thinking was a sort of three way deal between the communters, Uber and the town council where the Uber cars were operating like micro-buses, picking up several passengers on a trip and the council were paying $2 per person per trip. A car would start at the outskirts of town and drive towards the station picking up several passengers on the way and scoring $2 a person and the rides are shared with a car load of people.

The worse case scenario that you suggest (that they are being individually tasked to a pick up and getting $2 per pick up less fees. Well I struggle to see how Uber drivers could make money out of that.

[theweaselking]

Thing is, it's like a taxi - fare goes up with distance and time. A 5-minute Uber trip costs my friend about $7 - let's ballpark it at a dollar per minute. In your hypothetical, the Uber-style commute-bus driver has a 40-minute route where he picks up 8 people along the way at 5 minute intervals. If they were "separate fares", he'd make 80% of $40 for the first guy, $35 on the second, $30 on the third, etc - but I suspect that first guy would feel he was being ripped off since he's paying extra for the time required to divert, stop, and pick up everyone else. If he'd taken a non-bus-style Uber, he would have gotten to his destination in maybe 25 minutes and only paid $27 instead of $40

[skington]

FWIW, the local black cab company in Glasgow texts you with your cab driver's name and registration number when they send a car out.