Home Archives for June 2018

Thursday, June 21

The Taxicab Bubble Couldn’t Last Forever

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It’s convenient to blame Uber and Lyft for drivers’ woes, but the taxi lobby’s greed plays a role.  By  Joe Nocera 



Bloomberg News on Monday posted an article about something that has become a pretty big deal in New York City: Taxi drivers are committing suicide.
Since November, six drivers, beset with financial difficulties, have taken their own lives, most recently last Friday. After every death, there are calls from the Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents the drivers — and plenty of others — for the city to start restricting the number of Uber and Lyft cars on the road. Taxi drivers view Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. as not so much disrupting their industry as destroying it.
I suppose you can't really blame them for portraying Uber and Lyft as the enemy. In 2011, before Uber entered the New York market, there were 13,587 yellow cabs in the city of 8.5 million people. The number of cabs in New York has been capped since 1937, after a Depression-era glut made it impossible to make a living as a taxi driver. The mechanism the city used to restrict cabs was a medallion that one had to buy to own a cab. Because there were so few cabs for so many people, the law of supply and demand kicked in, driving up the price of medallions. According to the New York Times, the value of a medallion topped out at $1.3 million in 2014.Read more

Monday, June 18

Lyft invests $100M in driver support centers

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he ride-hailing company doubles down in its battle with Uber to win over drivers.


Ride-hail drivers can run up against a bunch of obstacles when out on the road. They might have questions about a ride they gave, they might need maintenance for their car and they usually have to take a break to get something to eat and go to the bathroom.
Lyft is hoping it can help its drivers with some of these issues. The company said Wednesday it's investing $100 million to build roughly 30 driver support centers across the US. At these centers, drivers can get oil changes at a "heavy discount," have help with their taxes and talk to Lyft's support team in person, among other perks.

Friday, June 15

Uber and Lyft drivers could get employment status under California court ruling

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Gig economy workers, including drivers for popular ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, could find their employment status shift under a major new decision from the top court in California. The ruling will make it more difficult for companies to classify their drivers as independent contractors and avoid paying them wages and benefits as required by state law — a potentially huge setback for Uber and Lyft, which have built their multibillion-dollar businesses on the backs of a flexible, non-employed workforce.
The California Supreme Court ruled on Monday in favor of workers for a document delivery company called Dynamex Operations West that were seeking employment status. The drivers for the delivery service first brought their case over a decade ago, arguing that they were required to wear the company’s uniform and display its logo, while providing their own vehicles and shouldering all the costs associated with the deliveries.Read more

Study estimates traveling with Uber and Lyft will be cheaper than owning a car in some cities by 2027

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The cost of owning a car could be more than traveling exclusively with rideshare services in Seattle and Denver by 2027, according to a new study by QuoteWizard.
Two commuters — one in Seattle and one in Denver — agreed to travel using only Uber and Lyft for a month to determine about how much it costs to get around that way. QuoteWizard compared that data with AAA’s estimated costs of personal car ownership and factored in the price reductions analysts expect to see when rideshare services adopt self-driving cars. QuoteWizard estimates that ridesharing will be cheaper than owning a car by 2027, assuming Uber and Lyft are operating autonomous fleets by that time. Read more

Thursday, June 7

Will Uber and Lyft Become Different Things?

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Ride-hailing companies are diversifying away from their core business, but right into more direct competition.
For most people, an Uber is a Lyft and a Lyft is an Uber.
Uber’s roots are in the black-car business, while Lyft’s predecessor, Zimride, was a carpooling app. Yet over the last six years, as the two ride-hailing companies have been in direct competition around the nation, Uber and Lyft have essentially served as exact substitutes. Drivers seem to find them interchangeable, too, often suctioning two phones to their windshields—one for Uber, one for Lyft.

Lyft has tried to differentiate itself as the kinder, gentler Uber. But under the newish CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber has become the kinder, gentler Uber. So ... where does that leave Lyft?
Today, Lyft announced a new passenger app that represents its vision for the future of urban mobility. Lyft’s VP of design, Katie Dill, who came over from Airbnb late last year, walked me through the new app. “It’s pixels. It’s product design,” Dill said, “but really what it is trying to do is have this major impact on how people behave and how people move through cities.”
Original Post : https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/will-uber-and-lyft-become-different-things/562220/

Uber wants to patent a way to use AI to identify drunk passengers

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Uber may be able to tell when you've had a few too many drinks.


The ridesharing giant has explored identifying drunk passengers with artificial intelligence, according to a patent application published Thursday. With the technology, Uber could better tailor its ride options for customers.
The patent application describes a system that learns how you typically use the Uber app, so that it can identify unusual behavior. The system relies on an algorithm to weigh a variety of factors, including typos, how precisely a user clicks on links and buttons, walking speed, and how long it takes to request a ride. The time of day, and where a ride is requested may also be considered.
Orignial Sources :  http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/07/technology/uber-patent-identify-drunks/index.html

Friday, June 1

Uber is looking at adding benefits and insurance for drivers

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At the Code Conference tonight, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi spoke about the company’s relationship with drivers, autonomous driving, uberEATS having a $6 billion bookings run rate, taking over as CEO and flying taxis, obviously.


Just this week, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent subpoenas to Uber and Lyft seeking information on driver pay, benefits and classification info. Uber wasn’t available for comment at the time, but now it seems that the company is looking at ways to offer benefits and insurance to drivers. Specifically, Uber is looking at an economically-sound way to offer drivers a benefits and insurance package so that “this can be a safer way of living,” Khosrowshahi said.
And despite what former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in the past about needing to get rid of the driver, Khosrowshahi said he disagrees.
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