Ride-hailing in Metro Vancouver: Uber, Lyft, Sidecar - emerging technologies

[WarrenC12]

There's no way a driverless car is going to compete with a bus or skytrain for efficiency.

It will be cheaper to operate than a cab of course, especially as an EV. Whether much of that "savings" gets passed along to the end user will be up for debate.

Roads will always be busy, but all of that space dedicated to private automobile ownership will start to free up.

Maybe we can finally put an end to street parking on anything but neighbourhood streets(!)

[officedweller]

Of interest:

Understanding the Recent Transit Ridership Decline in Major US Cities:
Service Cuts or Emerging Modes?

ABSTRACT
Public transit ridership in major US cities has been flat or declining over the past few years.
Several authors have attempted both to explain this trend and to offer policy recommendations
for how to respond to it. Past writing on the topic is dominated by theoretical arguments that
identify possible explanations, with the few empirical analyses excluding the most recent data,
from 2015-2018, where the decline is steepest. This research conducts a longitudinal analysis of
the determinants of public transit ridership in major North American cities for the period 2002-
2018, segmenting the analysis by mode to capture differing effects on rail versus bus.

Our research finds that standard factors, such changes in service levels, gas price and auto
ownership, while important, are insufficient to explain the recent ridership declines. We find
that the introduction of bike share in a city is associated with increased light and heavy rail
ridership, but a 1.8% decrease in bus ridership. Our results also suggest that for each year after
Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) enter a market, heavy rail ridership can be expected
to decrease by 1.3% and bus ridership can be expected to decrease by 1.7%. This TNC effect
builds with each passing year and may be an important driver of recent ridership declines.

http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/01/19-04931-Transit-Trends.pdf

[NetMapel]

Uber, Lyft increased traffic delays in San Francisco by 40%, study says

Here's an excerpt from the article...

The model used was calibrated to 2010, before Uber and Lyft were widely used.

Using these methods, analysts found Uber and Lyft were the largest contributors to traffic in San Francisco between 2010 and 2016.

The additional cars on the road and disruption of traffic from curbside pickup and dropoff increased the total vehicle hours of delay in the city by a whopping 62%.

Without Uber and Lyft in the mix, the delay grew by 22%, which means that the services accounted for 40% of the increase, according to the analysts.

What do you guys think about the possible effect of ride shares when they finally enter Vancouver's market? At the very least, now I feel like we should be doing some comparative studies now on traffic growth in Vancouver versus those other cities with significant rideshares presence.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by logan5

In a driver-less car scenario, Translink having a fleet of driver-less cars becomes more cost effective and efficient than having buses, where a lot of the time they (buses) are running while near empty. Buses are going to be phased out in the coming decades.

I was thinking more like Translink would add driverless tech to there buses and maybe add smaller vehicles also for the lower or even the last few Km routes. Also, Translink would be able to operate unique routes for evening services that have different transit demands than that of say peak travel periods and therefore increase operating efficiency which is their goal anyway.

[WarrenC12]

Uber's IPO is a bit of a flop:

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/uber-ipo-to-begin-trading-on-nyse-135445721.html

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That's traffic in general - all the roads are suddenly empty past 8 or 9pm. Even the SkyTrain is empty... yet it still turns a profit, because it carries hundreds of people at peak. One driverless car is going to be about as expensive as a half-full driverless bus, to say nothing of a full one.



Ever driven or been driven in Vancouver? There is no wide area to spread out over; all the side streets have been calmed - if not closed off entirely - to deter rat racing and force people onto the main roads. One closure like Nanaimo right now, and no amount of RAM or ingenuous programming will be able to prevent the Tesla sitting on Pender or Hastings for an hour.

You could convert all the street parking into 'bus' lanes- but at that point, you have a BRT-lite anyways, and these bus lanes can only take 60-70 vehicles an hour before clogging up without passing lanes. With rideshares, that's maybe 280 people/hour, assuming 4 passengers/car. It's just not viable.

It might kill LRT, though- at least street-level LRT. As it stands, one of the few big advantages vs BRT is lower/rider costs.

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

There's no way a driverless car is going to compete with a bus or skytrain for efficiency.

It will be cheaper to operate than a cab of course, especially as an EV. Whether much of that "savings" gets passed along to the end user will be up for debate.

Roads will always be busy, but all of that space dedicated to private automobile ownership will start to free up.

Maybe we can finally put an end to street parking on anything but neighbourhood streets(!)

no.

Originally Posted by officedweller

Of interest:


http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/01/19-04931-Transit-Trends.pdf

So do taxis. Rideshares are effectively liberalized taxis, and there's no way for the competitiveness to go for the near future vs transit but down, as these companies continue to try to chase profitability.

That was part of the reason taxi licences were limited- congestion.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by fredinno

So do taxis. Rideshares are effectively liberalized taxis, and there's no way for the competitiveness to go for the near future vs transit but down, as these companies continue to try to chase profitability.

That was part of the reason taxi licences were limited- congestion.

What's interesting in the year over year drop (unless there's a proportionate growth in the number of Uber, Lyft, vehicles in those cities each year, or if it's more people switching).

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Uber's IPO is a bit of a flop:

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/uber-ipo-to-begin-trading-on-nyse-135445721.html

I wouldn't read too much into it, yet. Remember that for years, Amazon failed to turn a profit and consistently lost money for years when it became a public company, yet investors kept throwing money at Amazon until it became the behemoth it is today. As long as investors are willing to put money into Uber, they will stay afloat.

[GMD]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

I wouldn't read too much into it, yet. Remember that for years, Amazon failed to turn a profit and consistently lost money for years when it became a public company, yet investors kept throwing money at Amazon until it became the behemoth it is today. As long as investors are willing to put money into Uber, they will stay afloat.

Maybe, but Amazon was making money by this point, had been trending upward for years already and had a business model with a clear path to profitability, none of those are true yet for Uber or Lyft.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by GMD

Maybe, but Amazon was making money by this point, had been trending upward for years already and had a business model with a clear path to profitability, none of those are true yet for Uber or Lyft.

Agree. If they ever come out with autonomous vehicles in a timely way that can pass regulators and that the public can accept then maybe there is a (complicated) way to viability.

In the meantime, Uber's IPO literally said that their business plan in the near future involves paying drivers less and trying to manage dissatisfaction.

While we aim to provide an earnings opportunity comparable to that available in retail, wholesale, or restaurant services or other similar work, we continue to experience dissatisfaction with our platform from a significant number of Drivers. In particular, as we aim to reduce Driver incentives to improve our financial performance, we expect Driver dissatisfaction will generally increase.

If Uber wasn't as cheap and ubiquitous, would people still take it? Uber's losses mainly represents subsidies from investors to riders: cash that allows average ppl to feel as though they have a personal car at their beck and call.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by GMD

Maybe, but Amazon was making money by this point, had been trending upward for years already and had a business model with a clear path to profitability, none of those are true yet for Uber or Lyft.

Amazon was also building market dominance, and now they are flipping that switch to profitability.

Uber has a great app, but drivers and users could switch to something else tomorrow. Both already go between Lyft and Uber easily.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by logan5

In a driver-less car scenario, Translink having a fleet of driver-less cars becomes more cost effective and efficient than having buses, where a lot of the time they (buses) are running while near empty. Buses are going to be phased out in the coming decades.

Nonsense. There is nothing more efficient than a bus loaded with passengers. You might see a wider variety of vehicle types for routes with different volumes, but buses are still going to be very much with us even in an autonomous world. There simply isn't enough road space for single occupancy vehicles to move everyone.

The cities where Uber has made big inroads are already struggling with increased congestion caused by all those new single vehicle trips and are starting to look at ways to limit the service.

[casper]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Nonsense. There is nothing more efficient than a bus loaded with passengers. You might see a wider variety of vehicle types for routes with different volumes, but buses are still going to be very much with us even in an autonomous world. There simply isn't enough road space for single occupancy vehicles to move everyone.

The cities where Uber has made big inroads are already struggling with increased congestion caused by all those new single vehicle trips and are starting to look at ways to limit the service.

Where you could see this working is to provide feed into skytrain and other similar area from low density suburban locations.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by casper

Where you could see this working is to provide feed into skytrain and other similar area from low density suburban locations.

Like a minibus? As the example Migrant_Coconut gave, Uber doesn't scale very well, and most of the suburbs are more than dense enough to support a minibus.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Like a minibus? As the example Migrant_Coconut gave, Uber doesn't scale very well, and most of the suburbs are more than dense enough to support a minibus.

For anybody interested.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

For anybody interested.

Wikipedia lists Innisfil's population as being well under 40,000. Of course they're way under the critical mass needed for a decent transit system, and they have plenty of road space to spare. But woe betide the planner lacking the common sense to realize that what works for Innisfil will not necessarily work for Vancouver.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Nonsense. There is nothing more efficient than a bus loaded with passengers. You might see a wider variety of vehicle types for routes with different volumes, but buses are still going to be very much with us even in an autonomous world. There simply isn't enough road space for single occupancy vehicles to move everyone.

The cities where Uber has made big inroads are already struggling with increased congestion caused by all those new single vehicle trips and are starting to look at ways to limit the service.

Didn't see this post before.

You don't think autonomous vehicles will react faster than a human when a red light turns green? They most certainly will, and when there are enough autonomous vehicles on the road, capacity is going to increase. For the vast majority of Metro Vancouver you need only increase road capacity by 20% to supplant buses. An easy task for autonomous vehicles that can travel closer together.

There is certainly nothing more efficient than a full bus, but conversely there is nothing less efficient than an empty bus. And for a lot of routes that's the case for large parts of the day and night.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Wikipedia lists Innisfil's population as being well under 40,000. Of course they're way under the critical mass needed for a decent transit system, and they have plenty of road space to spare. But woe betide the planner lacking the common sense to realize that what works for Innisfil will not necessarily work for Vancouver.

Also, the planner who doesn't realize that it won't work for Innisfil once they start numbering in the sectuple digits.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by logan5

Didn't see this post before.

You don't think autonomous vehicles will react faster than a human when a red light turns green? They most certainly will, and when there are enough autonomous vehicles on the road, capacity is going to increase. For the vast majority of Metro Vancouver you need only increase road capacity by 20% to supplant buses. An easy task for autonomous vehicles that can travel closer together.

There is certainly nothing more efficient than a full bus, but conversely there is nothing less efficient than an empty bus. And for a lot of routes that's the case for large parts of the day and night.

... As opposed to future rideshares, which are of course always full. Definitely not mostly circling around waiting for a passenger.

The problem is that automation doesn't solve physics. A self-driving car doesn't carry more people or take up less physical space than a manual car. Wayfinding algorithms are near-pointless when the city engineers side streets to force commuters onto the arterials; reaction time is pointless when said arterial ahead of the intersection is full - what's HAL going to do, block the box? Replacing buses with autonomous Uber or Teslas means more cars carrying less people taking up more space on the road, which brings you almost back to square one.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

I wouldn't read too much into it, yet. Remember that for years, Amazon failed to turn a profit and consistently lost money for years when it became a public company, yet investors kept throwing money at Amazon until it became the behemoth it is today. As long as investors are willing to put money into Uber, they will stay afloat.

Uber does not have enough market share and their business model is limited. Many global cities they lost out and there is lots if viable competition that is in business and can expand exponentially. I travel for business alot and many cities Uber is the second or third choice where I live, Taxifi/Bolt is the superior rideshare and everything about it is identical or better. Asian countries have their own companies that are equal or superior and accepted.

Uber is not another Amazon because it doesnt and wont have the same market share and it is not yet profitable and has real and entrenched competition.