# Uber is going to offer scheduled rides starting in Seattle



## Chip Dawg (Jul 27, 2014)

http://phandroid.com/2016/06/09/uber-scheduled-rides/

When should you actually tap the button that sends your Uber bat signal to nearby drivers? Will there still be drivers around if you wait? How long until they'll actually arrive? Will there be enough cars? Will you have your stuff together by the time they pull up?

The FOMU is real (fear of missing Uber), but the company is launching a new featured called "Scheduled Rides" that will allow users to set a pickup day and time anywhere from 30 days in advance to 30 minutes in advance. This will dampen the stress of planning on-time travel for airport trips, business meetings, and more.

Some additional info on the new service:


Launches June 9th in Seattle for business users only
Scheduled Rides are priced exactly like a normal uberX ride (Surge pricing may apply)
Only uberX to start
You can cancel anytime before your car is dispatched to pick you up
The company hopes to bring this to more cities and all users in due time.


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## SEAL Team 5 (Dec 19, 2015)

Chip Dawg said:


> http://phandroid.com/2016/06/09/uber-scheduled-rides/


That's a guaranteed no surge ride.


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## Buckiemohawk (Jun 23, 2015)

You'll wait twenty minutes for a 5 dollar minimum fare.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

This is a lot less great than it sounds for pax. First, surge *does* apply (whoever says otherwise didn't read). Second, there's still no promise of not getting No Cars Available when the scheduled time hits. Hope you don't really need to get to that train a 3 AM (_like I did - had to call a cab_).

It would be great if Uber and Lyft allowed drivers to post long-distance hauls and match with scheduled drivers at a reduced rate. But this is just a scripted version of IFTTT. Little effort, little return on feature improvement.


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## LA Cabbie (Nov 4, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> This is a lot less great than it sounds for pax. First, surge *does* apply (whoever says otherwise didn't read). Second, there's still no promise of not getting No Cars Available when the scheduled time hits. Hope you don't really need to get to that train a 3 AM (_like I did - had to call a cab_).
> 
> It would be great if Uber and Lyft allowed drivers to post long-distance hauls and match with scheduled drivers at a reduced rate. But this is just a scripted version of IFTTT. Little effort, little return on feature improvement.


Very true, surge may apply. Scheduled Rides is nothing more than T/C or Time Calls which the taxi world has been doing for decades. Like you said, no guarantee that you will get a ride. I'll let you all in on a little secret, dispatch hounds us cabbies to pick-up timecalls and will punish us if we cancel. Uber might be able to punish you, but cannot manually chase after you like a real person.


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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

SEAL Team 5 said:


> That's a guaranteed no surge ride.


"Surge pricing may apply." I see a lot of unhappy passengers if it's surging and a non-surge scheduled ride comes in, oops cancelled for a higher paying gig as is my right to do as an independent contractor.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

LA Cabbie said:


> Very true, surge may apply. Scheduled Rides is nothing more than T/C or Time Calls which the taxi world has been doing for decades. Like you said, no guarantee that you will get a ride. I'll let you all in on a little secret, dispatch hounds us cabbies to pick-up timecalls and will punish us if we cancel. Uber might be able to punish you, but cannot manually chase after you like a real person.


It's better for Uber drivers because you can just decline the ping or let it timeout. Thanks to all the lawsuit pressure, Uber has promised not to fire drivers for ignoring pings - but you can still get fired for cancelling too many rides. In my market it's 10% per week.

Bad news is you can have a scheduled ride early in the morning, and have cars out, and nobody willing to drive out and take it.


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## Sure (Apr 10, 2016)

Lyft seems to do a better job, didn't they say that the ride would cost slightly more because it's a scheduled ride?


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## stuber (Jun 30, 2014)

This is not good. But it remains to be seen what will happen with this. Other Uber initiatives have lost steam and been withdrawn. The comment from LA CABBIE is a key point. The "scheduled" rides look to be Time Calls. These are fulfilled by nearby drivers approximately 30 minutes before the appointment. Thus, they are not assigning dedicated drivers in advance. Thus it's a less reliable method. There may be no nearby driver, and the closest driver may not wish to fulfill the assignment. Question: Are destinations displayed so that the driver knows the customer destination before accepting? If not, then that could add to the unreliability problem. I know this, UBERX drivers are not going to deadhead for appointments at X rates. They're getting slaughtered as is. Appointments will just block-out time and add miles. 

Regardless, this spreads a pall of dread over the livery business. Leave us the hell alone!


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

stuber said:


> This is not good. But it remains to be seen what will happen with this. Other Uber initiatives have lost steam and been withdrawn. The comment from LA CABBIE is a key point. The "scheduled" rides look to be Time Calls. These are fulfilled by nearby drivers approximately 30 minutes before the appointment. Thus, they are not assigning dedicated drivers in advance. Thus it's a less reliable method. There may be no nearby driver, and the closest driver may not wish to fulfill the assignment. Question: Are destinations displayed so that the driver knows the customer destination before accepting? If not, then that could add to the unreliability problem. I know this, UBERX drivers are not going to deadhead for appointments at X rates. They're getting slaughtered as is. Appointments will just block-out time and add miles.
> 
> Regardless, this spreads a pall of dread over the livery business. Leave us the hell alone!


On Uber, when a scheduled ping occurs, it will be sent out as a normal UberX ping to the first/nearest driver. The driver will see it as a normal UberX ping. If they decline, it will go to the next nearest UberX ping. The way Uber Scheduled Pings work, they are no different than a normal trip request... they're just automated.

The big bummer for UberX drivers is going to be that pax will forget, or leave their phones powered off, and no-show. Enjoy that $3.25 for 15 minutes of your time (10 to get there then 5 to wait). And you won't know ever that it was a scheduled ping.

This is why I only drive for UberX when surge is 2x or more.


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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

Sure said:


> Lyft seems to do a better job, didn't they say that the ride would cost slightly more because it's a scheduled ride?


You are correct, but now that Uber is in the scheduling game we can expect Lyft to remove the premium charge.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

With such a fractious driver group which has no sense loyalty to Uber or its pax, and therefore little to no sense of obligation to either, I can't see this being a success.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> It would be great if Uber and Lyft allowed drivers to post long-distance hauls and match with scheduled drivers at a reduced rate. But this is just a scripted version of IFTTT. Little effort, little return on feature improvement.


Lyft was orginally Zimride, which was a failed attempt at providing just such a service - matching long-distance intercity drivers and pax.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

elelegido said:


> Lyft was orginally Zimride, which was a failed attempt at providing just such a service - matching long-distance intercity drivers and pax.


When Zimride failed (forward into Lyft), it had a fraction of the funding that Lyft does today. Now that Lyft has conquested the direct competition to Uber, they should go back to untapped markets... Zimride, frankly, is the next battleground in TCN use cases. Getting people to far away locations that drivers are already going to.

Both Uber and Lyft also now have both the infrastructure and the driver networks, to make that economical - both for drivers en route, and for pax. Uber Destinations is how Uber is attacking that problem, slowly... so Lyft had better answer it.

The problem with Destinations is missed connections. Someone wanting to go 100 miles misses the ping of someone else wanting to go the same 100 miles, by a few mere minutes. Lyft can rework that problem to compete by being different - letting pax and riders post planned trips and custom rates, and using big data to match them efficiently.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> When Zimride failed (forward into Lyft), it had a fraction of the funding that Lyft does today. Now that Lyft has conquested the direct competition to Uber, they should go back to untapped markets... Zimride, frankly, is the next battleground in TCN use cases. Getting people to far away locations that drivers are already going to.
> 
> Both Uber and Lyft also now have both the infrastructure and the driver networks, to make that economical - both for drivers en route, and for pax. Uber Destinations is how Uber is attacking that problem, slowly... so Lyft had better answer it.
> 
> The problem with Destinations is missed connections. Someone wanting to go 100 miles misses the ping of someone else wanting to go the same 100 miles, by a few mere minutes. Lyft can rework that problem to compete by being different - letting pax and riders post planned trips and custom rates, and using big data to match them efficiently.


I think the issue with it was rates. I used Zimride twice as a driver. The going rate from San Francisco to San Diego was 50 bucks. That's what people were willing to pay. For a 500 mile trip. 10 cents per mile. I took a couple of riders on separate trips. One was a completely silent weird guy the other was a stinky dude. For $50 it really wasn't worth it on either occasion, and for the sake of that money I decided to not do it again and just drive by myself.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Personally I think for long-distance trips, the driver and pax should be able to negotiate. Thanks to big data, you can post for example, that you would be willing to take 50% of UberX rates for a trip, versus some driver that would be okay taking 40% of UberX rates. Then the pax will be matched with the lowest rate, and the driver still gets their cost for the trip covered - up to UberX rates.

As to pax behavior, I think that will continue to evolve as ridesharing becomes more and more mainstream. We have ratings now, so you can just not take low-star pax on long trips.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> Personally I think for long-distance trips, the driver and pax should be able to negotiate. Thanks to big data, you can post for example, that you would be willing to take 50% of UberX rates for a trip, versus some driver that would be okay taking 40% of UberX rates. Then the pax will be matched with the lowest rate, and the driver still gets their cost for the trip covered - up to UberX rates.
> 
> As to pax behavior, I think that will continue to evolve as ridesharing becomes more and more mainstream. We have ratings now, so you can just not take low-star pax on long trips.


I think it's a great idea to share long distance rides - it's very wasteful to have one person in a car. Maybe a way can be found to make it work, but I doubt it; I don't think the numbers add up.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

elelegido said:


> I think it's a great idea to share long distance rides - it's very wasteful to have one person in a car. Maybe a way can be found to make it work, but I doubt it; I don't think the numbers add up.


Add up to be profitable? No, Amtrak and other options can defeat that even in rural areas.

But the goal shouldn't be to add up to that. I'd happily take pax at $.50 per mile on long distance drives, and they would be too. For me the cost of the ride is covered, and for them it's a cheaper, more direct form of transit. Lyft/Uber then takes 10 to 20% of a fare that didn't previously exist.

Everyone takes/pays less, and everyone gains more surplus. As an economics geek, this is borderline porn for me.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> Add up to be profitable? No, Amtrak and other options can defeat that even in rural areas.
> 
> But the goal shouldn't be to add up to that. I'd happily take pax at $.50 per mile on long distance drives, and they would be too. For me the cost of the ride is covered, and for them it's a cheaper, more direct form of transit. Lyft/Uber then takes 10 to 20% of a fare that didn't previously exist.
> 
> Everyone takes/pays less, and everyone gains more surplus. As an economics geek, this is borderline porn for me.


No, I meant the numbers not adding up between driver and rider. I too would be happy to take pax at 50 cents per mile on my San Francisco to San Diego runs - 500 miles would be $250. But no pax is going to pay that when they can fly there for less and get there in a couple of hours.

From my point of view, I wouldn't take a pax on that trip for less than $100. Putting up with who knows what/whom just isn't worth it. From the pax' point of view, they have little reason to pay me $100 when the bus gets them there for $50 or they can pay another $50 or so and go by plane.

Long distance ride sharing involves essentially selling tickets for rides in very low efficiency vehicles (cars) in the midst of competition from high efficiency vehicles (bus, train, plane). Trips in low efficiency vehicles (taxi, Uberlyft) work over shorter distances because, even though the trip may cost, say, 5 times what the trip in a high efficiency bus would cost, the overall cost is still low. a $20 cab or Uber ride vs a $4 bus ride is palatable. A $250 car ride against a $50 bus ride, not so much.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

The longer the trip, the lower the rate. I'd take a pax from San Francisco to Los Angeles for $100. Covers my gas.

And as a pax, I'd be happy to pay $100 for a direct route between SF and LA. Today you have to take Amtrak and that takes far longer than a direct drive, especially with bus connections. Flights cost more and take longer, especially with having to hit the airport 2 hours early (_not to mention dealing with the TSA_), and then route from the airport to where you're actually heading (1+ hours).

The problem with a bus ride (Grayhound) is the same as Amtrak, namely longer hauls due to bus connections. Every day, people are leaving your city for far-off locations that overlap perfectly with your route.

If I can pay $30 to save myself 4-6 hours of commuting, be guaranteed my luggage is in a locked car, and take pit stops whenever 2-3 people concur, that's a great deal.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

The ONLY way this will actually work is if the price is surge, atleast 1.5 or so or more. There must be incentive for drivers to guarantee the pickup.


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## UofMDriver (Dec 29, 2015)

Well atleast UberX is 1.35 per mile in Seattle. Here in Ann Arbor Michigan were at .90. Its ridiculous because the cost of living in Ann Arbor is the highest in the State. Uber gave us a Winter warm up cut. We were at 1.30 per mile. They claim we would make more money. After 6 months I can atest that it is a case of liar liar pants on fire on Uber part. Apparently Uber didn't realize Winter is long gone.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

UofMDriver said:


> Well atleast UberX is 1.35 per mile in Seattle. Here in Ann Arbor Michigan were at .90. Its ridiculous because the cost of living in Ann Arbor is the highest in the State. Uber gave us a Winter warm up cut. We were at 1.30 per mile. They claim we would make more money. After 6 months I can atest that it is a case of liar liar pants on fire on Uber part. Apparently Uber didn't realize Winter is long gone.


Uber will probably now claim that their "driver focused enhancements" will make up for making the Beating The Winter Slump Temporary Rate Cuts (their name, not mine) permanent.


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## yojimboguy (Mar 2, 2016)

elelegido said:


> No, I meant the numbers not adding up between driver and rider. I too would be happy to take pax at 50 cents per mile on my San Francisco to San Diego runs - 500 miles would be $250. But no pax is going to pay that when they can fly there for less and get there in a couple of hours.
> 
> From my point of view, I wouldn't take a pax on that trip for less than $100. Putting up with who knows what/whom just isn't worth it. From the pax' point of view, they have little reason to pay me $100 when the bus gets them there for $50 or they can pay another $50 or so and go by plane. ...


Seriously? A maybe ten hour trip for $100? Not counting another 10 hours getting home.

Not on my worst day would I take that trip. _MAYBE _if I could be guaranteed a return passenger so I wouldn't be deadheading, but even at$200 bucks I could earn more with short drives ub the same length of time in my own town, and I'm in a pretty small market.

I recently bought insurance with Erie allowing me to operate as a private commercial driver for passengers. I made a deal with a resort about 50 miles away to shuttle passengers for $100 per ride, which is a dollar per mile including the empty return trip. To me, that's a minimum. FYI, I got this deal by doing the same drive as an Uber, the passenger was charged $89, and I got about $65 of it. But the passenger introduced me to the resort owner, and we sat down and talked about a deal. The insurance is gonna cost me about $400 more annually than I was already paying, and I expect to more than make that up just with this one deal. I hope I can pick up some other businesses in the area as well.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

yojimboguy said:


> Seriously? A maybe ten hour trip for $100? Not counting another 10 hours getting home.
> 
> Not on my worst day would I take that trip. _MAYBE _if I could be guaranteed a return passenger so I wouldn't be deadheading, but even at$200 bucks I could earn more with short drives ub the same length of time in my own town, and I'm in a pretty small market.
> 
> I recently bought insurance with Erie allowing me to operate as a private commercial driver for passengers. I made a deal with a resort about 50 miles away to shuttle passengers for $100 per ride, which is a dollar per mile including the empty return trip. To me, that's a minimum. FYI, I got this deal by doing the same drive as an Uber, the passenger was charged $89, and I got about $65 of it. But the passenger introduced me to the resort owner, and we sat down and talked about a deal. The insurance is gonna cost me about $400 more annually than I was already paying, and I expect to more than make that up just with this one deal. I hope I can pick up some other businesses in the area as well.


No, HoldenDriver and I were discussing ridesharing in its true sense - where someone is taking a road trip (in my case going to see family in San Diego from my home in San Francisco) and possibly taking someone along on the trip because I have three empty seats in the car. That is, the road trip is going to be takrn anyway by the driver for his own personal reasons; nothing whatsoever to do with "accepting that trip only if I'm guaranteed a return trip" etc on a commercial basis.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> The longer the trip, the lower the rate. I'd take a pax from San Francisco to Los Angeles for $100. Covers my gas.


Agreed - I'd even do San Francisco to San Diego for $100. But I have actually tried long distance ride sharing and know that it does not work like that in practice. When Zimride was in operation, the way it worked was the driver would put his ride on the system for riders to see - start point, destination, and the price he wanted for each seat.

There were often quite a few ride offers posted for the SF to LA run, and almost all drivers offered that ride for $40 - $50. It was a completely free market - Zimride didn't control or even suggest prices for rides. Anyway, whenever I was going from SF to SD and offered the ride on Zimride, it was a tough sell, even at $50. I'd get people offering me 20 bucks, some would say they'd split the gas cost with me and no way that'd be $50, some guy was going with his girfriend and their offer was $40 for both etc etc. Real nickel and dime stuff.

I know what you're saying; I too think $100 for that ride would be an absolute bargain, but I tried it quite a few times and the money people were prepared to pay for rides like that was just not enough to make it worthwhile for me as the driver.


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## Tim In Cleveland (Jul 28, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> It's better for Uber drivers because you can just decline the ping or let it timeout. Thanks to all the lawsuit pressure, Uber has promised not to fire drivers for ignoring pings - but you can still get fired for cancelling too many rides. In my market it's 10% per week.
> 
> Bad news is you can have a scheduled ride early in the morning, and have cars out, and nobody willing to drive out and take it.


There is no reason to fear their deactivation for cancellations threats. They are full of it. They hide the rider name, destination, sometimes their rating, display an inaccurate time to the pickup and you're supposed to exercise your right to choose jobs? Total horse manure. Too bad if they don't like your cancels. Don't take fares you don't want.

Don't listen to the crap about "I would take a rider for $.10 a mile cuz it helps pay for gas". Utter b.s. from shill posters. ABSURD to consider allowing a stranger in for less than half the cost of gas plus the hassle of having to go get them and deal with them. No matter what the topic is, an Uber supervisor will post and say "I don't need compensation for working. I just enjoy the smell of my passengers farts" or equally stupid anti-worker posts.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Tim In Cleveland said:


> There is no reason to fear their deactivation for cancellations threats. They are full of it. They hide the rider name, destination, sometimes their rating, display an inaccurate time to the pickup and you're supposed to exercise your right to choose jobs? Total horse manure. Too bad if they don't like your cancels. Don't take fares you don't want.
> 
> Don't listen to the crap about "I would take a rider for $.10 a mile cuz it helps pay for gas". Utter b.s. from shill posters. ABSURD to consider allowing a stranger in for less than half the cost of gas plus the hassle of having to go get them and deal with them. No matter what the topic is, an Uber supervisor will post and say "I don't need compensation for working. I just enjoy the smell of my passengers farts" or equally stupid anti-worker posts.


Uber long-distance drivers would be true ridesharing however, not the quasi-cab service we're talking about normally. If I have to make a 100+ mile drive, I certainly wouldn't accept .$10/mile, but there is a breakeven where I would take a pax just to cover the cost of transit - and that breakeven is less than alternative forms of tranxit for the pax.

Uber and Lyft now have the perfect system to democratize that process, and with pax ratings, you're far less likely to get an unsavory character in your car. Plus, you can always cancel - as you mentioned.


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## GooberX (May 13, 2015)

HoldenDriver said:


> Add up to be profitable? No, Amtrak and other options can defeat that even in rural areas.
> 
> But the goal shouldn't be to add up to that. I'd happily take pax at $.50 per mile on long distance drives, and they would be too. For me the cost of the ride is covered, and for them it's a cheaper, more direct form of transit. Lyft/Uber then takes 10 to 20% of a fare that didn't previously exist.
> 
> Everyone takes/pays less, and everyone gains more surplus. As an economics geek, this is borderline porn for me.


$.50 per mile???

Lmao

Are you trying to make up the losses by focusing on volume?

You're a dream uber driver.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

GooberX said:


> $.50 per mile???
> 
> Lmao
> 
> ...


Perhaps you didn't read the part where I clearly said this was not a use case for commercial Uber driving. That is a use case for people that are already casually taking a route and don't want deadhead miles.

Like it or not but the future of Uber is not commercial, it's products like Destinations where people pick up pax on their existing routes. One you have 4-5 million Uber drivers, there won't be any commercial drivers except maybe during bar hours.

Insulting fellow drivers is not helping anyone here.


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## Modern-Day-Slavery (Feb 22, 2016)

So they can cancel anytime? No worry about the driver's time...


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## njn (Jan 23, 2016)

This experiment is only for business accounts. How popular is Uber for Business?

https://www.uber.com/business


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## XUberMike (Aug 2, 2015)

I don't need these clowns to schedule rides for me


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## UofMDriver (Dec 29, 2015)

Yeah schedule rides at the normal fare rate, for UberX they have to be joking. That is to much like punching a time card.


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## I_Like_Spam (May 10, 2015)

When there were nice time calls coming into Yellow Cab, the dispatchers made sure their friends among the drivers knew that a trip to Steubenville or Butler was coming up and from where.

I wonder how Uber will make sure they funnel the nice ones to their friends?


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## Buckiemohawk (Jun 23, 2015)

I_Like_Spam said:


> When there were nice time calls coming into Yellow Cab, the dispatchers made sure their friends among the drivers knew that a trip to Steubenville or Butler was coming up and from where.
> 
> I wonder how Uber will make sure they funnel the nice ones to their friends?


 Uber doesn't care who gets the fare. It's not like the corruption one sees when driving a taxi


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## I_Like_Spam (May 10, 2015)

Buckiemohawk said:


> Uber doesn't care who gets the fare. It's not like the corruption one sees when driving a taxi


Its hardly corruption to make sure that the passengers are served, by giving drivers a "heads up".


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## SomeDrivingGuy (May 10, 2016)

For "business users only." I wonder how many people will lie about that.. 

Uberx planned at 2:43pm. Rider arrives at 2:57pm. Only way this will work is if uber can continue their guarantees, and I can imagine the driver would be after these types of fares for more downtime between rides... just my guess.


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

The business users are people who are covered under an Uber business account and are on the account's list of approved riders.

Google Uber for business.

I'd guess that many of this pre-arranged rides would be early AM airport runs.


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## SurgeMachine (Mar 15, 2016)

I heard they have a new driver app for this feature. You can find it in the app store called "UberFool"


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## SomeDrivingGuy (May 10, 2016)

Dback2004 said:


> I'd be surprised if this works out. One, it's tied to Business accounts which there aren't that many of. Second, they aren't pre-scheduling the driver. Very high likelihood of no drivers in area or nobody wanting to take that ping. Then you have a pissed off pax who thought they were guaranteed a ride when they're not. Third, since Uber will have no way of knowing how far away the closest driver will be at the time of pickup, they're likely going to send the automated ping way early in order to get a driver there on time to make the pax happy which will then annoy drivers with longer wait times. I just don't see it working.
> 
> Could be worse. Davenport, Iowa where I drive is $0.65/mi
> 
> I hope you have really good private commercial insurance and aren't depending on Uber's coverage for that.


That is what guarantee periods are for. Business people usually run between 6-10am then 3-7pm.. guarantees cover all those, plus more. Uber drivers will gladly wait at 1rph especially when they can get three scheduled riders and guaranteed all their money.

Of course we'll have to see how this works.


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

Guarantees? We don't get no stinking' guarantees here. You know, in the city where Uber claims they can't get enough drivers because of finger printing...


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## Dback2004 (Nov 7, 2015)

SomeDrivingGuy said:


> That is what guarantee periods are for. .


It must be different where you drive, but where I'm from guarantees are a complete scam


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## Rat (Mar 6, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> This is a lot less great than it sounds for pax. First, surge *does* apply (whoever says otherwise didn't read). Second, there's still no promise of not getting No Cars Available when the scheduled time hits. Hope you don't really need to get to that train a 3 AM (_like I did - had to call a cab_).
> 
> It would be great if Uber and Lyft allowed drivers to post long-distance hauls and match with scheduled drivers at a reduced rate. But this is just a scripted version of IFTTT. Little effort, little return on feature improvement.


Long distance rides are almost garuanteed dead head back trips. Why would we do that for a reduced rate?


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## Rat (Mar 6, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> This is a lot less great than it sounds for pax. First, surge *does* apply (whoever says otherwise didn't read). Second, there's still no promise of not getting No Cars Available when the scheduled time hits. Hope you don't really need to get to that train a 3 AM (_like I did - had to call a cab_).
> 
> It would be great if Uber and Lyft allowed drivers to post long-distance hauls and match with scheduled drivers at a reduced rate. But this is just a scripted version of IFTTT. Little effort, little return on feature improvement.


No, surge doesn't apply. They will just cancel the trip. These are not gong to be dispatched any differently than regular trips, just riders can order it in advance


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Rat said:


> No, surge doesn't apply. They will just cancel the trip. These are not gong to be dispatched any differently than regular trips, just riders can order it in advance


Your first sentence is incorrect. Surge does apply to scheduled rides. A pax may cancel, and wait for the surge to end, but since scheduled rides are only open to business accounts at this time... that's unlikely. Business customers rarely care about surge pricing because their employers pick up the tab.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Rat said:


> Long distance rides are almost garuanteed dead head back trips. Why would we do that for a reduced rate?


Again - as I have said in three replies now - if you already had to make that trip for personal reasons... and wanted to recover the costs of a trip you had to take anyways. This is not a commercial use case.

I realize true ridesharing is a tough concept for some to grasp, with where Uber stands today.


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

We don't even know if business accounts are impacted by surge pricing. Right?


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## Rat (Mar 6, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> Your first sentence is incorrect. Surge does apply to scheduled rides. A pax may cancel, and wait for the surge to end, but since scheduled rides are only open to business accounts at this time... that's unlikely. Business customers rarely care about surge pricing because their employers pick up the tab.


So how does a prescheduled ride differ then? Other than both the driver and rider are now restricted to a narrow timeframe?


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## Rat (Mar 6, 2016)

Old Rocker said:


> We don't even know if business accounts are impacted by surge pricing. Right?


If not affected by surge, drivers would be ignoring the ping or canceling the calls


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Rat said:


> So how does a prescheduled ride differ then? Other than both the driver and rider are now restricted to a narrow timeframe?


A scheduled ride, to a driver, is no different than any other ping. An Uber business customer can schedule a trip request, and it will go out at the scheduled time and pickup location - to whatever the going surge rate is at that time.

The best use case for scheduled pings is when you have several people that will need pickups, say an event is ending, and you don't want masses of people jumbling with their apps - or you want the company to pay for guests departing an event.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Old Rocker said:


> We don't even know if business accounts are impacted by surge pricing. Right?


Again, incorrect. The going surge rate will apply when the ping sends. That is one of the reasons why Uber for Business customers only can use it currently. They're far less likely to care about surges.


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## Rat (Mar 6, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> A scheduled ride, to a driver, is no different than any other ping. An Uber business customer can schedule a trip request, and it will go out at the scheduled time and pickup location - to whatever the going surge rate is at that time.
> 
> The best use case for scheduled pings is when you have several people that will need pickups, say an event is ending, and you don't want masses of people jumbling with their apps - or you want the company to pay for guests departing an event.


If I'm at a football game and the rider isn't there waiting for me, I'm going to cancel him and accept one of those high surge fares that are already there. The whole point of pre-scheduling the ride is to have the driver waiting for you. Drivers aren't going to wait for them.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Rat said:


> If I'm at a football game and the rider isn't there waiting for me, I'm going to cancel him and accept one of those high surge fares that are already there. The whole point of pre-scheduling the ride is to have the driver waiting for you. Drivers aren't going to wait for them.


Granted. The big problem with scheduled rides is going to be an increase in no-shows. This is particularly bad when someone gets a 10+ minute away ping, goes there, and nobody shows up.

But a driver will never know it was a scheduled ride. Or most probably wouldn't take them unless it's nearby or in a high traffic area.

Personally I think scheduled rides should have a higher no show fee... but I'm sure Uber disagrees :/


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

HoldenDriver said:


> Again, incorrect. The going surge rate will apply when the ping sends. That is one of the reasons why Uber for Business customers only can use it currently. They're far less likely to care about surges.


Are you making an educated guess, or you know for certain?


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## Forest Bickle (May 3, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> When Zimride failed (forward into Lyft), it had a fraction of the funding that Lyft does today. Now that Lyft has conquested the direct competition to Uber, they should go back to untapped markets... Zimride, frankly, is the next battleground in TCN use cases. Getting people to far away locations that drivers are already going to.
> 
> Both Uber and Lyft also now have both the infrastructure and the driver networks, to make that economical - both for drivers en route, and for pax. Uber Destinations is how Uber is attacking that problem, slowly... so Lyft had better answer it.
> 
> The problem with Destinations is missed connections. Someone wanting to go 100 miles misses the ping of someone else wanting to go the same 100 miles, by a few mere minutes. Lyft can rework that problem to compete by being different - letting pax and riders post planned trips and custom rates, and using big data to match them efficiently.


It'd be much easier for the match-ups to be done, and the distant time calls (pick ups in regions away from the typical surge areas, for example in the Seattle Area, the Sammamish plateau), as a separate bid screen.. much like the old taxi systems (before regulation killed even that around here). I don't know about custom rates, that would complicate things.

Rather, one could add a sort of "drop" factor on this sort of bid screen, so regardless of the length of the trip the customer could reasonably appeal to the drivership. Standard fare should always be a minimum for the work performed. All we're dealing with is opportunity cost. The App developers have given the drivership a lot of tools to work with, however the base fare system and the surge mechanism really only chine in "Urban" geographical regions where competition over space is at a premium. In the suburban and metroplex regions, where the community sourcing fare system of Uber and Lyft have been successful, this whole issue over time calls needs to introduce a new mechanism and allow more information for both parties (Driver/Pax), to work with.

For example, I gave an airport trip to a savvy and experienced pax not too long ago where we discussed his various alternatives (I knowing the taxi business as well as the TNC). This was a customer willing to pay for black car services (non uber black) in order to make sure he had his driver on time so as not to miss his time frame. Because of the distance to the airport, the price of making an arrangement with a local service in advance was competitive with TNC (community sourced fare), and the taxi fare exceeding both by a large margin.

As far as time calls go, the bottom line is that Uber/Lyft/Licensed taxi dispatches all ignore any consideration of the driver's time and don't recognize that this is an information market. Without a new mechanism or more shared information it is not going to be fair and is going to be the same vampire effect on the drivership's well being.


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## Forest Bickle (May 3, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> Add up to be profitable? No, Amtrak and other options can defeat that even in rural areas.
> 
> But the goal shouldn't be to add up to that. I'd happily take pax at $.50 per mile on long distance drives, and they would be too. For me the cost of the ride is covered, and for them it's a cheaper, more direct form of transit. Lyft/Uber then takes 10 to 20% of a fare that didn't previously exist.
> 
> Everyone takes/pays less, and everyone gains more surplus. As an economics geek, this is borderline porn for me.


If you're driving XL chances are you're already paying around 12-13 cent's per gallon in fuel, at least ten in my area. Depending on your insurance and mileage activity how many cents per mile are you paying? Uber covers the shag and trip if you're using Metromile, however outside of that Metromile per mile charges can serve as a decent enough reference to say you're paying at least say, 6 cents/mile on insurance. My experience from years in the taxi business and now currently under Uber lease (Not including the lease here as a factor), your costs per mile aren't much different than those of most anyone else, and (outside of opportunity cost frame of reference) those costs hover around 25 cent's a mile.

So your profit, if Uber still takes 20-25% from 50 cents/mile is now about 15 cents on the mile not counting side-routing-operational costs from your intended course... You really enjoy living hand to mouth like some animal?

My point being that the TNC/Community Sourcing fare is already bottomed out, but hey the environment maybe gets a break from the road efficiency. What you are proposing is a "no profit" scenario where the pax only covers the costs of your vehicle operation after you eat the costs in both time and fuel etc. to make that happen. Amen brother! However this can be incorporated into a much more sensible "Real Time Transportation Marketplace" concept under "real rideshare/non profit." This is why all this business with so called electronic dispatching should be under a regional municipal or non profit entity. NOT the same geographical municipalities that currently try to regulate these matters (They've only ruined these businesses in most cases).


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Old Rocker said:


> Are you making an educated guess, or you know for certain?


It was confirmed to me, if that's what you're asking. Anything can change before rollout, but that is as it stands now. I was told that was explicitly why Uber for Business customers only get access during the pilot... ordinary consumers have to manually confirm the surge and there's no way to do that with a scheduled ping.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Forest Bickle said:


> So your profit, if Uber still takes 20-25% from 50 cents/mile is now about 15 cents on the mile not counting side-routing-operational costs from your intended course... You really enjoy living hand to mouth like some animal?


I'm not going to post this again - long-distance ride sharing is NEVER GOING TO BE COMMERCIAL.

I have had to post this five times, and people keep ignoring that I clarified that, numerous times. You wouldn't expect someone to pay for your pre-planned road trip. In a roadsharing scenario, someone would however be willing to pay for part of that trip - and you would be willing to have someone pay for part of it.

As to the rest, see past replies. I'm too tired to keep re-hashing this nuance of the conversation.

One of the big problems with UberPeople, is people don't read the entire thread. Perhaps it's a XenForo styling issue, or I don't know. Just SMH.


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

HoldenDriver said:


> It was confirmed to me, if that's what you're asking. Anything can change before rollout, but that is as it stands now. I was told that was explicitly why Uber for Business customers only get access during the pilot... ordinary consumers have to manually confirm the surge and there's no way to do that with a scheduled ping.


 You're in Oz? That's where Holden vehicles are used.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Old Rocker said:


> You're in Oz? That's where Holden vehicles are used.


No. They're also in America (G8, GTO, Caprice PPV, SS), and in Europe (VXR8).


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## Old Rocker (Aug 20, 2015)

HoldenDriver said:


> No. They're also in America (G8, GTO, Caprice PPV, SS), and in Europe (VXR8).


Those are called Chevrolets in the States. The PPV isn't even available for sale to the public.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Old Rocker said:


> Those are called Chevrolets in the States. The PPV isn't even available for sale to the public.


Manufactured by Holden Ltd. On every door of every one. Even the floor mats on the Chevy SS are Holden-logoed. I don't see why you're taking the effort to post that.

And if you want a Caprice PPV, you can buy one. Many people have.


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## Forest Bickle (May 3, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> I'm not going to post this again - long-distance ride sharing is NEVER GOING TO BE COMMERCIAL.
> 
> I have had to post this five times, and people keep ignoring that I clarified that, numerous times. You wouldn't expect someone to pay for your pre-planned road trip. In a roadsharing scenario, someone would however be willing to pay for part of that trip - and you would be willing to have someone pay for part of it.
> 
> ...


Perhaps a separate thread is more appropriate, since this one is on time calls. I admit I didn't scour the entire thread to follow where the general diversion was made.



HoldenDriver said:


> Again - as I have said in three replies now - if you already had to make that trip for personal reasons... and wanted to recover the costs of a trip you had to take anyways. This is not a commercial use case.
> 
> I realize true ridesharing is a tough concept for some to grasp, with where Uber stands today.


The problem is that any sort of transaction makes it a commercial case, it's pretty simple. Perhaps it's just chance that brought Uber into conflict with the taxi business. With so many former taxi lease drivers, clearly there is some correlation here. I think it lies in the old yarn of,"vital and important service" within the community. Thanks to over regulation in most nearly every city and society in the world (Japan being a good exception and New York a good example by contrast), the notion of anyone making a decent living just from driving people around on a fare system has become a null concept.

Just make a hitch hiker app, and a commuter rideshare app where it specifically says no money exchange is implied. If people want to discuss sharing costs after they match up that's between them, and the app and any fees for using it aren't involved... Notice how the interest dies off really quickly.

As for fare systems in general, why not be the most fair and honest and make it all a bid system in real time, everywhere and at all times? Nobody would even need big data. I see your logic, but it really makes no sense even on an economic level. On demand point to point ride services ALWAYS compete with rail, buses, parking costs, traffic, and the cars in the driveway--the only difference and the only factor that articulates the "markets" is opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is offset by information which mitigates certainty over the outcome which is why systems of exchange emerge. These emerge from the positive forces of the market (collective phenomenon of individual choices) and are regulated by normative forces imposed via collective feedback mechanisms...

Why not introduce bartering into it? I mean, maybe I'm willing to give an Ipod in exchange for that ride you're talking about or a foot massage or ... take a picture of the item and place it on the bid screen for ride services? I'm not being facetious I've imagined a system for years like this.

AS FOR THE TIME CALLS:

I hated time calls in the cab business because it is extremely rare you interact with any pax that respects your time, the cab associations and the regulators don't respect you or your time, Lyft shows respect for the driver's time, but Uber? They don't respect your time already because they have no opportunity cost deferral in their fare system nor a tipping mechanism. They do make for a better time fare though.

Pax aren't paying for your gas and time to get to their location, they're not paying for your wait time--time calls only make it worse. In the taxi business if a request came in from an outlying area where the response times were longer the call would go out as much as 30 minutes in advance, on average 20 minutes in the county areas around Seattle, and around 10 minutes n advance in the inner areas like near downtown.

It is very likely the Uber algorithms will be tuned better than the former. However expect to see time calls in the outer areas for airporters and some for shorts, expect that an already meager response from drivers having bad experiences from shorts to not chance as many outer region calls and for the outer regions to suffer because of it. Until anyone making these apps and their rules and such understands that more information needs to be shared with the drivers those regions will suffer until other factors are introduced.

One thing I can say about Uber is that they're listening to people more than the regulators and taxi business, which isn't hard since they just haven't been listening to the community for years.


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## Reversoul (Feb 8, 2016)

I don't understand how a driver is guaranteed. If it's 4am and there are no drivers, the pax won't get a ride even if they scheduled it a month in advance.

Can someone explain. I tried to do some research, but found nothing. 

Hopefully this is something we have to opt into.


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## Forest Bickle (May 3, 2016)

Uber, for all it's "unilateral" efforts does respond to the market. The elegance of the surge it's it's a sort of naked market self regulatory mechanism with people's competition over space. I don't recall reading any guarantee wording, but my memory isn't the greatest when I'm reading things that offer no details to support claims. This sort of approach, the salesman approach, my brains sort of filters out I suppose until quality information can be acquired. Knowing how cognitive dissonance works I am not condemning it (the approach).

I don't know how common this is, but recently Uber did a region wide surge "bonus earnings" in our area. The words were that in Seattle all work would be a minimum 1.2x surge for all work (Uber pool etc). This was put put on the driver's side as the pax had no clue. Any piece of work that was above 1.2x due to the algorithmic model would still apply.

Now you might be thinking holy cow all the PAX are going to have a fit! However you'd be flatly wrong. The way it worked is that Uber is taking 20% or 25% from the drivers here, depending on how long ago they signed up. The "Earnings promotion" applied region wide (All of King county according to the app displayed borders). However the PAX were not charged. any surge unless the normal algorithm function applied. Yes, that's right, Uber ate it's commission fees for 3 hours during the commute. So unless there was a real surge pricing in effect, Uber made about 4%.

So how does this apply to time calls? Unfortunately we'll have to wait and see and take notes and share here perhaps. The point being that whatever our individual choices are for our various reasons we're in a marketplace along side Uber and the people watching the numbers have an incentive to have us succeed, and have been known to make measured sacrifices to help the system work.

I personally hate time calls, they exacerbate the anxiety one might have if one is jonesing for money, and this will nearly always be the case, especially in this "business." No really I HATE them because the only people who demonstrate any respect for your time are those few enlightened people that exist out there you are lucky to get as pax. Most of the time you're facing insult on top of injury with pax, and few (even drivers) see it for what it really is: a system.

However I am happy to take a wait and see approach for Uber because their track record here holds credence in my critical mind as an effort for the better. On a side note, as a professional, however I am feeling about the situation, I NEVER take it out on the pax. Good or bad, it was my decision to take the work based on the agreed upon fare system for an organization that has implored people not to tip. That's all me.


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## phillipzx3 (May 26, 2015)

So Uber is making their "rideshare" scam appear more like a taxi service every day. Pretty soon they'll no longer be able to lie about what they really are.


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## mattadams (Apr 19, 2016)

I work out of a fairly small town with only a few uber drivers. Often when people would want an uber, there are none available. I myself would use uber as a PASSENGER to the airport much more frequently if I knew for sure there would be an uber available to get me there. As a DRIVER, if someone tried to schedule something with me a day or two in advance, I'd be up at 4am if that's what it took to make sure they got a ride to the airport (form my house, my share of an uber ride to the airport is usually about $45-50, assuming no surge, so it's worth my time).
I just don't see how this is of much benefit as it's currently being proposed.


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## Forest Bickle (May 3, 2016)

phillipzx3 said:


> So Uber is making their "rideshare" scam appear more like a taxi service every day. Pretty soon they'll no longer be able to lie about what they really are.


FACT: *Uber is the only organization NOT lying about what they are*.



mattadams said:


> I work out of a fairly small town with only a few uber drivers. Often when people would want an uber, there are none available. I myself would use uber as a PASSENGER to the airport much more frequently if I knew for sure there would be an uber available to get me there. As a DRIVER, if someone tried to schedule something with me a day or two in advance, I'd be up at 4am if that's what it took to make sure they got a ride to the airport (form my house, my share of an uber ride to the airport is usually about $45-50, assuming no surge, so it's worth my time).
> I just don't see how this is of much benefit as it's currently being proposed.


That's because you live in a far out sparsely populated area. I'm willing to bet your area doesn't even have a taxis service available except from maybe a county scale distance away. If you're far enough out that nearest taxi service might not even operate 24 hours.

The model that isn't appropriate is any sort of metered service, and this is why, regardless of operational capabilities small far out communities, let's say, don't enjoy the same benefits everyone does in more densely populated areas: because a fare system is based off of the reduced opportunity cost and economy of space afforded to all parties. This is how the taxi meter evolved, in the first place.

If you knew people in the area you don't need any app to contract. The Uber fare is, technically but broadly speaking, a"community sourcing" rate. Using it would provide you commercial insurance for the trip, versus none if you were to contract outside of it. Thing is if anything were to go horribly wrong the two parties are you and whoever you contracted with in any event a tragedy or dispute occurs.

If the community is small enough you can network with each other to get the pings. Technically you'd be conspiring to get proper insurance... go figure.


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## SurgeMachine (Mar 15, 2016)

HoldenDriver said:


> Again - as I have said in three replies now - if you already had to make that trip for personal reasons... and wanted to recover the costs of a trip you had to take anyways. This is not a commercial use case.
> 
> I realize true ridesharing is a tough concept for some to grasp, with where Uber stands today.


Uber isn't a rideshare service at all...


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

SurgeMachine said:


> Uber isn't a rideshare service at all...


That is a post with an opinion.


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

Reversoul said:


> I don't understand how a driver is guaranteed. If it's 4am and there are no drivers, the pax won't get a ride even if they scheduled it a month in advance.
> 
> Can someone explain. I tried to do some research, but found nothing.
> 
> Hopefully this is something we have to opt into.


Drivers are not guaranteed with scheduled pings. The ping will go out, but if no driver accepts - it will just cancel out.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

Beur said:


> "Surge pricing may apply." I see a lot of unhappy passengers if it's surging and a non-surge scheduled ride comes in, oops cancelled for a higher paying gig as is my right to do as an independent contractor.





elelegido said:


> No, I meant the numbers not adding up between driver and rider. I too would be happy to take pax at 50 cents per mile on my San Francisco to San Diego runs - 500 miles would be $250. But no pax is going to pay that when they can fly there for less and get there in a couple of hours.
> 
> From my point of view, I wouldn't take a pax on that trip for less than $100. Putting up with who knows what/whom just isn't worth it. From the pax' point of view, they have little reason to pay me $100 when the bus gets them there for $50 or they can pay another $50 or so and go by plane.
> 
> Long distance ride sharing involves essentially selling tickets for rides in very low efficiency vehicles (cars) in the midst of competition from high efficiency vehicles (bus, train, plane). Trips in low efficiency vehicles (taxi, Uberlyft) work over shorter distances because, even though the trip may cost, say, 5 times what the trip in a high efficiency bus would cost, the overall cost is still low. a $20 cab or Uber ride vs a $4 bus ride is palatable. A $250 car ride against a $50 bus ride, not so much.


$250 but you'd spend $100 in gas round trip, and all that time driving! You'd be a fool to take that trip unless you were going to SF anyway. Driver like you are why we can't have nice things.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

HoldenDriver said:


> Drivers are not guaranteed with scheduled pings. The ping will go out, but if no driver accepts - it will just cancel out.


Then it isn't a scheduled ride. It just auto requests an uber for you at a set time. glorified timer really. Dumb. I feel sorry for the customer service reps and the massive amount of complaints they get when pax's "scheduled" uber never arrives or is surged 3x.

these gimmicks just get more ridiculous everyday


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

DriverX said:


> $250 but you'd spend $100 in gas round trip, and all that time driving! You'd be a fool to take that trip unless you were going to SF anyway. Driver like you are why we can't have nice things.


I don't normally insult posters on here; not my style, but holy crap; read the thread you idiot. We were discussing long distance carpooling in which the trip is being undertaken anyway by the driver and the driver is just looking to cover some costs. Nothing to do with commercial ridesharing for profit. Damn...


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

elelegido said:


> I don't normally insult posters on here; not my style, but holy crap; read the thread you idiot. We were discussing long distance carpooling in which the trip is being undertaken anyway by the driver and the driver is just looking to cover some costs. Nothing to do with commercial ridesharing for profit. Damn...


THen take it to the:

I like to drive assholes around for free forum.

Thanks!


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

DriverX said:


> THen take it to the:
> 
> I like to drive assholes around for free forum.
> 
> Thanks!


He did. Uber as a career is dead. The expansion of Destinations mode is the latest nail.


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## stuber (Jun 30, 2014)

Once again, Uber is attempting to confuse terms and hope nobody notices. Uber's "Ridesharing" is not what they're running. They're running unregulated taxis dispatched with a smartphone. Uber's new "Scheduled" Trips are actually just demand trips launched from a timer. These are not prearranged trips using a dedicated driver. In terms of reliability and privacy, it's an important distinction.

I'm not surprised that there is widespread skepticism here about this. Cabbies and Uber drivers won't get too excited about scheduled trips for the most part. Scheduled trips will burn time and miles that are not adequately compensated by the low rates. Fail.

Trying to be everything to everybody is usually a bad idea.


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## CatchyMusicLover (Sep 18, 2015)

No sure if anyone mentioned this, but Lyft announced this not too long ago, saying that scheduled trips would give more to the driver.
Of course Uber would never do that...


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## HoldenDriver (Jan 18, 2016)

CatchyMusicLover said:


> No sure if anyone mentioned this, but Lyft announced this not too long ago, saying that scheduled trips would give more to the driver.
> Of course Uber would never do that...


It's pretty clear to me that Uber didn't want this feature in the first place. They just had to answer Lyft.

So Uber matched it in terms of pax functionality, but without the pay increase that Lyft offered to assuage drivers.


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## JimS (Aug 18, 2015)

Lyft incentivized drivers?


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## yojimboguy (Mar 2, 2016)

Uber is now offering this in Madison, or so a pax told me. She had scheduled her ride an hour in advance. 

Uber made no announcement in advance this was going to happen here. There was no notice or alert that this was different than any other call. And it didn't pay any differently.


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

I think they're everywhere now. I see it on my passenger app. Customers in the middle of nowhere have told me they're using this but not getting picked up. They're furious. My good friend missed her flight trying in Pittsburgh. She didn't realize that a driver would still have to drive the 45 minutes out to her place


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## stuber (Jun 30, 2014)

HoldenDriver said:


> Add up to be profitable? No, Amtrak and other options can defeat that even in rural areas.
> 
> But the goal shouldn't be to add up to that. I'd happily take pax at $.50 per mile on long distance drives, and they would be too. For me the cost of the ride is covered, and for them it's a cheaper, more direct form of transit. Lyft/Uber then takes 10 to 20% of a fare that didn't previously exist.
> 
> Everyone takes/pays less, and everyone gains more surplus. As an economics geek, this is borderline porn for me.


Why discount for long trips made by appointment? If anything, these have higher value.


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## CatchyMusicLover (Sep 18, 2015)

ginseng41 said:


> I think they're everywhere now. I see it on my passenger app. Customers in the middle of nowhere have told me they're using this but not getting picked up. They're furious. My good friend missed her flight trying in Pittsburgh. She didn't realize that a driver would still have to drive the 45 minutes out to her place


And what would she have done if she used Uber 'normally'? Still would have missed the flight.


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

Seen no cars available or that nobody accepted and called a cab. This schedule a ride thing implies that they'll definitely have someone coming


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## stuber (Jun 30, 2014)

CatchyMusicLover said:


> And what would she have done if she used Uber 'normally'? Still would have missed the flight.


Exactly...screwed either way. There's no substitute for prearranged car service. However, most people don't want to pay for that. This is just another one of Uber's scams and deceptions.


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## ginseng41 (Nov 30, 2014)

Exactly but uber implies that that is what is being requested with the scheduled ride deal


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