
Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi - coda322
http://www.whatsthefare.com/
======
neilsharma
I love products like these. Slices right through all the promotional noise
like "fun drivers," "fast pick-up times," "clean cars," etc and gets right to
chase -- price.

At the end of the day, they are all taxi services in my book. Whichever gets
me from point A to point B the cheapest wins my dollars. Fast pick-up times, a
sexy functional app, and other common sense differentiators are expectations
now, not selling points.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> At the end of the day, they are all taxi services in my book.

Unless you live in New York, and are trying to get from Manhattan to one of
the outer boroughs, in which case getting a yellow cab is a total crapshoot.

~~~
pkfrank
It shouldn't matter one bit. They're legally obligated to take you anywhere in
the five boroughs.

Just get in before telling them your destination. If they give you flak (and
you feel like fighting them), just take note of their medallion # and state
clearly that you will report them if they fail to fulfill their obligation.

~~~
Cbeck527
Or, you know, pay an extra $3 to Uber and avoid that situation all together.

It shouldn't matter, but it does.

~~~
sp332
There are even fewer regulations preventing Uber drivers from declining a fare
based on location - or race, or gender, or they don't like your sports team,
or anything.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Does that actually happen?

~~~
sp332
This article claims that Uber is actually better than cabs because the drivers
don't know your race when they agree to pick you up.
[http://www.racialicious.com/2012/11/28/cab-drivers-uber-
and-...](http://www.racialicious.com/2012/11/28/cab-drivers-uber-and-the-
costs-of-racism/)

------
TheMask01
Uber API TOS says:

"You may not use the Uber API in any manner that is competitive to Uber or the
Uber Services, including in connection with any application, website or other
product or service that also includes, features, endorses, or otherwise
supports in any way a third party that provides services competitive to Uber’s
products and services, as determined in our sole discretion."

[https://developer.uber.com/v1/terms/](https://developer.uber.com/v1/terms/)
under 2.A

~~~
weixiyen
Here's one angle. If this app becomes popular and Uber sends a C&D, then Uber
results will no longer show up in this app, meaning Lyft would get all the
bookings from people who use it.

------
pud
Nice.

Now just give me an iPhone app where I push a button and it sends me the
cheapest, closest car from any of those companies.

~~~
mfkp
One of my buddies tried this idea. It seems to have failed (their website is
now down). Archive: [http://appcrawlr.com/ios/red-ride-ride-sharing-car-
picku](http://appcrawlr.com/ios/red-ride-ride-sharing-car-picku)

~~~
heynk
They ended up getting a C&D from Uber.

------
fosk
This how you know when something becomes a commodity. Uber/Lyft/Taxi/Sidecar
they will just be competing on price in the long run, since they all compete
in a commoditized market, and the player with better ubiquity and
infrastructure will ultimately win, because they will be able to cut prices in
a way that smaller players won't be able to afford.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
This is a problem. If one of them gains a monopoly they will be able to lower
service quality, raise prices and still be able to kill/buy off any new small
competitor.

~~~
seanp2k2
...so, like taxi medallions?

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kapkapkap
Taxi rate in NYC seems too low. I tried a couple of trips that I have taken
dozens of times, and they have never, ever been as low as whats being
calculated. I like the idea though.

------
DigitalSea
This is brilliant and one of the many reasons I love this site. Simple
Bootstrap interface that cuts through the crap, the fancy user interfaces of
ride sharing and taxi apps and gives me the information that I really want:
the cost.

Now this has hit the homepage, it'll be interesting to see if Uber, Lyft and
other providers cut you off from their API's. Presumably, some of these
services don't want you to be able to compare estimated costs between
competing offerings, but it also means that everyone is being kept honest and
as a consumer, I think that is the most important thing of all.

------
chvid
Question to America. Why do you tip the taxi driver but not the uber/lyft
driver?

(SFO -> Pier 39 - Lyft is $31, Taxi is $49.96 + 15% standard tip = $57)

~~~
mentat
Uber fare is supposed to include tip.

~~~
aetherson
Which is kind of a funny way for Uber to say "we don't do tipping."

I mean, I guess you could say that my salary "includes a tip," and that it's
really 20% lower but then there's a 20% tip on top of that, but obviously I
wouldn't actually say that.

Uber says that their fare "includes a tip" because people are used to tipping
cabbies. But tips are only tips when they are optional amounts that customers
can vary the size of.

I don't think that rides-for-hire should really be a tipping industry anyhow.

~~~
ma2rten
I don't know where you are from, but North America tipping is not optional in
certain situations. A waitress in a restaurant does not get payed a salary,
but lives solely from tips. I don't know if the same is true for taxi drivers
(who are not the owner of the car).

~~~
aetherson
Yes, I've seen Reservoir Dogs too. Without engaging the extremely shopworn
discussion about how much tipping is appropriate, the fact remains that if you
choose, you can tip a waiter nothing. It may be a dick move, but you can do
it.

You can't "tip" an Uber driver nothing. It doesn't matter how bad your service
was. It doesn't matter how much you don't care about being labeled a dick. You
just can't do it.

Because the Uber thing is not, in fact, a tip.

~~~
diminoten
Correct, they're just removing the social requirement.

The goal here being "no cash exchanged".

------
eabraham
For NYC to New Jersey the fare estimate does not take into account bridge and
tunnel tolls. I was getting $19, $23 and $23 for Taxi, Uber and Lyft
respectively, which is very low for all of those services. A typical taxi will
cost $45-$55 from Manhattan to Jersey City or Hoboken.

------
nmjohn
Cool idea! FYI, when I clicked the 'locate' button and denied it access, the
spinner just kept going and I couldn't manually enter a location.

------
starik36
This is awesome. One suggestion is a permalink for a specific fare estimate
that I can forward someone.

------
flurp
Great app! Would be great to estimate "regular" price, right now it's surging
and I'd like to know what the price would be for e.g. tomorrow. Hopefully Uber
wont shut you off, seems like a breach of ToS to me (I'm not a legal expert).

~~~
netcan
It says +25%, so should be easy enough to guess.

------
diminoten
This is alarmingly inaccurate. Says it'd take $71 to take a taxi from
Alexandria, VA to NE Washington, D.C.

If you live in the area, you'd know that's a bold-faced lie. It'd probably
cost $25-$30 bucks, the same price being quoted for Lyft and Uber.

~~~
jeremymcanally
I don't know the addresses you're looking at, but it's about $20 from Mill Rd
in Alexandria to DCA (I've taken the route a ton of times), which is a _much_
shorter distance than to NE D.C. I don't know if $71 is entirely accurate, but
it's definitely more than you're quoting.

EDIT: Just quoted it. It's about $42 in light traffic, about $69 in heavy
traffic (from the hotel I stay in Alexandria to an address on Oglethorpe St in
NE D.C.). So they're providing the worst possible fare, whereas they should
probably provide the median.

~~~
diminoten
There is no universe in which $42-$69 is remotely possible, unless there's
something along the order of $20 surcharge for airport dropoff.

I do this bimonthly, and it's ~$25, with tip.

I hate to think of the nefarious reasons for overquoting taxis like this...

------
jacalata
I just looked up the ride I took this morning and it doesn't seem to include
any add-on charges, like the toll I was charged, the Uber Safety Fee or the
Seattle Accessible Driving Fund.

edit: oh yea, it says that in small print at the bottom of the page.

~~~
jobowoo
I'd imagine these would be added to all fares so as a price comparison tool
it'd still be valid.

------
dubcanada
I'm confused... if I type in San Fran to Los Ang I get $608 for Lyft and over
$1K for the other two.

Why is Lyft so low (like half if not more) competition makes sense, but ~400
mile trip should be more then $600.

~~~
motocycle
At this range, the estimate can be wildly inaccurate. For example, there may
be a maximum distance imposed, say 60 miles at about $120
[http://orangecountylyftcoupons.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/how-...](http://orangecountylyftcoupons.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/how-
far-can-you-go-in-a-lyft-whats-the-maximum-ride-distance/)

------
wdewind
Uber claims to be 20% cheaper than yellow cabs in NYC. What gives?

------
fernly
It would be nice for completeness, if either start or end is an airport (e.g.
"SFO", "LAX") to include an estimate of a shared-ride van such as
supershuttle.

------
swang
Which locations does this website have actual data for? Just tried two places
in San Francisco and it said it had no data.

Is this an actual site or just a one pager looking for interest?

~~~
cbhl
What two places did you try? It works for me.

~~~
swang
Tried going to a place on Market to a restaurant in Sunset, both had
addresses...

~~~
cbhl
I am trying "2020 Market Street, San Francisco, CA, United States" and "1330
9th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94122" and the site works for me.

I'm on Chrome 37.0.2062.94 on Ubuntu Linux 14.04 on a desktop.

------
ivraatiems
How long is this going to last before one of the services shuts it down,
claiming some kind of EULA noncompliance (or some other flimsy excuse to avoid
competition)?

------
ecesena
This reminds me Movigo [1]. Is there any relationship or known difference?

[1] [http://www.movigo.com](http://www.movigo.com)

------
cylinder
You'll want to adjust yellow taxi fares from Manhattan to JFK and reverse.
This is done on a flat fee.

------
edgyswingset
Looks like none of 'em hold a candle to Taxis in small-to-medium cities like
mine.

~~~
rictic
Huh, in SF starting from my place to all of the places I might go Lyft wins
consistently, and sometimes by as much as 1/2 of the taxi price.

~~~
flurp
Unfortunately (in my limited experience with Lyft) the quality of UberX
drivers are far better than Lyft drivers. Half the time in Lyft cars I've been
worried about crashing! I'd rather pay that extra dollar or two and have a
comfortable ride.

------
jesseclay
This is really cool. How do you guys get current surge/prime time rates?

~~~
bentcorner
Uber has an API, but I looked into Uber's TOU a week a two ago and they
explicitly disallowed this sort of thing (comparison shopping). Maybe it's
just an estimate?

~~~
mcpherrinm
This is probably just violating the TOU. As a consumer, I think lack of
comparison shopping is absolutely the worst thing about lyft/uber, and that
they should be required to publish pricing data in a manner accessible to this
sort of thing, just like taxis are required to use certified meters and post
rates on their doors.

------
md2be
Great app. Pull in wait time and you might have something.

