
Ride Sharing by the Numbers - ignatiusjr
http://blog.whatsthefare.com/2014/10/it-pays-to-compare.html
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kyro
Sort of off topic, but I have to say that WhatsTheFare is the only web app
I've got saved to my home screen. A very, very simple but valuable tool. It's
now a permanent part of my "workflow". It's like inter-app information
arbitrage.

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derwiki
Where do you live? I just tried two routes in SF and it says "We don't have
any fare data for your area just yet, check back soon!"

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kyro
NYC

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minimaxir
The date range is 9/22 to 10/8\. That's two weeks, which means it's only 2
data points for each given day-of-week + time combo, so analysis might not be
accurate for DOY charts.

Otherwise, since the sample size is large (2000+ pts in the worst case), this
is a good analysis.

How are you making the charts? It's not any JS library I've seen, and looking
at the source, the code appears to be custom.

~~~
ignatiusjr
Most of the date ranges are Sep 16 - Oct 8, which should give 3 weeks of data
including for the Day of Week charts, but for analyses involving ETA the range
starts on Sep 22 because it wasn't tracked until a bit later. But we wanted to
be explicit about exactly which dates we're using for each chart.

We plan to keep tracking these trends as data rolls in and keep the community
updated.

And that's right, we're just using the Google Visualization API:
[https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery](https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery)

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aetherson
These are great data, but I'm concerned that the methodology is fatally
flawed. Do we have any real reason to believe that whatsthefare requests track
closely to actual ride requests?

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lifeisstillgood
I don't want to start a flame war but why are we using the phrase "ride-
sharing"? If I share a ride with a collegue to work I will pay for petrol
used. Any more, my Collegue is a taxi.

Peter Thiel made a similar point saying Google always claims to be in fierce
competition with other "high technology companies" as opposed to being a
monopoly search provider.

Language has great power ...

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ignatiusjr
It's interesting that you brought this up, when we sat down to write this, we
didn't feel there was actually good terminology yet to refer to this space. We
chose 'ride-sharing' as the least-bad way to refer to the industry after
informally surveying what journalists had been using so far, for consistency.
At least for Lyft, Sidecar, and UberX, the 'sharing' part makes some sense to
me because you're sharing another person's vehicle that they possibly already
owned, while for Uber Black and Lyft Plus, these are professional services so
the term is less appropriate. I would definitely welcome a new term to
describe the rides space.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Whilst "unlicensed taxi" is probably too perjorative (although more accurate I
feel) I would go with something like "Alternative Taxi"?

I suspect that it won't be many years before it's just plain "taxi" again. If
Uber and other alternatives are proving the current companies are over
charging they will just succeed in becoming licensed in a world of lower
charges.

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jtokoph
I wonder just how how much demand is connected to surge pricing during commute
hours. Sure, it would make sense that there is more demand for rides during
commute hours, but is the surge pricing _only_ a function of supply/demand or
is there more to it?

I would hypothesize that morning commuters taking Lyft or Uber would be
willing to pay higher rates even if supply was sufficient. If I ran one of
these companies I might try increasing fares even if there were tons of empty
cars on the roads. Commuters need to get to work ASAP and will pay premiums to
do it.

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joshfraser
Fascinating data. I love that they did the "cost of loyalty" analysis. I know
several people who only use Uber and don't even have alternative apps on their
phones. I'll have to send them this article.

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erichurkman
That's a great idea – and a great way to distribute referral codes. Hello,
free rides!

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foobarqux
Why didn't they produce a time plot of when ride sharing is cheaper than taxis
and each other and what percentage of rides are cheaper than taxis? Those seem
much more useful than any of the other graphs.

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ignatiusjr
We included something similar to this in the city-specific posts, see for
example "Average Cost Above Cheapest Fare by Hour of Day - Weekdays" in
[http://blog.whatsthefare.com/2014/10/ride-sharing-in-
sf.html](http://blog.whatsthefare.com/2014/10/ride-sharing-in-sf.html)

~~~
foobarqux
Great, thanks. When you say "percent of rides" does that mean actual rides
requested by real users?

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ignatiusjr
Technically it means, percent of fare estimate requests by users to
whatsthefare.com, with the presumption that those users are indeed looking to
take the ride that they searched for.

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foobarqux
This sounds easy to game: If I work for X I send many requests when the fares
are in my favor.

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slykat
FYI the x axis labels for the chart "Percent of Rides With Dynamic Pricing -
Weekdays" is incorrect. You've accidentally labeled all the AM hours as PM.

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ignatiusjr
Very much appreciate the catch, this is now fixed.

