
An Uber Impact - mp3jeep01
http://blog.uber.com/uberimpact
======
HistoryInAction
Politically speaking, it is very, very smart that Uber is doing these sorts of
studies. As a policy wonk, I wish they were a bit more open about their
datasets, analyses, and methodology, but I can see how that would just hand
their opponents chances to twist it.

Re: jobs created, note that Uber (very specifically, is my guess) allows us to
assume FTE when they say "jobs," but is probably more likely referring to the
total number of driver profiles created and used at least once. A
Daily/Monthly Driver metric would be more meaningful here.

I'd also be interested to see the impact on parking (especially at peak times)
if people are using Uber over driving somewhere and leaving their car parked
(idle/slack resource) there.

PS - the lack of a footnote attached to (what seems to be a copy/paste) 1 in
the subheading is grating haha

~~~
exit
_> but I can see how that would just hand their opponents chances to twist
it._

if opponents can twist it why shouldn't i believe uber is twisting it to begin
with?

~~~
HistoryInAction
I find this GoT quote to be fitting here—

Eddard Stark: Lord Baelish, perhaps I was wrong to distrust you. Petyr
Baelish: Distrusting me was the wisest thing you've done since you climbed off
your horse.

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frenchman_in_ny
$90K in (gross) _revenue_ (in NYC), before taking into account operating costs
(fuel, lease expenses), depreciation, healthcare, self-employment taxes, etc.

It's off the cuff and I'm sure I'm missing a number of categories, while
realizing that you can deduct a certain number as business expenses, but I'm
fairly certain you're really (edit) not (/edit) seeing anything close to $90K
in the end.

~~~
neltnerb
I have no horse in this particular race, but taxi drivers also pay for fuel,
their own health care, and I think generally self-employment taxes as well. So
the actual difference is just the cost of operating the vehicle in wear and
tear and depreciation. The latter of which is mostly relevant only if they
purchase the car exclusively for this purpose.

So the $90k might be deceptive because it's not net, but it's a sensible way
to compare to what traditional taxi drivers make given uncontrollable
variability in car ownership expense.

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fishtoaster
20k jobs created? Is hired car use really going up that much? If I had to
guess, I'd say a handful of new jobs are created while the rest are just taken
from existing taxi companies.

Not that I think there's anything wrong with that. I just think the stat is
pretty misleading.

~~~
philwelch
I personally use Uber at least 20-50x as often as I would use taxis. That is,
for each Uber trip I take, I would take only 1/20 to 1/50 of the same trips
via taxi given the choice.

~~~
neltnerb
I think this accounts for the increased use. I would go out of my way to avoid
taking a Taxi because they're so inconvenient and opaque.

I still don't plan to start using Uber extensively because I'm used to walking
at this point, but the combination of transparent upfront pricing,
accountability, ease of use, speed of pickup, and seemingly typically lower
pricing is a compelling case versus zip car. Definitely an actual competitor
with walking and public transit, whereas I see Taxis as only really a
competitor with driving.

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xwowsersx
These stats are mindblowing. Uber is available to a little less than half of
all Americans and with an average pickup time of < 10 mins. I'm amazed they
were able to accomplish this in 4 years. Travis Kalanick is an insane
entrepreneur.

~~~
avelis
I would give it up to their data science and machine learning team. They
turned an idea into an executional reality and optimized it like no other.

I just heard Kevin Novak (@novakkm) speak @ Geekdom SF and he shared the
approach he took along their journey.

~~~
ehurrell
Is this talk available online anywhere? I'd love to hear it, or at least a
broad-strokes summary.

~~~
avelis
Here was the event page. [http://www.meetup.com/SF-Data-
Science/events/183290442/](http://www.meetup.com/SF-Data-
Science/events/183290442/)

No video up yet. I think it should be up soon. If I see it come up I will link
it as a new post.

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rusbus
Uber is pretty great, and I enjoy using it, but many of these statistics are
pretty weak and out of context. As others have mentioned, using "income" to
describe "revenue" is inaccurate. You can't compare making $90k driving an
Uber to $90k at a desk job with a completely different set of expenses.

While the statistics used to determine the DUI rate in SF and Taxi crime in
Chicago are beyond the levels of my knowledge and I can't verify their
correctness, the calculations certainly seem a bit suspect. For example, as a
pair city when doing a discontinuity test, they chose San Francisco, a city
which notably, has Uber. The post doesn't mention a confidence interval or P
value in a clear explicit way (outside of the table, with unexplained column
headers).[1]

In the infographic, they claim these statistics as facts without mention of
any underlying confidence intervals. I'm pro Uber, but this post seems to
contain a lot of fuzzy math. It'd be interesting if someone with a statistics
background could confirm or deny these suspicions...

[1]
[http://blog.uber.com/DUIratesdecline](http://blog.uber.com/DUIratesdecline)

~~~
shakethemonkey
For taxis, medallions are usually leased to drivers (few could afford one).
This takes much of their revenue -- perhaps half or more surrendered to a
medallion holding company just for the privilege of driving a taxi.

New York City presentation suggests a driver with $90k revenue has $41k
expenses. [1]

[1]
[http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/presentation.pdf](http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/presentation.pdf)

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andreasklinger
In this thread everyone discusses the actual numbers.

The numbers are not the interesting thing here - Uber seems to get battle-
ready for lobby-work.

These numbers - correct or not - will be the ammunition their PR and lobby
teams will use in the next months.

~~~
HistoryInAction
Absolutely correct, which is why it looks like an infographic, not a research
paper.

But those of us here can parse the language quite closely and get some actual
information out of it, as well as noting the use of shadows to hide and
reveal.

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devindotcom
I doubt the automotive pun was intended, but if it was, it's in poor taste,
and if it wasn't, it's a nasty oversight - considering the last time people
read a headline about an "Uber impact," it was because a little girl was
killed. It's extremely important to consider such things in this kind of
language.

~~~
andrewguenther
When I first read the headline I thought it was a press release about an
accident.

~~~
devindotcom
Me too. In fact, there was an accident last night in my neighborhood involving
a black car and a drunk driver and I thought it was about that, despite Uber
(kindly) chiming in on a local blog to say it wasn't one of their drivers.
Thought this was some kind of horrible reversal.

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general_failure
> For example, the median income on uberX is more than $90,000/year/driver in
> New York and more than $74,000/year/driver in San Francisco.

That is impressive. Even if you detect fuel and maintenance and health care,
it comes to around 50k a year or so. That's quite a bit given that I assume
drivers can choose to work flexible hours and possibly not as stressed out
(compared to software engineer with 70k salary).

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avelis
I really wish they could give more data on how they reached their median
income stats. I realize they have no incentive to release that. Curious how
Lyft and Sidecar measure up as well.

~~~
nomedeplume
I've conversed with numerous Sidecar drivers and they earn no more than
$30/hr-- and that's before deducting expenses (gas, wear & tear, etc.). And
most of them work part-time

Also, if an über driver makes $70k++ and a software engineer makes $100k++
base... that's kind of sad.

~~~
gms
The Uber driver pays for his car's maintenance and fuel.

~~~
tvladeck
And the financing costs for the car to begin with, and in addition doesn't
receive the health and fringe benefits of salaried employment.

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capkutay
What's really significant is that the tech industry is slowly creating new job
markets via 'app-driven services'. Doordash, grubhub, amazon, and google's
instant delivery services are other examples that can contribute to this new
trend.

The technology infrastructure for instant/convenient buying, selling, and
delivery of goods and services has been built out. Now it can truly scale by
staffing massive amounts of people to actually carry out the tasks surrounding
it.

~~~
tomp
What's also really significant is that the majority of these jobs are minimum-
wage, minimum-training, completely-replaceable jobs. What these people are
doing is essentially an interface between software and reality - they are
human robots.

~~~
zanny
Just a temporary hold over until we have proper automated delivery machinery.
And we did just get that self driving car article.

------
pbreit
Uber truly is quite a leap forward in transportation.

But I am currently perfectly fine with them running into all the regulatory
roadblocks. They have so far shown zero interest in working with the various
constituents to figure out what the right structure is for their services.
It's easy to say that taxis suck and regulation squashes innovation. But some
of this stuff exists for good reason and until Uber acknowledges that, I'm OK
with hurdles they are facing.

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mfkp
43% of Americans are now covered by Uber. Seems like they've hit most of the
densely populated areas. I'm sure it will take much longer than that to hit
the less populated areas, if ever. For most cities (read: not large and
dense), Uber will probably not work.

~~~
andrewguenther
Uber just came to my college town (San Luis Obispo) and their rates are
absurdly high compared to anything else. Even if Uber drivers were less than
10 minutes away, I would wait the extra 10 for a cab and save myself the ~$20.

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k-mcgrady
It's interesting to look at these figures while keeping in mind Google's self-
driving car project and their large investment in Uber. In 10 years Uber will
be able to replace all those jobs they've created with self-driving cars.

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vampirechicken
90k is not much in NYC when you take into account how much a driver will need
to spend to maintain a car that does livery all day long in NYC.

------
doxcf434
Does this mean more people are taking Taxis?

~~~
cwilson
My guess is yes. Uber makes it so easy to quickly and painlessly get a ride
that I find myself using the service much more often than I would a normal
Taxi in the past. From casual observation I find this to be true for the
majority of my friends and even family members as well.

Normal Taxi services are a pain in the ass to book, not connected to my credit
card (so you have to go through the whole guilt trip for not having cash,
takes longer, etc), and for whatever reason I always had bad experiences with
them at least half the time. None of these things are issues with Uber,
leading to much more usage on my part. It's just so damn easy, and even
satisfying, to tap a few times and have a car magically show up.

~~~
stef25
In most cities can't you just walk out on the street, stick out your arm and
have a taxi at least as quickly as it takes to book and wait for one through
the Uber app? I guess it's much more useful when the streets aren't filled
with cabs like in the suburbs or at night.

~~~
ehurrell
I'm in Ireland, and while I don't use Uber (too expensive) I keep telling this
story to explain why I use Hailo a lot: Around 3am one Saturday after a family
party my parents were worried about getting a taxi, because they had heard
lots of horror stories of driver stealing things etc, but were prepared to
catch one from the taxi rank across the road. I pulled up Hailo, was able to
book (and know the driver's name a face), and have the taxi arrive before they
could cross the road (in a suburban town). And since I was paying for it by
card they just got in and went home and I didn't have to worry about a thing.
These things sold me completely on the system.

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asinno
i still dont get how it has 'created' jobs? i get how uber is
convenient/practical for a customer; how is it thaat beneficial for the taxi
driver?

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CmonDev
I guess this is actual disruption - lots of people are already complaining
about loosing jobs :).

~~~
stef25
The taxi drivers in Brussels, Berlin and Paris are complaining the most!

