
Analysis of 100M Taxi Trips in Chicago Shows Usage Declining 35% per Year - lil_tee
http://toddwschneider.com/posts/chicago-taxi-data/
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11thEarlOfMar
Bad for taxi drivers, good for tourism.

I've done business in both Tokyo and Hong Kong. Historically, a taxi in Tokyo
has been ~3x that of the same distance in Hong Kong. When considering where to
Holiday, that significant additional expense is a consideration.

I'd also be interested, if there is enough sensitivity in the data, to see a
correlation between taxi cost and DUIs.

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neuronexmachina
What are some popular cities where Uber/Lyft is unavailable or regulated in a
way that makes it difficult to use? It would help me make sure I don't plan
any vacations there.

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kartan
> It would help me make sure I don't plan any vacations there.

Is this your number one priority to visit a city? Cultural offerings,
architecture, meeting new people, that are my priorities. Which brands of
private transportation by car are available or not is not a worry for myself.

As is difficult to picture it by myself, what makes it so important for you
that you have or not that brands over other considerations?

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ghaff
That comment floored me as well. I spent almost a third of last year traveling
for both business and pleasure, in both the US and overseas and maybe took an
Uber four or five times. I can't begin to imagine a mindset that would lead me
to plan trips around Uber availability.

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emidln
Chicago taxis are roughly double the cost of an Uber/Lyft w/o surge pricing IF
you're not crossing the city boundary. In my experience, the only time a taxi
end up cheaper is if you need a flat rate to the airport during a time when
waiting in traffic would get you destroyed by Uber.

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ktRolster
Isn't it easier to just take the L to the airport in Chicago?

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brianwawok
Depends on source. Can end up being a 30 min taxi or a 90 minute public
transit if you live somewhere not handy to the blue line (say, Rogers Park to
Ohare)

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jawilson2
Metra also goes to ORD. You need to take a shuttle from the lot, but at least
the train has racks for luggage.

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intopieces
Pardon my ignorance, but is there something in the cabbie's contract that
restricts her from also being a driver for Uber/Lyft? I assume so; in Japan,
this is not the case, because every time I hailed an Uber, at traditional cab
driver appeared.

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JoshTriplett
> in Japan, this is not the case, because every time I hailed an Uber, at
> traditional cab driver appeared.

Uber actually has partnerships with some local taxi companies to do exactly
that, in cities that treat it as less of a war between the two.

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dajohnson89
In DC, you can order a metered taxi via the Uber app.

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gregoryrueda
Same in Chicago. If the metered taxi takes an inefficient route, Uber legally
can not do a fare ajustment. It's nearly impossible to complain to the City of
Chicago if it happens, so you end up having to pay whatever the meter
displays.

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mrkurt
Chicago is the canonical example of a city with _awful_ taxi service getting
hammered by a better product.

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wyager
I travel all the time, and I have never, ever come across a taxi service in
any city that wasn't horrible. That's why it's so frustrating to me when
people get on the bandwagon to ban Uber or lyft and say "just take a taxi!";
only someone who hasn't been forced to take a lot of taxis would say something
like that.

~~~
Gustomaximus
London has an excellent service with black cabs. Completely professional
service in every way. The only group I feel sorry for with the ride-sharing
taking out their business.

FYI it takes about 3 years of learning 25,000 London streets to get a cab
licence. And they really know it. In 4 years of London I once had a cabbie ask
me where my zone 2 50m long alley was I lived on. I gave him the cross st and
he was straight there then.

If interested an article on it:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-
te...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/t-magazine/london-taxi-test-
knowledge.html?_r=0)

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maverick_iceman
What's the point of spending 3 years when you have GPS?

~~~
Gustomaximus
These days I feel it' more about the commitment and professionalism that goes
with the effort to pass this test. In that most other countries cabbies are a
lower skilled, often new immigrant job. This comes with certain problems from
taking you on the long route intentionally or not, to theft and rape (note: I
understand this is completely the minority bad apples). With black cabs you
had non of this concern. It was a great service that bucked the usual taxi
driver complaints you see everywhere else in the world.

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bpchaps
Funny, I just started doing similar work with the data a few days ago. It's
definitely an interesting dataset that's been fun to play with.

From the privacy side of things, and to prove a point, I've been working on
de-anonmyizing the data for the past few days by comparing the data against a
few other datasets from FOIA and data.cityofchicago.org. It's so far been
surprisingly easy to find the plate and driver info. The sort of myopic
privacy with these large datasets is pretty shocking. (I don't plan on making
the code/results public except to maybe Chicago's own data folk.)

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EternalData
So, given that the stated goals of ride-sharing startups are to automate their
workforce (with Uber basically saying "automation or bust"), I think there's a
need to build economic analysis of what this means.

In theory, you could correlate data between
[https://movement.uber.com/cities](https://movement.uber.com/cities) and this
analysis and start building a picture of what it means when a model with less
variable costs starts impacting the market.

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ScarZy
Is encouragement of cycling and/or use of public transport also a factor in
this?

~~~
pokemon-trainer
I wonder if greater availability of scheduling information and commuting apps
have contributed? Commuting apps make it easier than ever to use public
transportation.

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codeddesign
Purely from taking the data from this article, I see it next to impossible
that ride sharing has anything to do with this when you look at the comparison
with New York.

It seems to me that there was an upward spike in 2015 and now it's declines
back to pre-2013 levels.

But there are also unknown factors at play here... \- what has the economy
been like in the last 5 years for the suburbs? \- what are the tourism levels
over time \- the u.s has had a slight economic growth in the last 5 years;
what are the car sales in the same areas? Rising?

It seems more like Chicago had a number of downtown events or draw over the
course of 1 year, and has now declined. However, the article is basically
using the highest spike as the baseline.

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lacampbell
One thing I hate about Taxis is the meter. I want a flat price before they get
in, but in many countries they kick up a huge fuss or refuse to take you.

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yks
In many places they really want to give you a flat price which is about 2x of
what would come up with the meter

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lacampbell
Then I'll haggle. I just want to know upfront. I always feel like I'm being
screwed with the meter.

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slowm5
form my experience, taxis in Chicago are ~1.5x more expensive vs uber.

in nyc its the opposite, ubers are ~1.5x more expensive.

could partially explain the difference in decline.

