Hacker News Reader

Comment by seattle_spring | Hacker News Reader

Uber Pool costs money, and is therefore reserved for people who have money to burn. Via Transit (the service referred to in OP) is $2.75, but counts as a transfer against the train, so it's effectively free if you were already planning on taking the train. Its goal is also to get people to use mass transit, which is can be a ton faster than driving/Uber Pool in Seattle too. I've used Via a lot and it turns a 22 minute walk to the train station into a 3 minute walk and 3 minute drive. Light rail from that point takes 18 minutes to go downtown, versus what would have been a 25-45 minute drive in Uber Pool. All for $2.75, versus $9-$15 on Uber Pool, or $20+ in UberX.

View on HN

Except, since the article states that the average per ride cost on Via is $10, that total cost including the subsidy is more like $12.75, more if you include the rail subsidies. For commuters using the service every work day, that’s >$2000 in subsidies per person. That’s a pretty massive subsidy.

A quick search on “uber lose money per ride” suggests that they lose an average of $.58 per ride, and I doubt that figure includes amortizing the cost the driver spends on maintaining their vehicle.

If it costs them 10 to administer and they’re paid 2.75, don’t you subtract what they’re paid from their cost?

Right, I skipped some thoughts there- it’s $12.75 total cost if they a getting a $10 subsidy + the fare, which means other ridesharing services would be competitive (which shouldn’t be a surprise).

I skipped stating my subsidy calculation though- 5 workdays at 40 work weeks at $10/trip is $2000 (I’m factoring in lots of days off and assumptions about not always taking rail to work). Also assuming “rides” translates to “individual rider,” which may not always be true, does seem to translate to individual orca taps.

And now I realize I made a huge error there. I only factored in a one way trip. The subsidy is something like $4000/commuter for round trips (or $3000 if you assume that the fare drop is recovered by the program.)

Your calculations disregard the fact that rides can be shared. These are vans, likely with room for 4-passengers. So, the average ride will have 2-passengers.

Secondly, I laud Seattle for finding ways to reduce congestion. It can take 45-minutes to go 4-miles by car from Beacon Hill to downtown. Particularly, they are trying to find a solution that is affordable to a large swath of the population, not just the tech-rich.

Finally, all public transit systems are designed to be subsidized, one way or another. To wit, every rider who pays $2.75 on a bus is getting a subsidy of $2.17 (each rider costs $4.92). At what point is the subsidy “too much”?

The definition of “ride” is ambiguous, but I’m relatively confident that the majority of hails are going to be single rider, and the subsidy is averaging at least $7/ride before they get to the transit station.

The article also has plenty of transit advocates stating the obvious- this cost more than even low ridership bus routes, so isn’t a long term solution, and strong fixed route transit solutions are needed.

The subsidy here is large enough that if the investment is worthwhile, then it would also be worth investigating what would happen if we gave small, low cost electric vehicles (bicycles, scooters, or covered variants thereof) to households in the service areas.

They're just applying the VC model to mass transit.

It turns a 22 minute walk into a 3 minute walk, an N minute wait, and a 3 minute drive, does it not?

Yes, though N happens before the walk and not after. It's like Lyft Line Saver, where it tells you how much time is left, where you need to walk, and where the driver is enroute.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com