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Tag Archives: ride-hailing
On micro transit and transportation gaps
I’ve written and shared articles before on how Paratransit, bicycles and micro transit helps alleviate the transport demand problems we are experiencing especially in highly urbanized cities. I think we should have as many options as possible for transport while also working towards the reduction of dependence on cars. Here’s an article that relates about experiences in the US:
Zukowski, D. (September 13, 2022) “Cities turn to microtransit to fill gaps in public transportation,” Smart Cities Dive, https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/microtransit-public-transportation-gaps-jersey-city-via/631592/ [Last accessed: 9/15/2022]
To quote from the article:
“Microtransit options are also helping to reduce the reliance on personal cars. “We’ve received feedback from people who say that because of Via they are now more consistently leaving their personal vehicle at home and using Via instead to travel within the city, which is exactly the kind of thing we want to see happen,” said Jersey City’s Patel.”
This final statement or paragraph in the article sums it up very well. Of course, we have to note that the experience in Asia is quite different especially in Southeast Asia where motorcycles are very popular and still on the rise in terms of their mode shares. While these may be considered micromobilities in western countries, they are definitely motorized private vehicles that, depending on how they are used and how the rider behaves, may be beneficial but at the same time also very dangerous for people.
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On the future of Uber and other ridesharing/ridehailing companies
A few years ago, Uber was the darling of transportation. It and others like it were considered disruptors. They were but then eventually unraveled as their business model and practices were challenged and exposed. Here’s an article that does not mince words in describing what and how Uber is:
Doctorow, C. (August 11, 2021) “End of the line for Uber,” Medium, https://marker.medium.com/end-of-the-line-for-uber-901e3077bbbc [Last accessed: 8/21/2021]
There’s a wealth of references (links provided) in the article provided to support the arguments of the author. It is not anecdotal but an accumulation of facts from various experiences as well as a documentation of the company’s efforts to hide its flaws.
I co-authored several papers analyzing what was seen as a phenomenon. It was clear that people preferred Uber or Grab over regular taxis because of the higher quality of service they got. Similar results were obtained elsewhere and spelled the doom of many taxi drivers. Those that survived were the better serving ones like taxis in Japan and Singapore. However, the more recent of those papers have shown that what are called TNVS or transport network vehicle service have basically been deceiving and took advantage of their drivers (whom they do not want to refer to as employees). Did they help reduce congestion? They did not, and even added more cars to traffic.
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Afterthoughts on ridesharing
Ridesharing/ride-hailing companies like to claim that they are helping solve transport problems. However, their disruptions seem too good to be true in a growing number of cases including those in London and California where studies have shown anomalous practices of companies particularly Uber. Grab is now the dominant company in the Philippines after Uber sold its business to Grab. Other upstarts have had little impact on Grab’s market share. The only ones perhaps that have had some success taking business from Grab are the motorcycle taxi app companies like Angkas and Joyride. Motorcycle taxis are actually quite popular though they have been informal (and illegal). Habal-habal operations though have been tolerated in many cities and towns with authorities usually turning a blind eye to their operations.
They have thrived in large cities and have practically displaced taxi companies in these cities. I would not go deep into the social impacts but there are already a lot of negatives including the growing evidence that they are taking people away from public transport in general. Their operations seem promising at the start as the original concept was to use underutilized vehicles that otherwise would have been parked for most of the day, and offering work and income opportunities to people who had the free time (e.g., home-based people who may have a few hours to spare to drive/transport other people to their destinations). The latter were assumed to be part-timers with their vehicles available for providing transport services on demand. The vehicle used might be a spare one. And I use the word ‘spare’ here as it is assumed there might be another ‘main’ vehicle that is used by another person in the family who is a full-time job who drives to work. I don’t buy that romanticized claim that one main objective of these rideshare companies is to break the monopoly of taxi companies. They ended up being the taxis with all those cars now roaming city streets for passengers (and fares).
I mention here a very recent article citing an MIT study:
Green Car Congress (February 2021) “MIT study finds Uber & Lyft increase congestion, decrease transit ridership and don’t affect vehicle ownership,” Green Car Congress, https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/02/20210204-tncs.html [Last accessed: 2/5/2021]
There is also a published paper in 2019 that is from the perspective of TNVS drivers in Metro Manila:
Mirandilla, C.S. and Regidor, J.R.F. (2019) “Assessment of Transportation Network Vehicle Services from the Drivers’ Perspective,” Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Volume 13, Pages 2369-2389, https://doi.org/10.11175/easts.13.2369
In the paper, their findings include the following:
“It was found that TNVS have greater impact in traffic flow compared to other modes of transportation while delivering inferior productivity. The study also found that full-time driver-operators have very high risks of financial losses, and they have lower than minimum wage income when depreciation costs and maintenance costs are considered.”
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Unraveling ridesharing/ridesourcing
I have been writing about ridesharing/ridesourcing/ridehailing for some time now. I have also researched on its characteristics particularly in my country where it was initially hailed (no pun intended) as a solution to transport woes in highly urbanized areas. We’ve done our research with or without the cooperation of these companies. It does not surprise me that their operations have unraveled and many are exposed to be abusive. So much for being the ‘disruptive’ initiative that was praised by many before…
Emerson, S. (2019) “Uber Drivers Protest ‘Corporate Greed’ as Billionaires Cash In”, https://onezero.medium.com/uber-drivers-protest-corporate-greed-as-billionaires-cash-in-df65a7e470a7 [Last accessed: 11/18/2019]
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How many TNVS vehicles are enough?
There’s this old article I chanced upon on social media:
Badger, E. (2018) “What’s the right number of taxis (or Uber or Lyft cars) in a city?”, The Upshot, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/upshot/uber-lyft-taxi-ideal-number-per-city.html [Last access: 3/26/2019]
This article is still very much relevant since the government is still apparently unable to determine the number of TNVS vehicles needed to serve the demand in cities. The latter refers to those cities that TNCs have identified for operations and where they are already operating. Obviously, the question applies to taxis as well. But then taxis and TNVS have practically the same operational characteristics. I am not referring to business models but to the way these modes operate as parts of a cities transport system. What is really the demand for driven for-hire vehicles? Will this demand be significantly reduced once mass transit lines like MRT-7 and the MM subway are operational?
This also extends to motorcycle taxis as well. While there is already a proliferation of informal motorcycles taxis around the country including major cities and the capital, the formal services represented by Angkas shows just how many riders want in on this service. And it’s basically attractive due to the potential income they can derive from this. And so this begs the question: How many habal-habal units are enough?
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More concerns about ride-hailing/ride-sharing
Here are two interesting (to me at least) articles about the negative aspects of ride hailing or ride sharing. The first is quite a curious one for me as I teach at UP Diliman, which has a sprawling campus in Quezon City. Students can have one class at a building on one end of the campus and have the next class at another end of the campus. I now wonder if there’s a significant number of Grab or Angkas trips within campus.
Kidambi, M. (2019) “Popularity of brief Uber, Lyft rides on campus raises environmental concerns,” Daily Bruin, http://dailybruin.com/2019/01/29/popularity-of-brief-uber-lyft-rides-on-campus-raises-environmental-concerns/ [Last accessed: 2/8/2019]
The second article relates on the a more general context of what’s bad about ride hailing/ride sharing. The author presents not just a list but evidence of each item mentioned.
Schmitt, A. (2019) “All the Bad Things About Uber and Lyft In One Simple List,” Streetsblog USA, https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/02/04/all-the-bad-things-about-uber-and-lyft-in-one-simple-list/ [Last accessed: 2/8/2019]
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles here, there are still a lot we need to learn about ridehailing in this country and especially in our cities. I guess Angkas’ case can be different because motorcycle taxis were already operating in many areas even before the app-based service. But of course, we also need to understand about his enhanced ‘habal-habal’.
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On the continuing evolution of Uber and Lyft, and some thoughts on TNCs in the Philippines
Here’s a nice read about ridesharing/ridehailing/ridesourcing in the US:
Madrigal, A.C. (2018) “Will Uber and Lyft Become Different Things?”, medium.com, https://medium.com/the-atlantic/will-uber-and-lyft-become-different-things-2d0442472a15 [Last accessed: 6/13/2018].
It seems that companies like Uber and Lyft are evolving and that should benefit commuters. Meanwhile, the latest news on TNCs in the Philippines is on the issuance of a Department Order by the Department of Transportation (DOTr). The new Department Order (DO) effectively amends and supersedes an earlier DO issued in 2015 (DO No. 2015-011), wherein TNCs were allowed to set their own fares, subject only to oversight by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB). This means more regulations for TNCs that might actually harm the new players more than the remaining big player – Grab.
Uber recently sold its Philippine operations to Grab in exchange for shares of Grab. One colleague quipped “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!” And that seems to be the case here where Uber’s vulnerability was exposed when faced with a strong competitor together with a government bent on having a firm regulatory control of TNC operations. While I am for regulations in order to protect both the interests of commuters as well as the drivers-operators of TNCs, I believe too much regulations will weaken this mode while taxi services remain wanting (to use a kinder term). The DOTr and the LTFRB is again not addressing the root cause of a problem on taxi-type services and allowing generally poor services among taxi companies in Metro Manila to continue.
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On the other uses of ridesharing/ ridehailing services
We start 2018 with another article that I found this interesting. The article is on the other uses of ridesharing, particularly for medical emergencies:
Seipel, T. (2017) “Uber reduces ambulance usage across the country, study says”. mercurynews.com. https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/13/uber-reduces-ambulance-useage-in-major-u-s-cities-study-says/ (Last accessed: 12/22/2017).
This article was particularly interesting to me because we are currently doing research on ridesharing. This should be a good topic for students who are looking for something current and relevant, and should fit well in the bigger scheme of things in as far as our research agenda is concerned. There is a link to the study report in the article for those wanting to get the details on the outcomes.
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Origins of ridesharing/ride-hailing?
Here is a very interesting article on the beginning of Uber:
Campbell, G. (2017) “The Beginning of Uber,” Medium, August 23, 2017, https://medium.com/@gc/the-beginning-of-uber-7fb17e544851 (Last accessed 11/10/2017).
The article contains the company’s first pitch and should be of interest to researchers (that includes my students) who may want to know about and from the Uber’s origins. It might be useful to taxi operators and drivers as well since the slides show their characterization and what (good) features distinguished Uber from the conventional taxis at the time.
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New study on ride-hailing
Here’s a nice article that has a link to a study conducted at the University of California-Davis written by one of the authors of the study:
Clewlow, R.R. (2017) “New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior” in Planetizen, October 11, 2017.
And here’s an article about that same study:
Bliss, L. (2017) “The Ride-Hailing Effect: More Cars, More Trips, More Miles ” in Citylab, October 12, 2017.
As usual, I am posting this for reference not just for my readers but for myself and my students who are currently doing research on ridesharing/ride-hailing in the Philippines.
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Caught (up) in traffic 