Taxi company may be ending third shift

[peteyvavs]

Where is that at?

Everywhere

 

[TwoFiddyMile]

I drove my cab during the overnight shift for almost 18 months. Charlotte west side. Worst neighborhood in the city. I was desperate for revenue.
It messed with my sleep and my safety and peace of mind.
I'm back on late day shift for over a year now.
Get the occasional ashhole, but it's nothing like oh dark hundred.

 

[Stevie The magic Unicorn]

I'm back on the 21:00- 9:00 shift.

If the cars weren't a crap-load cheaper on overnight it wouldn't be worth it.

(A 9:00 PM car is $74 cheaper than a 24 hour rental and $54 cheaper than the day rate)

The same car for 9:00 am is $130 for 12 hours, $150 for 24, or $76 for 9:00 PM.

Over half of my money occurs between 4:00 Am and end of the shift. When school is back in i honestly think i'm going to switch to 22:00 to 10:00 shift.

3 decent (not amazing, just decent) airport runs Monday morning was almost half of what i brought in all day.

Usually...

Start- 2:00 am to 2:30 i'm running calls in the hood, then 4:00- 8:00 i'm doing airport runs/ medical and paratransit runs.

3:00- 4:00 AM is netflix/lunch with time calls hitting the computer starting from 3:40 on.

Still better than min uber trips and putting miles on my own car.

 

[Another Uber Driver]

If taxi companies didn’t keep raping passengers on fares.

Taxis were charging outrageous per mile rates

Cab companies were not and are not "raping" passengers on the fares. It costs money to be in this business. The rates are what they are for a reason. Why do you think that the drivers on this forum are complaining about the too low Uber/Lyft rates? Further, in most jurisdictions, the rates are set by regulation.

cabs stunk.

You drive a car all day every day. Get twenty people, with varying hygenic habits, some of whom smoke, some of whom have pungent carryout or other foul smelling items with them, some of whom have animals in and out of your car each day. Add to that the weather and other things that these people track into the vehicle with them. Consider the trash that people leave or hide in your vehicle. Repeat all of the above each day, all day, for several years and see how your vehicle smells after that. See how it smells despite your cleaning the vinyl seats and rubber floors regullarly, but you do not find that half eaten loaded burrito that someone stuffed between the back and bench of that back seat for several days afterward.

I have had more than one smelly UberX car in which I rode.

Uber lyft now charges the pax about the same as taxis.

This obtains in my market, as well. Too many of these TNC drivers equate what they receive with what the customer pays to the TNC. They caterwaul about how superior the TNCs are to the cabs because the cost is half of a cab. NOT CORRECT! The TNC driver receives half of what a cab driver would, but when you add what the TNC keeps, there is not that much difference. If there is even a mild surge, the kind where the customer pays a small multiplier but the TNC gives the driver nothing, the Uber/Lyft car costs more.

The only time that the TNC customer saves anything is on long trips.

What taxi companies brought upon themselves, was not upgrading their dispatch systems.

The digital/computer/satellite/GPS Call Assugnment Systems are more efficient in that they can "talk" to several drivers at once and assign numerous calls all at once. Electrons move at the speed of light. I was quite the motormouth as a dispatcher, but, even I could not talk that fast. The drawback is that the system can make no judgment about one job over another. You tried to assign each driver the best job available. You tried to look out for your regulars. You put priority on airport calls. You used to "spot" (give out some information about the job) calls that you needed covered. A computer can not do that.

In The Capital of Your Nation, dispatch policies favoured the drivers. When the companies went to the digital Call Assignment, it was difficult for the providers to program that into the system. There were some things that they simply could not put into it. Once the systems were in place, ownership no longer wanted to pay dispatchers who knew what they were doing. These days, you get a minimum wage telephone operator on the microphone who is no help. I do not even turn ON my radio, any more,

Obviously a person does not know s*** about the taxi industry if this is what they believe. There is a price point set for a reason. Insurance, maintenance, advertising,

(emphasis added)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

My cab has vinyl covered seats and rubber floors. Those cost money. The cab rates generate enough money to cover the cost of that. I have not put rubber floors or covered the seats in vinyl in my Uber/Lyft car. The reason for that is that I can not find a shop that will do the work for 1979 prices. Uber and Lyft pay 1979 cab rates. Why should I pay 2019 prices on that car if I can not collect 2019 rates?

I can use Uber to fill in where I am slow. When my wheels are turning I'm getting paid.

This is what I do. If the cab is going to be slow, I drive the Uber/Lyft car. Right now, Congress is out which means that it is slow for the cab. Until the freshmen start to report for orientation, I will drive the cab one day per week to cover expenses for it and earn a little extra. Other than that, it is Uber/Lyft. I do not want to sit fourteenth out on the Hyatt and wait for the Harrassmen-ER-uh-HACK Inspector to pull up and start writing summonses. Here, if the Hack Inspector approaches your cab, you HAVE a summons; usually three or four.

The other advantage that we have is that we actually know what we are doing out here. We know how to play the system to make it pay. There are more than a few posters here who think that all that there is to this business is: turn the key, take off the brake, put the car into gear, hug the Jippy Yess. They then complain that they are not making any money.

100% correct. When the price advantage disapppears (which it is slowly being whittled away) The customers are much more likely to take a smelly cab, especially when it's pouring down rain or there isn't a price advantage and the cabs are queued up.

The TNCs have to keep jacking up what they collect, because they are slowly realising that they ain't charging enough for their services. Of course, they will not allow the drivers to charge enough for the services that they render.


"Your lucky, if you hadn't been right at the lobby right when we needed a ride to the airport we would have called an uber"

"You mean at the hotel taxi stand at 5:00 AM? We kinda Queue up at these major hotels because there's always people who need rides to the airport, especially on big checkout days like today, there's over 1000 checkouts from the Hyatt today"

Mears taxi has had an app based dispatch operating YEARS before uber came to town, first it was Taxi-magic than an in house proprietary system.

The first computer Call Assignment System appeared in Toronto in the late 1970s. Computer-assisted became popular in this area in the early 1980s. The first voiceless system appeared here in one suburb in the mid-1980s. By the early 1990s, almost all suburban jurisdictions had the digital call assignment. The City did not have them, because no provider could adapt one to our Zone System. In the last year before the meters, one cab company did go to a digital call assignment system. The drivers hated it. The other three radio companies gained more than one driver each over this. Once the meters came in 2008, the other companies did go to call assignment.

The problem with cabs stems from the fact that the cab companies customer IS the driver, not the pax. Hence no efforts were really made across the industry to improve the experience for pax.

My company did address complaints against drivers, even if it arose from a street hail. We were, at one time, the premier radio company in the city, so we did have a reputation to protect. We did it more for the company than for the customer, though.

Everywhere

.............in the Capital of Your Nation, it is the exception rather than the rule...........................


There currently are three radio fleets in the Capital of Your Nation. One shuts down its service at eleven P.M. and resumes at six A.M. One outsources it overnight. There is only one that is twenty four hours and staffed locally.

 

[touberornottouber]

If taxi companies didn’t keep raping passengers on fares and lease cost for drivers Uber and lyft wouldn’t exist today. Taxi companies brought this upon themselves.

The funny thing is that in my area Uber's rates are within 10% of what taxis charge. Sure the $1.30 per mile + 15 cents (or so) a minute is in theory still below the $2.00/mile + 40 cents/minute (wait time only) the taxis charge here. However the taxis don't surge or charge customers in wealthy areas more while paying the driver less than 50% of the fare.

If the taxis here had the business Uber does and offered 24 hour leases for under $80 a day I would jump ship in a heart beat.

Post automatically merged: Aug 5, 2019

Cab companies were not and are not "raping" passengers on the fares. It costs money to be in this business. The rates are what they are for a reason. Why do you think that the drivers on this forum are complaining about the too low Uber/Lyft rates? Further, in most jurisdictions, the rates are set by regulation.

Agreed. We were $2.00 a mile here in Daytona, FL. I drove off and on from 2006 to 2016 and I remember a lot of drivers struggling (living in weekly hotels, being evicted, not being able to afford a personal vehicle, even homeless) and the companies weren't exactly raking in the cash either. We were mostly on the 50/50% system here. Leases were and are still unusual. I remember every company stretched maintenance as thin as possible because the profit margins were so low.

 

[Another Uber Driver]

Leases were and are still unusual. I remember every company stretched maintenance as thin as possible because the profit margins were so low.

Even though it is mostly leases in this area, you still get a vicious cycle. The owners claim that they can not afford to maintain the vehicles properly because their drivers do not pay them. The drivers claim that they can not pay the owners because the cars keep breaking down.

I am an owner-operator, so I do not get into that too much.

 

[FormerTaxiDriver♧]

Summer is just about over, and students will be shuffled again, for taxis to pick up the slack.

 

[wicked]

What I don't understand is why anyone thinks that private car transportation is for everyone. It isn't. The taxis were charging what the target demographic would pay.

Uber and Lyft are out of their collective minds. Can't wait to hear about all the money they burned through this quarter.

 

[TwoFiddyMile]

What I don't understand is why anyone thinks that private car transportation is for everyone. It isn't. The taxis were charging what the target demographic would pay.

Uber and Lyft are out of their collective minds. Can't wait to hear about all the money they burned through this quarter.

Should be reported on by the evening news.

 

[FormerTaxiDriver♧]

Should be reported on by the evening news.

It looks like Uber embarrassed itself again with over a $5 billion loss in the last three months. They are probably thinking of an exit plan now....

 

[touberornottouber]

It looks like Uber embarrassed itself again with over a $5 billion loss in the last three months. They are probably thinking of an exit plan now....

They will probably start taking 75% of the fare now instead of a mere 50%.

 

[Another Uber Driver]

They will probably start taking 75% of the fare now instead of a mere 50%.

.....................which will be the bottom line when they do what Gryft already has announced that it is doing: jacking up the fares but giving the driver nothing.

 

[Nats121]

.....................which will be the bottom line when they do what Gryft already has announced that it is doing: jacking up the fares but giving the driver nothing.

They did that last year in Florida, Louisiana, and possibly a couple of other states.

It's for that reason you can no longer use the pax "list price" chart in those states to calculate driver pay rates.

 

[TwoFiddyMile]

Pax don't care what we get paid. Lack of tips is proof of this.

 

[x100]

Bus drivers.

looool

 

[sellkatsell44]

What taxi companies brought upon themselves, was not upgrading their dispatch systems.

The most annoying thing besides calling and being on hold was the scratchy noise trying to convey where I was if the system didn’t pick it up (taxis here, when u dial from a landline, they have estimates of where your addy is).

Unless I’m in nyc or near a hotel, it’s also hard to flag one down. Though in Fillmore area, it was rather easy, I guess taxis realized there are plenty of pigeons there.

Also confusion when I do call a cab and I wait... then I see a cab roll through but it wasn’t the cab that picked up the call... oops.

But cab drivers are for the most part nice. I’ve had to call a few for clients too old and too stubborn to download an app..

Back before Uber and when I had to get myself to and from the hospital for my chemo treatments, I had a couple of shady drivers.

I don’t mind paying cab prices, I just hated their lack of technology and now that Uber is here even though they’ve picked up making their own app—I just can’t see myself using a cab except in nyc and to and from airports.

 

[Stevie The magic Unicorn]

The most annoying thing besides calling and being on hold was the scratchy noise trying to convey where I was if the system didn’t pick it up (taxis here, when u dial from a landline, they have estimates of where your addy is).

Unless I’m in nyc or near a hotel, it’s also hard to flag one down. Though in Fillmore area, it was rather easy, I guess taxis realized there are plenty of pigeons there.

Also confusion when I do call a cab and I wait... then I see a cab roll through but it wasn’t the cab that picked up the call... oops.

But cab drivers are for the most part nice. I’ve had to call a few for clients too old and too stubborn to download an app..

Back before Uber and when I had to get myself to and from the hospital for my chemo treatments, I had a couple of shady drivers.

I don’t mind paying cab prices, I just hated their lack of technology and now that Uber is here even though they’ve picked up making their own app—I just can’t see myself using a cab except in nyc and to and from airports.

Not every company is the techno local neophyte you think they were.

That’s the old app, not the greatest ratings but that’s 5 years of salted ratings just cause we used to charge over double what Uber did for so long.

And not the greatest app but it works.

 

[Another Uber Driver]

The most annoying thing besides calling and being on hold

The customers hated that for years. I can not state that I blame them. I tried to tell my Board of Directors in 1998 that our company needed a website with an order form for a cab. Even if the order form went straight to an e-Mail account and the operator transcribed the order onto a call slip, that was fine. My company got most of its business from the high-rent districts of the city, so this made even more sense. My Board would not listen. I have long since sold my interests in that company. It is now the only one in the Capital of Your Nation that does not have a website.

was the scratchy noise trying to convey where I was if the system didn’t pick it up (taxis here, when u dial from a landline, they have estimates of where your addy is)

I am missing something, here. In the Capital of Your Nation, if you call a cab, you get a human being who takes your address, telephone number, destination, number of passengers and any other pertinent information. On three of the four "dispatch" cab companies, you also can order on line.

We also have Curb and Uber Taxi, here..

Unless I’m in nyc or near a hotel, it’s also hard to flag one down. Though in Fillmore area, it was rather easy, I guess taxis realized there are plenty of pigeons there.

Perhaps in SF, it is. In the Capital of Your Nation, it is easy, except in the residential areas. In fact, it is hard for me to get a cab even when I call or use an application if I want one to come to my home. I seem to be stuck with UberX (I have not tried Lyft).

Also confusion when I do call a cab and I wait... then I see a cab roll through but it wasn’t the cab that picked up the call... oops.

That was another common complaint. People would see cabs from where they were and wonder why theirs had not yet arrived. Back in the voice days, you knew where a cab was only if the driver opened his mouth. During the transition, when the computer/satellite/GPS/digital call assignment systems were being put into place, but, the companies still retained real dispatchers, it actually became easier to move more calls. You could see that drivers were near a job, but none were picking up the thing. You could call a driver on the radio or just send him the trip manually and hope that he accepted it. If he did not, and, it was a good job or something that needed to be covered, you could send him a message to accept it. Only the intended driver saw the message instead of the whole fleet's hearing it. This cut down on the sharpshooting.

I don’t mind paying cab prices, I just hated their lack of technology and now that Uber is here even though they’ve picked up making their own app—I just can’t see myself using a cab except in nyc and to and from airports.

I prefer them if I can get one. Unless I get a rookie, they know where they are going. The GPS is not the be-all/end-all, I do not care what The Boston Globe tries to tell anyone. In this market, on the short and mediocre trips, base rate TNC and cab fares are about the same. This is becoming the case in more and more markets.

The applications that we have here are Uber Taxi and Curb. Curb has been in business for some time, it used to be Taxi Magic. We have had a few come and go: MyTaxi, Hail-O and Navicab. Navicab was an early one and went under. MyTaxi and Hail-O still exist in Europe and Asia, but left the North American market. They merged a few years past. New York also has Arro and Way2Ride. You have Flywheel out there.

 

[Boca Ratman]

Yep there was one day-driver i always hated. If he just got out, the leftover back sweat would go through next drivers shirt..

Gross