Taxis verses Uberx --> why consumers love Uberx

With a full week of part time Uberx driving, I have some observations why so many consumers are passionate about the Uberx experience. The idea is this forms a punch list of issues taxis need to address just to create a similar user experience.

1. Hailing a cab on the street is too anonymous. The rider has no idea who the driver is. One rider was actually kidnapped by a fake driver who intended to sell her into white slavery. This guy apparently went to jail. With Uber, the dispatch model guarantees only one driver will pick up, the rider has a picture of the driver and a description of the vehicle. This is another aspect of the dispatch model. Riders find Uberx safer and more trustworthy than hailing a cab on the street.

2. Calling a cab is too uncertain. Riders have no idea when or if the cab will show up. The Uber model is once a driver has accepted a ride, that ride is the driver's only responsibility. The rider gets constant updates about the driver's progress to the pickup location.  This is another aspect of the dispatch problem. In this case, there appears to be no centralized dispatch for DC (I could be wrong here) so the rider must deal with a number of small operators each with a small pool of rides to offer. This fragmentation might work for the hail a cab model, but it fails for the call a cab model. This message comes through loud and clear from almost every Uber proponent. In order to compete, taxis need an Uber-like system that efficiently allocates ride requests to truly available and nearby drivers and provides the same rider updates about the progress of their driver to the pickup location. The small providers have to aggregate their driver supply into the efficient allocation dispatch system and work out a way for the rides to be allocated.

3. Riders love the payment model. There is nothing else to say here - taxis need to move into the second decade of the 21st century in terms of managing money.

4. Matching riders to drivers in well served areas is inefficient. This is a new one for me. Apparently, there is a bottleneck allocating drivers at major pickup points like airports. A well-travelled rider said that even if there were plenty of cabs available, if there was a line of people waiting for a cab, then it might take 20-30 minutes to service the line. She would rather call an Uber. This is interesting to me. Given 100 riders and 100 cabs - that group would fairly efficiently sort itself out without the help of the bottleneck. Given 120 riders and 100 cabs, there might be problems between the riders. Given 80 riders and 100 cabs, the ad hoc self allocation can be orderly. The entity managing the pickup location need only note which cabs are trying to jump the line. The excess riders at airports (or wherever) problem is one the taxi industry should embrace Uber like services to resolve. This is a subject for the coopetition post.