https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jul/16/the-innisfil-experiment-the-town-that-replaced-public-transit-with-uber
QuoteWhen Daniel Arrega, 19, heads to work at a mall in Innisfil, he has few options for his commute. Walking along the highway would take nearly three hours. A taxi is faster but expensive.
So he takes the town's public transit: Uber.
"It's great for young people, especially if you don't have a licence," he said after arriving at the branch of Tommy Hilfiger where he works.
In 2017, the town in Ontario, Canada, embarked on an ambitious – and, to its critics, fraught – experiment. It handed responsibility for public transit to the ride-sharing app Uber.
Instead of buses or trains plying regular routes, it is Uber's roving cars that function as the transit fleet. When a rider opens the app, Innisfil Transit pops up as the cheapest option to travel between a network of popular areas called "hubs", such as libraries, the recreation centre or municipal buildings.
The costs per ride vary, but on average passengers pay an average of CAD$5 (£3), with the city subsiding the rest. Trips outside subsidised areas receive a flat $6 discount.
Two years later, the Innisfil authorities argue that the project has been a success. Ridership is high – in 2018 there were 85,943 trips – and many residents have embraced the service.
"We just absolutely love Uber. I take it, my son takes it, my dad takes it. I take it," said Shannon Kelly-Robb, who works at one of the libraries.
But beyond the excitement of essentially having subsidised taxi service, experts paint a more troubling picture of questionable economic and environmental sustainability. The city has now spent more on Uber than the traditional transit option it was considering, and has dramatically increased the number of cars on its roads, with worrying implications for air quality and the climate crisis.
What's more, Innisfil Transit has now attracted attention as the latest step in a growing assault on public transit systems by ride-sharing companies. Urban planners fear Uber isn't just taking riders away from public transit but that it is hoping to replace public transit altogether.
In London and Denver, Uber has integrated public transit options into its app to become a "one-stop shop for transportation". In regulatory filings, published in advance of its May IPO, Uber said it wants to "replace personal vehicle ownership and usage and public transportation one use case at a time".
Innisfil's deal with Uber is nothing "other than a more expedited and abundant taxi system. That's all it is," said Jarrett Walker, a transit consultant based in Portland, Oregon, and author of Human Transit. "The notion that Uber has anything useful to offer public transit is just preposterous."
Innisfil saw it differently. A community of 40,000 north of Toronto, it is a typical small North American town, with widely spaced houses on large lots that makes efficient public transit a logistical challenge.
The town desperately needed transit, said Paul Pentikainen, Innisfil's senior planner. But the option on the table – three bus routes – would cost the council nearly $1m. So they tried to think creatively.
"[We wanted to] connect all the drivers in the town with those that need these rides: that could be the basis for our transit system," said Pentikainen. "And because Uber was already doing that, it just seemed to make sense for us."
The contract also meant more work for Uber drivers, whose number in Innisfil increased to 2,203 in 2018. "I just needed a sustainable income after I retired," said Dennis West, who started driving for Uber in December 2017. "This is a nice gig. You can do it when you want to do it – and you can do it as much as you want to do it. It works well."
But success has come at an ironic cost to the town. Because Innisfil subsidises each ride, the more successful it is, the more the town pays to Uber. That figure is now projected to reach $1.2m for 2019 – more than the bus programme would have cost, and well above the $900,000 the city allocated. With ridership increasing each year, costs will only rise.
"If you operate a regular bus system, you have a much better idea of what those costs will look like five or 10 years from now," said Christof Spieler, an urban planner and author of Trains, Buses, People. "But if you have a system with too many people using it, and you can't afford to provide [the service], how will you handle that?"
In fact, the town has taken the extraordinary step of deterring people from using Uber too much, capping the number of rides a resident can take per month. For mall worker Arrega, who has been "working like crazy", that often means exceeding the limit midway through the month, although the town allows riders to apply for an exemption. It has also increased the cost of a ride by $1.
In a late May briefing note, however, Innsifil authorities said few cost savings had been made: additional revenues from the fare increase have been offset by increased ridership costs, as more residents successfully petition for exemptions.
"For a transit agency, [a service like Uber] works best when not very many people are using it," said Walker. "Because when people start using it in any numbers, it devours the the entire budget."
Still, he understands why Innisfil made the decision, saying it might be the right thing to do for a sprawling town with low population density where bus stops would be far from destinations.
Nevertheless, Uber's messaging is working: planners from other cities have contacted Innisfil for advice on how to create a similar system, said Pentikainen.
But Spieler warns that what might work for more rural areas would be a disaster in denser cities.
"If you are a city government and if you're finding that the [best option] for providing any kind of transit is subsidising Lyft and Uber, you have made some really bad decisions in planning your city," he said.
Troubling oversights have already emerged in the two years since the programme began: there are no ways for low-income residents to offset the costs of transit – despite staff identifying an average of 40 trips each month to the town's food bank. Pentikainen says further subsidy for low income residents is "something we're thinking of", including using gift cards for residents.
Pentikainen also brushed off concerns with Uber's controversial labour practices, which have received intense scrutiny in many cities, saying drivers "absolutely love the job" and the town has received no complaints over compensation.
Since the introduction of ride-sharing companies such as Uber, transit use has fallen in major American cities nearly 2%, and those losses are cumulative: since Uber first started in San Francisco in 2010, bus ridership has dropped by more than 12%.
As well as harming transit revenues, ride-sharing is the likely culprit behind a surge in traffic congestion and increased emissions. A recent study in the journal Science Advances found that Uber and Lyft are the biggest contributors to San Francisco's crippling traffic congestion. Between 2010 and 2016, congestion surged 62% – a dramatic increase over what modelling projected without the companies, and a strong rebuttal to corporates claims ride-sharing in fact reduces traffic congestion.
As for the environmental impact, there is even less doubt about the negative impact. Compared to fixed routes, said Walker, a system like Innisfil Transit "usually means carrying few people at higher costs, therefore achieving lower climate benefits".
Both Walker and Spieler still argue that there is a role for private companies to deliver transit services, but say apps masquerading as novel innovations can obscure more important components of a transit system – namely, serving a public need beyond of any short-term costs savings by developing infrastructure to allow for environmentally sustainable and financially accessible services for the future.
What's more, with the precarious finances of larger ride-sharing companies now well known, municipalities have yet another reason to worry.
"We know that Lyft and Uber are both losing massive amounts of money. We know they are both underpaying their drivers," said Spieler. "If you're doing this to save money, what insurance do you have that five years from now, it will still save you money?
In the meantime, Innisfil officials have openly mused about fixing some of the problems of Uber – by turning to Uber. The latest suggestion to the cost overruns? UberBus: a bus that runs a fixed route, just like a normal city bus.
that's cool, but then i'd have to live in Innsifil
What's the big deal? You already live in Ontario.
there's bad and then there's worse :P
Sounds like the title of a Lovecraft novel.
To be followed by The Dream-Quest of Facebook Privacy Settings.
Quote from: celedhring on July 16, 2019, 09:49:24 AM
Sounds like the title of a Lovecraft novel.
To be followed by The Dream-Quest of Facebook Privacy Settings.
The Shadow over Innisfil. Where our hero has a soul-destroying revelation that
he is one of them while buying a coffee and donut in a Tim Hortons.
Really no different from any visit to Tim Hortons, though ... :hmm:
Quote from: Malthus on July 16, 2019, 09:52:26 AM
Quote from: celedhring on July 16, 2019, 09:49:24 AM
Sounds like the title of a Lovecraft novel.
To be followed by The Dream-Quest of Facebook Privacy Settings.
The Shadow over Innisfil.
I think you've given me an idea for a boardgame about Cthulhu-influenced public transit.
I read the article and must have missed what they "replaced"? It sounds like they did not have public transport at all and then opted for Uber rather than building a bus network. And it does not sound like a successful experiment based on the last sentence and the cost overruns.
Quote from: Zanza on July 16, 2019, 10:59:00 AM
I read the article and must have missed what they "replaced"? It sounds like they did not have public transport at all and then opted for Uber rather than building a bus network. And it does not sound like a successful experiment based on the last sentence and the cost overruns.
Agreed, replaced is somewhat misplaced as sounds more like they went with it rather than considering implementation of public transit.
And I would say it is successful as an experiment. The point of doing things like this is to collect data.
It "costs" more than the bus system it replaced? So what? That tells us nothing, because the bus system it would replace is subsidized in a radically different manner.
If they are serious about figuring out how to make this work, the solution is simple, at least from a experimental standpoint.
Start lowering the subsidy until they reach a point at which ridership begins to decline. That is your true cost point. If at THAT point it is still more expensive than the bus system, then you can probably conclude you should have just gone with the bus....maybe.
Quote from: Berkut on July 16, 2019, 11:24:29 AM
And I would say it is successful as an experiment. The point of doing things like this is to collect data.
It "costs" more than the bus system it replaced? So what? That tells us nothing, because the bus system it would replace is subsidized in a radically different manner.
If they are serious about figuring out how to make this work, the solution is simple, at least from a experimental standpoint.
Start lowering the subsidy until they reach a point at which ridership begins to decline. That is your true cost point. If at THAT point it is still more expensive than the bus system, then you can probably conclude you should have just gone with the bus....maybe.
That probably isn't ideal for the citizens of the town.
Quote from: garbon on July 16, 2019, 11:25:26 AM
Quote from: Berkut on July 16, 2019, 11:24:29 AM
And I would say it is successful as an experiment. The point of doing things like this is to collect data.
It "costs" more than the bus system it replaced? So what? That tells us nothing, because the bus system it would replace is subsidized in a radically different manner.
If they are serious about figuring out how to make this work, the solution is simple, at least from a experimental standpoint.
Start lowering the subsidy until they reach a point at which ridership begins to decline. That is your true cost point. If at THAT point it is still more expensive than the bus system, then you can probably conclude you should have just gone with the bus....maybe.
That probably isn't ideal for the citizens of the town.
Why not?
I mean, it's not like they lost the bus system - they never had it to begin with.
So they can always fall back on whatever it was they did before they had "public" transportation.
Yes, really sounds like a failure.
For such a thing to work I'd think you'd need to have true ride sharing, picking up multiple passengers going the same way.
Overall I'm interested to see where the next few years take Uber. It is looking increasingly likely it may never make a profit.
Quote from: Berkut on July 16, 2019, 11:27:03 AM
Quote from: garbon on July 16, 2019, 11:25:26 AM
Quote from: Berkut on July 16, 2019, 11:24:29 AM
And I would say it is successful as an experiment. The point of doing things like this is to collect data.
It "costs" more than the bus system it replaced? So what? That tells us nothing, because the bus system it would replace is subsidized in a radically different manner.
If they are serious about figuring out how to make this work, the solution is simple, at least from a experimental standpoint.
Start lowering the subsidy until they reach a point at which ridership begins to decline. That is your true cost point. If at THAT point it is still more expensive than the bus system, then you can probably conclude you should have just gone with the bus....maybe.
That probably isn't ideal for the citizens of the town.
Why not?
I mean, it's not like they lost the bus system - they never had it to begin with.
So they can always fall back on whatever it was they did before they had "public" transportation.
Because it is disruptive to have a system you may or may not be able to afford depending on the stage of the experiment?
Quote from: garbon on July 16, 2019, 11:32:04 AM
Quote from: Berkut on July 16, 2019, 11:27:03 AM
Quote from: garbon on July 16, 2019, 11:25:26 AM
Quote from: Berkut on July 16, 2019, 11:24:29 AM
And I would say it is successful as an experiment. The point of doing things like this is to collect data.
It "costs" more than the bus system it replaced? So what? That tells us nothing, because the bus system it would replace is subsidized in a radically different manner.
If they are serious about figuring out how to make this work, the solution is simple, at least from a experimental standpoint.
Start lowering the subsidy until they reach a point at which ridership begins to decline. That is your true cost point. If at THAT point it is still more expensive than the bus system, then you can probably conclude you should have just gone with the bus....maybe.
That probably isn't ideal for the citizens of the town.
Why not?
I mean, it's not like they lost the bus system - they never had it to begin with.
So they can always fall back on whatever it was they did before they had "public" transportation.
Because it is disruptive to have a system you may or may not be able to afford depending on the stage of the experiment?
Oh, yeah, right. Yes, that is true.
It is really what sucks about society. It is made up of all those pesky humans who don't like being the guinea pigs.
Quote from: Tyr on July 16, 2019, 11:29:02 AM
Yes, really sounds like a failure.
For such a thing to work I'd think you'd need to have true ride sharing, picking up multiple passengers going the same way.
Overall I'm interested to see where the next few years take Uber. It is looking increasingly likely it may never make a profit.
Uber will make a profit when autonomous cars replace car ownership, and the cost per ride plummets.
As of now they are merely investing to be the go to app when that moment comes.
And Uber could easily run out of other people's money long before that point comes. Which is why they're incredibly risky.
Quote from: Iormlund on July 16, 2019, 01:19:57 PM
Quote from: Tyr on July 16, 2019, 11:29:02 AM
Yes, really sounds like a failure.
For such a thing to work I'd think you'd need to have true ride sharing, picking up multiple passengers going the same way.
Overall I'm interested to see where the next few years take Uber. It is looking increasingly likely it may never make a profit.
Uber will make a profit when autonomous cars replace car ownership, and the cost per ride plummets.
As of now they are merely investing to be the go to app when that moment comes.
Apps like that live of a self-reinforcing network effect. More subscribers, more providers. But providing the service of self-driving cars just needs a single large fleet provider, so that part of the equation can easily be undercut by a determined competitor with capital.
Quote from: Habbaku on July 16, 2019, 01:21:49 PM
And Uber could easily run out of other people's money long before that point comes. Which is why they're incredibly risky.
Yes. We're a long way short of that point. We haven't even seen its beginnings yet, let alone it becoming the norm.
Quote from: Malthus on July 16, 2019, 09:52:26 AM
Quote from: celedhring on July 16, 2019, 09:49:24 AM
Sounds like the title of a Lovecraft novel.
To be followed by The Dream-Quest of Facebook Privacy Settings.
The Shadow over Innisfil. Where our hero has a soul-destroying revelation that he is one of them while buying a coffee and donut in a Tim Hortons.
Really no different from any visit to Tim Hortons, though ... :hmm:
Miles Sheffield was born in Innisfil and had grown up in the large grey-stone house beyond the valley. His was the descendant of one of the founding families of Salem, Massachusetts; they had fled to Canada in the wake of the American Revolution. His mother had been a deaf-mute with sullen, expressionless eyes; her long straight black hair more than hinted at her First People's ancestry.
The Sheffields had made their fortune as lumber barons; they were one of the first settlers of the area around Lake Simcoe. Miles's ancestors were said to be ruthless businessmen with a fanatically loyal workforce. Stories are told about them to this very day: bizarre ceremonies to mark the beginning of land clearings; workers from rival camps disappearing; unnatural dealings with the First Peoples; threats, credible threats, made against sawmill bosses and their families. Miles laughed them off as ghost stories; but some of the old timers of Innisfil insisted they had heard them from their parents and that all of them were true.
Miles didn't have many friends growing up; like me he lived far from town beyond the valley. Most of the time he spent alone in that vast mansion with its big, empty halls and portraits of his long dead ancestors with gaunt eyes that seem to pierce your flesh. As a child he had a peculiar obsession with schedules and timetables; going so far as to own three Franklin Planners in order to properly correlate them between three calendar systems: Gregorian, Julian and Mohammedan. It was rumored that some of the people of the valley, though they had lived in Innisfil as long as the Sheffields, still used the Julian calendar to mark unknown festivals from their strange, backwards lands. The Mohammedan one was even more idiosyncratic, it was to correspond with some book he had picked up in a second hand shop that was some translation from Arabic. He showed it once to me, it was his prized possession. It was bound in cracked leather and it's vellum pages were filled with complete gibberish. I could never fathom why he was correlating its dates to his schedule; but he insisted it was important.
He held onto the Franklin Planners as the years went on. As the world embraced the Palm Pilot's chill of steel and chrome he kept with his Franklin Planner. As the smart phones tendrils reached out and enveloped the whole world; he stuck to his Franklin Planner. He loved the Franklin Planner. He loved feel of its tacky vinyl cover. He loved his writing he poured over the organic, splotchy notes in his own cryptic hand. The scheduling worked, perhaps, he had been such a good student that he won a scholarship to the prestigious Ansnorveldt University. He told me he spent his days in its vast library, pouring through the dusty tome of its rare book collection. He never mentioned what he read; but he gave me a tour when I visited him. The Ansnorveldt collection is maginificent, one of the largest in Canada, and filled with all manner of obscure books. After graduation he returned and went to work for the city of Innisfil. He so impressed his bosses with his knowledge of schedule management software that he quickly rose through the ranks and soon became the central planner for the bus system schedule.
His bus schedule was brilliant, intricate and yet somehow unworkable. No one dared question it; no one knew where to even begin. His assistants, well his assistants didn't last for long. Mike Steiner drove his car through a doughnut shop and ended up in Saint Dymphna's Asylum. Jane Richards bought a bus ticket to Niagra and was never seen again. Jeff Tanner just sits at home all day and drinks; he doesn't say much about anything only once in a while he'll give a hoarse whisper "Time-table... time-table." Day after day fewer respectable people took the bus; they found cars, or ride shared, or anything just to avoid the buses and their maddening schedule. The years passed; in time only the people from the valley would. All of them with their degenerate weak chins and sullen, sunken eyes that stare at you without interest, without comprehension. They're always on the bus, riding, riding, always riding to a Tim Hortons.
I actually made the joke to get Sav to bite and give us on of those brilliant posts :lol:. Thanks Malthus for the assist. :thumbsup:
:) Great work, as always, Sav.
I volunteer as your copy editor, though. Those double-spaces after a period have to go. :P
POTM!
:lol:
Awesome work.
That is amazing.
Quote from: celedhring on July 16, 2019, 02:29:16 PM
I actually made the joke to get Sav to bite and give us on of those brilliant posts :lol:. Thanks Malthus for the assist. :thumbsup:
:lol:
I've been posting here too long. Anyhow thanks guys, it was fun to write.
Quote from: Habbaku on July 16, 2019, 02:34:09 PM
:) Great work, as always, Sav.
I volunteer as your copy editor, though. Those double-spaces after a period have to go. :P
You kids with your instagram influencers, and your twitter feeds, and your double-mocha-espesso-macchiados, and your single spaces after periods. :mad: Back in my day we didn't have all that; all we had were cassette tapes and television and Joe Biden (:unsure:) and it taught us to think for ourselves. :mad:
;)
When I was in school we got marked down for single space after periods; single spaces after periods still looks wrong to me.
Quote from: Savonarola on July 17, 2019, 09:23:39 AM
When I was in school we got marked down for single space after periods; single spaces after periods still looks wrong to me.
You are quite correct.
It has taken me years to stop double spacing after periods. I hope they don't randomly switch it back at some point.
Same here. I was taught double-spacing in my high school keyboarding classes, and I think that the word processor flagged it as an error, even.
But I've broken myself of the habit as of a few years ago. It's a tough one.
I too was taught to double space after a period. I've never been quite clear why that is now wrong. I continue to double space.
Monstrous.
Quote from: Barrister on July 17, 2019, 09:54:03 AM
I too was taught to double space after a period. I've never been quite clear why that is now wrong. I continue to double space.
Because the word processing software has kerning, making the double space unnecessary.
I still double space, and have never been told to do otherwise.
Stop being weird.
Quote from: Razgovory on July 17, 2019, 10:23:35 PM
I still double space, and have never been told to do otherwise.
Really? Nobody would let me get away with that at my job. Engineering school beat it out of me anyway.
This is the first time I actually hear about double spacing. Is it supposed to be a relic from the typewriter era?
Quote from: The Larch on July 18, 2019, 05:33:21 AM
This is the first time I actually hear about double spacing. Is it supposed to be a relic from the typewriter era?
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/one-space-or-two-spaces-after-a-full-stop-scientists-have-finally-found-the-answer-a8337646.html
Quote from: Valmy on July 17, 2019, 11:13:40 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on July 17, 2019, 10:23:35 PM
I still double space, and have never been told to do otherwise.
Really? Nobody would let me get away with that at my job. Engineering school beat it out of me anyway.
Well, I haven't had a job in 16 years.
Quote from: Razgovory on July 18, 2019, 07:12:26 AM
Quote from: Valmy on July 17, 2019, 11:13:40 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on July 17, 2019, 10:23:35 PM
I still double space, and have never been told to do otherwise.
Really? Nobody would let me get away with that at my job. Engineering school beat it out of me anyway.
Are you bored? Do you wish you had one?
Serious question btw. I'm not trolling or trying to be mean.
Well, I haven't had a job in 16 years.
Quote from: Razgovory on July 17, 2019, 10:23:35 PM
I still double space, and have never been told to do otherwise.
Take a graphic design course. You will be told otherwise.
Quote
Well, I haven't had a job in 16 years.
badump, badump.