Hilary Henegar links to Shareable.net founder Neal Gorenflo on why cities should reject Uber, as Seoul has:
This past Monday Seoul City said it planned to ban Uber, the smartphone car-hailing service, and launch its own app for official taxis.
Some reacted by calling Seoul’s sharing cred into question because, after all, Seoul is the self-proclaimed Sharing City with arguably the most ambitious sharing economy agenda of any city in the world. Shouldn’t Seoul support Uber?
What intrigued me was another link Neal made to the FAB 10 conference in Barcelona – another centre that defines itself as a smart-city leader, quick to adopt and discuss new urban trends.
… futurist Bruce Sterling gave an impassioned speech explaining why cities should reject Uber, their collaborative economy ilk, and the horde of multinational corporations selling “Smart Cities” technology – technology which will likely further concentrate control and wealth into fewer hands. The video of his speech is a must watch:
If cities truly cared about improving transportation issues and affordable ride sharing they would start to promote using available free resources, namely empty car seats. Roughly 75% of all car seats of cars driven on an average day are empty, more if we count eventually driverless cars that sit idle.
==> But of course the establishment, specifically bus driver and taxi unions, do not like it, and will fight it as we see in many US cities or here in Seoul.
Also, in the internet space reach is vital. For every Facebook there are 20 almost facebooks, ditto for Twitter, Google, eBay .. so why would it be different for a car sharing app? To strengthen the app and create true worldwide reach with massive impact massive development $s, marketing $s and legal $s have to be deployed, otherwise we will see 4-8 apps per city or 50+ in total, i.e. a very very slow adoption of this exciting new technology.
I’m not an expert on the taxi system here or abroad. I have heard that in some cities anyone who wants to drive a cab can do so, although the incumbents may use various forms of shall we say “persuasion” to keep the numbers down. I’ve heard that London UK has a knowledge test that all prospective cabbies must pass. In theory anyone who proves their navigation and communication skills can drive a London cab. In some places cabbies work ridiculously long hours just to keep their cars on the road while in other places cab companies turn healthy profits. Trying to balance wages and working hours against fares is never going to make either side truly happy.
Services like Uber are a new approach that threatens the status quo. Cabbies barely making ends meet see it as the end of their way of life and it is. We already have enough cars on the road. If even a small fraction of drivers are willing to take passengers there’s no need for taxis at all.
The fact is that as time marches on jobs come and go. A century ago our cities had blacksmiths, livery stables, telegraph offices and manual switchboards, milliners were in high demand and a man could make a living delivering blocks of ice. When I graduated from high school my job didn’t even exist yet.
I don’t expect the entire concept of the taxi driver to disappear in what’s left of my lifetime, but I do think people will eventually have to travel to the developing world to find one.
Yes, in the upcoming age of Uber and driverless cars or trucks drivers are a job class at risk. But, like the internet or cellphones, which took 30-40 years from inception to mass adoption it will at least take this long until these concepts of ride/seat sharing and driverless vehicles will be mainstream.
Can I book a seat for 2050 with all kinks, union issues, lawsuits, face recognition, safety concerns, liability issues, GPS issues, accident avoidance schemes, man-machine interaction, off-grid and e-payment systems ironed out ? yes, most likely. In 2020: likely not, and even 2030 or 2040 seems to close for it !
btw: I love driving but generally hate driving in cities with all the traffic and red lights and constant stop-and-go, and would immediately buy a reliable vehicle that can drive me around while I read the newspaper or e-equivalent of it in the back seat ! Perhaps I see the day ..