A future transport model for those not using their own private vehicles?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From a couple of US sources

https://48hills.org/2019/05/ubers-plans-include-attacking-public-transit/

The company, as far as I know, has never admitted that before. Its PR^▸ (Public Relations) materials always talk about the environmental benefits of getting people out of private cars. The idea of decimating public transportation in the name of profits for a global corporation is pretty scary.

https://boingboing.net/2019/05/08/forever-unprofitable.html

Buried page 160, under the "Total Addressable Market," is a plan to eliminate the world's public transit systems and replace them with "Uber Bus" and "Express Pool." The company estimates that if the world's public transit riders all switch to Uber, they'll be able to serve an 11.9 trillion miles/year market.

Do we anticipate Uber bidding for UK^▸ (United Kingdom) rail franchises, perhaps under a reformed system after Williams??

You may say "UK is different" but talk is "worldwide" and huge numbers quoted for the number of countries being targeted.  Also noting that Uber pulls in lots of funding.

We estimate that our TAM comprised 11.9 trillion miles in 175 countries in 2017.

[Lee]

"They" may only be waking up to this now, but we've been onto this for ages!

"Chris Grayling says local buses could be replaced by Uber-style services" (December 2017)

"Are Uber and Lyft abstracting passengers from mass (public) transport and adding to congestion?" (February 2018)

The Bristol-based variant Slide was mentioned back then, but has since folded. Here is the parent company RATP Dev explanation:

26 November 2018 - RATP Dev, announces today the closure of its shared ride-to-work service Slide Bristol.

Slide, launched in the city in July 2016 as a pilot project, has since made more than 40,000 passenger trips in one of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)’s most congested cities. Slide is closing due to challenging conditions posed by Bristol’s infrastructure and competition from rapid transit routes.

Coralie Triadou, Microtransit Director at RATP Dev, said: “Slide Bristol was the first microtransit service to be launched in the United Kingdom, and we are proud to have worked with the local community to provide this service to its commuters. Slide has proved to be extremely popular, covering more than 210,000 kilometers over a two-year period and receiving an average 4.9 out of 5 rating from customers for its drivers and service.

 “Our experience in Bristol has shown us that Microtransit services in large city centres can only operate smoothly when they are fully integrated with the public transport network, and this is where we want to focus our efforts. As these conditions became challenging to meet in Bristol and with increased competition from two new Metrobus Rapid Transit routes, we decided to end the service.”

 “We are proud to have transformed what was initially planned as a short pilot project into a full two-year operation and remain committed to investing in microtransit services and in developing new creative transport solutions which benefit commuters throughout the UK and beyond.