The cannabis market is on the rise, and Uber has decided to get in on the action in Canada. A driver in Colorado got caught using a stock image of vomit to get clean up fees from a passenger. Plus, more and more passengers are switching back to using taxis. Want to know what’s going on in the rideshare and delivery world? It’s all in this week’s roundup with senior RSG contributor Paula Gibbins.
With Uber and Lyft prices rising, passengers return to the original ride-hailing service: taxicabs (Market Watch)
Summary: As ride-hailing prices have surged during the course of the coronavirus pandemic, some of the biggest metro areas in the country are seeing customers return to taxis.
Taxi-ride volume has increased in the past several months in San Francisco, New York and Chicago, coinciding not just with an economic recovery from the earlier stages of the pandemic but also with complaints about rising prices for rides from Uber Technologies Inc. UBER, +0.19% and Lyft Inc. LYFT, +0.42%.
“Uber and Lyft surge pricing has brought back a lot of people to taxis,” said Hansu Kim, president of Flywheel, the ride-booking app that he says is used by the majority of cab companies in San Francisco. He said since the beginning of the summer, Flywheel has seen a 15% to 20% increase in downloads of its app.
Citywide taxi-ride volume more than doubled, rising 106%, from January through the beginning of October, according to data from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. In New York City, trips per month in yellow cabs rose 116% from about 1.36 million in January to nearly 3 million in September, according to data from the Taxi and Limousine Commission….
My Take: I’m sure the taxi drivers are happy about the influx in passengers again. But I’m curious to know if it’s really enough to make a big difference. It would make sense in my mind that taxi use would be on the rise in NYC since it had such a strong hold for so many years before rideshare came along.
Are taxis taking this as a sign to change anything up? Are taxis going to charge even less to make themselves even more appealing than Ubers?
Uber driver uses fake photo of vomit to upcharge customers, riders say (KNOP News)
Summary: A couple in Colorado want to make people aware of a potential scam with Uber involving vomit.
Bryan Johnson and his wife, Jaeda Porter, say they took a regular Uber ride and noticed a $150 charge with no explanation on the receipt the next day.
After dealing with an online Uber chatbot, the two eventually learned the driver claimed Porter threw up in his car.
She’s adamant she didn’t vomit and became baffled at the upcharge.
“I was wearing a mask the whole time,” Porter explained. “It would have been a lot to forget.”
The driver uploaded a photo of the mess, an image Porter says she would have noticed.
Johnson uploaded the image to Google for a reverse search and the first three results were the exact same photo. The driver had apparently found an old image online and used it, claiming it was new….
My Take: Ok, we all know that the cleanup charge can be an easy way to make fast money, especially if it is small enough to only cost $30 to actually clean but get $80+ from the company anyway.
But to send in a fake photo and charge customers who didn’t actually make a mess in your car? That’s low. And that’s one of the flaws of rideshare. Literally anyone can join the platform as long as they have a decent driving record and pass a background check. Background checks aren’t going to catch jerks.
And it makes the rest of the decent drivers on the platform suffer. Not directly, necessarily, but suffer nonetheless. Do you think that customer will feel comfortable using the platform again? Do you think they’ll trust their drivers? Only they can truly say, but if it happens enough it may dissuade them from requesting a driver in the future.
Ridesharing may help reduce alcohol-impaired crashes (JSAD)
Summary: More rideshare trips mean fewer alcohol-involved accidents, according to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The finding adds to a growing body of work suggesting that ridesharing may take the place of drunk driving.
Researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and colleagues studied statistics from the Chicago Data Portal for November 2018 to December 2019. They matched 962 alcohol-involved crashes with 962 that did not involve alcohol, and they specifically looked at the density per square mile of rideshare trips that were in progress at the time of the crash.
The researchers chose Chicago specifically because it’s one of the few locations in which rideshare data—including information about where each trip started and ended—are released publicly at the trip level. This level of detail is necessary to improve understanding of ridesharing’s positive and negative impacts….
My Take: This is basically the elevator pitch of rideshare to begin with. What do people use Ubers for? Commute to and from work, sure. But also, often, it’s to go home from the bar. If people are choosing to be responsible and order an Uber instead of taking the risk of driving while impaired, it’s reasonable to assume that fatal alcohol-related crashes would decrease.
I know a lot of drivers don’t like the idea of picking up drunk passengers because they can be unruly, obnoxious and sometimes even dangerous. But for those who are willing (or if the money is right!), you could be helping save lives.
Uber enters booming cannabis market with orders in Ontario (NBC)
Summary: Uber will allow users in Ontario, Canada, to place orders for cannabis on its Uber Eats app, marking the ride-hailing giant’s foray into the booming business, a company spokesperson said on Monday.
Uber Eats will list cannabis retailer Tokyo Smoke on its marketplace on Monday, following which customers can place orders from the Uber Eats app and then pick it up at their nearest Tokyo Smoke store, the spokesperson said.
Uber, which already delivers liquor through its Eats unit, has had its sights set on the burgeoning cannabis market for some time now. Its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told media in April the company will consider delivering cannabis when the legal coast is clear in the United States….
My Take: Reactions from drivers seem to be a bit mixed. On Reddit, some think it’ll be a great way to keep busy on the app and earn more while others don’t want to become a “cheap drug dealer”.
Others still are hesitant. One stated, “I dunno past few weeks doing Uber there’s a dispensary on every damn street. I hope this does not up the safety risk etc.”
Someone responded to that fear with, “I’d be more worried about the drunks outside a bar. Stoners are harmless peaceful folk around my area at least lol.”
I’m curious to know if this is more or less a test run for the U.S. Yes, there are legal matters to resolve in the U.S. before Uber will get into delivery of cannabis here, but I’m still curious to know if it’s more or less acting as a window into what it could look like here in the future.
Would you be comfortable delivering cannabis? Sound off in the comments!
-Paula @ RSG
