At least it's not a huge cost to the town for now, but overall this seems like a giant fail—instead of investing in real infrastructure, they're just pouring money into an unsustainable SV company that's on point of imploding.
I wonder if the town has fully considered what this partnership means as far as liability... who will be responsible if an Uber rider in Innisfil gets assaulted?
I think of infrastructure as things that need to be specially built rather than simply purchased. If they decide that this isn't working, they can always buy some buses and hire some drivers. They will be maintaining the same road infrastructure regardless of whether it's Ubers or buses driving on it.
For the "what if" cases related to assaults, shouldn't there be fewer with Uber? With both buses and Ubers, the humans involved are the source of risk, but with Uber there are fewer humans involved; no "other passengers" unless they roll out UberPool.
The huge advantage of doing this is that their upfront costs are minimised to just planning & a bunch of iPads.
In Chile they have a shared-ride system called a 'colectivo', where a taxi will pick up passengers along a route and passengers will share a fare.
In Pichilemu, this supplemented the bus routes which only ran at most at hourly intervals. It's a coastal town with less than 15,000 residents that swells over summer to meet tourist needs. Outside those months, a bus service would certainly not be economical.
Yeah, and it's clear that Uber does bring some value to the table with the app polished, payment sorted out, etc. That said, I still wish this service could be supplied by a local outfit with its own vehicles, actual employees, etc.
Companies like Uber (or Lyft for that matter) may go up in smoke but the idea of mobile ride-hailing and having an elastic fleet is so compelling that someone else will fill the void. The convenience factor is so astounding that the problem of economic sustainability will get solved one way or another.
I was recently in several Asian cities where the public transit was excellent and taxis were plentiful, but I still found it really useful having an app for those point-to-point transportation needs. Even though the rides sometimes cost the same or more than taxi rides, apps reduce friction and variability in terms of payment methods, language, route accountability, etc. and that is worth something. Ride-hailing apps don't just sell low-priced rides, they sell a lower variability experience.
There are players other than Uber in Asian markets (I used Grab) which have even better value propositions, so Uber is kept in check in those places.
It is true however that the economics does not work out at the moment (it's all investor subsidized, so there is a huge distortion in the market), but if we are able to avoid a monopoly situation, I suspect the market will right itself.
The transit authority, since they would be the one screening and training the driver and other staff. However, if the transit authority failed to respond in an adequate manner, then it would fall back on the local government overseeing the transit authority.
Perhaps you would disagree, but it seems clear to me that a) Uber's driver screening process is inadequate, and b) the risk is magnified by it being a 1:1 ratio of passengers to drivers (vs a mass transit vehicle where bystanders can intervene), and c) Uber is massive compared to Innisfil, so there will be very little "overseeing" going on there.
All in all, this adds up to a situation where the town and its elected representatives will end up with very little control or accountability about how the service is being run.
I wonder if the town has fully considered what this partnership means as far as liability... who will be responsible if an Uber rider in Innisfil gets assaulted?
In any case, Innisfil is a rural suburb of Barrie, ON, an hour north of Toronto. It's not exactly an urban metropolis: https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Innisfil,+ON/