Understanding Uber: It's Not About the App

Re:Understanding Uber: It's Not About the App by rahimnathwani on Monday September 25, 2017 @09:41AM (#15330362)

"The goal of the congestion charge is not to make money off cars in London - it's an attempt to reduce the number of cars in London."

Surely the goal of the congestion charge is to, you know, reduce congestion. One way would be to reduce the number of cars simultaneously on the road during periods of congestion. Excluding black cabs from this incentive structure does a disservice to Londoners.

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Re:Understanding Uber: It's Not About the App by fasteddie on Monday September 25, 2017 @02:58PM (#15333009)

Cabs/Ubers have very different marginal driving decisions than "regular" drivers, and a congestion fee is not an effective policy to target them. If London feels like the cabs are the real opportunity to reduce congestion, which doesn't make much sense to me, the way to do so would be in how they implement their medallion system.

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Re:Understanding Uber: It's Not About the App by SomeStupidPoint on Monday September 25, 2017 @02:41PM (#15332874)

Not a priori, as a decrease in cab utilization from higher fees might lead to more cars and in fact make congestion worse.

This would be something you had to measure the effect of, due to (possible) non-trivial feedback.

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