CES is underway right now in Las Vegas. About 200,000 people are in attendance. Since tech and mobility are today closely intertwined, the show has become an important platform for the automative industry. Here is a video showcasing BMW’s new iNext concept (expected by 2021):… Read More
All posts tagged “taxis”
Minimum fleet
Here is an interesting study by the MIT Senseable City Lab, which looks at: “the minimum number of vehicles needed to serve all the trips in New York without delaying passengers’ pick up times.” If you can’t see the embedded video below, click here. This… Read More
Centralized taxi branding vs. decentralized ride fulfillment
Back in 2013, when this blog was in its infancy, I argued that Toronto needs a consistent taxi brand. Since nobody was reading the blog at the time, I am sure that most of you have never read this post. I even forgot about it,… Read More
Should Uber be shut down?
Last week Travis Kalanick – the cofounder who built Uber into the most highly valued privately held startup in the world – stepped down as chief executive at the request of his investors. This was the culmination of months of controversy related to the company’s… Read More
The self-driving car arms race
Earlier this month, I came across the following chart from USA today. It was based on market caps as at July 29 and so the order wouldn’t look quite the same today. Still, here are the largest companies by market cap and the top 5… Read More
Protect me from what I want
The title of this post is a line from one of the works of Jenny Holzer. It feels appropriate right now. On Wednesday, Toronto saw a large scale anti-Uber protest involving as many as 2,000 taxis. It involved a bunch of taxis driving real slow… Read More
Tech Tuesday: Uber testing out “Smart Routes” in San Francisco
Uber is currently testing out something called “Smart Routes” in San Francisco. Basically it works similar to UberPOOL (where you carpool with strangers to bring the cost down), except that your pickup location (and trip?) is confined to a specific route. This means less detours and… Read More
Where Uber operates and where it’s banned
Earlier this month, Bloomberg published this map showing where Uber operates and where it’s been banned (or is being challenged). You can click on the map for a larger version. Uber operates in about 250 cities across the world. But it’s being challenged in a… Read More
Comparing taxis to ride sharing services
This morning I woke up to a post from venture capitalist Fred Wilson talking about the cost of loyalty when it comes to local transportation markets. More simply, it was a cost comparison between regular city taxis and ride sharing services such as a UberX, Lyft,… Read More
Multi-modal cities are the new reality
CityLab published an article last week on multi-modal cities that caught my attention (because it used a picture of Toronto with about 3 or 4 streetcars stacked up along Queen Street). The premise of the article is that all of this car vs. transit debate… Read More