‘Uber’ clash

JC Tran, Photographer, The Bagpipe|December 3, 2015

Courtesy Photo

Recently on my trip to New York, I noticed that there were so many Uber cars in comparison to the classical yellow taxi cabs. Even before I went to New York I noticed this in Dallas and many other places like Los Angeles and Houston. The reason behind this is that the taxi companies are becoming more outdated while the mobile transport business is thinking of newer ideas everyday to make it more convenient for the customers. A great example of this situation is the airport shuttles, which were popular back in the late 1900s and early 2000s. The reason these shuttles became obsolete was because the public saw that taxi cabs were just way more efficient and cheaper compared to the airport shuttle, which would oftentimes have ridiculous price gauges.

The same thing is happening to the taxi cabs, but this time they’re playing the roles of the airport shuttles and Uber is playing the role of the taxi cab. The reason behind this event occurring is because of the convenience of Uber. You download the app and link a credit card and just tap your location, and they will pick you up. This process usually lasts five minutes to complete in comparison to a taxi cab, which could take up to 20 minutes to just find a phone number and then another 10 minutes to arrive at your location.

According to fivethirtyeight.com, in 2014 there were 42 million yellow cabs and then in 2015 they decreased to 38 million, but Uber has had a totally opposite outcome, with 48 million drivers in 2014 rising to 52 million drivers in 2015. Adding on to that in 2014, yellow taxi cabs lost over 63,000 pick up zones while Uber gained 112,000 pick up zones in Tribeca. Also in 2014, the distribution of taxis compared to Uber was a double digit percentage change, unlike taxis eight or seven percent. Most of this info comes from Manhattan, New York because they’re the busiest, most wealthy borough.