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Roland Perry · October 6th 15, 09:16 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at
01:47:47 on Tue, 6 Oct 2015, remarked:
On Tuesday, 6 October 2015 09:53:15 UTC+2, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
15:16:31 on Mon, 5 Oct 2015, remarked:
On Monday, 5 October 2015 14:34:22 UTC+2, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
05:01:26 on Mon, 5 Oct 2015, remarked:
Of course, but you did seem to present Google Maps as a
better answer.

It's an acceptable answer, I'd say.

FSVO...

But it fails and/or misleads, aside from being unavailable at
some times
to some people.

Right, but the context here is arranging a journey by Uber. Under what
circumstances is it possible to order a car from Uber but be unable to
check the route via Apple or Google maps?

When the destination isn't mapped, or is mapped incorrectly.

You can only order an Uber car via the internet. You therefore have
the ability to check this fact on hand right then and there. If the
collected wisdom of the entire internet is unable to allow you to
figure out where you intend to go, then I would suggest you ought to be
reconsidering the wisdom of undertaking the journey until you get some
sort of clarification first.

This is a classic case of "let them eat cake". It's perfectly acceptable
to expect to be driven around an unfamiliar area by someone you are
paying to do it.

This has always been the distinction between a hackney carriage and a
minicab. it's existed for decades.

I'm talking about the very right wing "Devil take the hindmost" approach
to those not kitted out with all the very latest expensive technology.

It has always been the case that minicab drivers won't be expected to
have the same knowledge of routes and destination as proper taxi
drivers, that's part of the trade-off for the (potentially) lower
prices. In this context, Uber is just another minicab operator. If
you are not comfortable with this level of driver knowledge, take a
"proper" taxi. There is absolutely nothing new here that Uber brings
to the argument.

Getting back to the "Knowledge" thing, it's never been the case that you
needed to point to your destination on a map when instructing a minicab
driver. If it's not possible to describe the destination to them so they
recognise it, they have an A to Z, and if all else fails they can call
the office - I had that happen in Dubai once, when what I assumed to be
their equivalent of a private hire car didn't know where a particular
5-star hotel was, two miles from the airport.

Having got there, perhaps if I'd said "across the road from the main
police station" that would have rung a larger bell.

The "private hire" industry (i.e. minicabs) have not had a requirement
for doing "the knowledge" for decades. I recall getting in a minicab
in Croydon over 20 years ago and discovering the driver had no clue
where he was going.

I've been in a Nottingham Hackney that got lost two miles from the
station

I don't know what standards Nottingham applies to its Hackney drivers,
but potentially that ought to be grounds for a complaint to the
licensing authority.

This was "south of the river" and not in the City. even though only two
miles from the station. I don't know what their rules are for that kind
of potentially out-of-area trip.

At least with Uber you know the driver will have GPS enabled maps
available (that's how they find their customers, after all).

If you can find your destination on a map.

Right, so we're back to the choice of a Hackney where you have
reasonable confidence that the driver knows the area, or a minicab (of
which Uber is a subset) where the driver may not. If you don't know
where you're going, and can't figure it out, that's a pretty good
indicator a minicab driver won't either,

That's nonsense because the minicab is driving around the streets all
day, every day of the week. Of course he'll be more familiar than I am
about where some random destination I've never been before might be
located.

in which case you probably ought to be paying the higher price for the
premium service offered by a proper Hackney carriage.

There's nothing wrong, on the face of it, with a minicab company
externalising much of its 'local knowledge' to the passengers, as long
as we understand it won't work for everyone.

A rubicon that was crossed a long time ago by the minicab industry, and
has been greatly alleviated by GPS based navigation methods.

Minicab drivers, especially in the provinces, do often know where places
are "the Hilton somewhere near Stansted Airport", and so on.

A google search provided its location on a map in less than 3 seconds

I deliberate picked an example that even the numptiest minicab driver
should be able to find. Having said that there was an ambulance that
couldn't find Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge in the news about a
year ago.

more than the time it took me to type "hilton stansted airport" into
google search. The point is, the overlap between "places I (or a
minicab driver) can't find on google" and "places people set out to go
to without knowing where they are" is tiny.

Read the examples posted at the weekend. There are many arising from
just a couple of straw polls.

And that's before we look at the Digital Divide and possible
disadvantages to people looking
for timely and affordable traditional solutions.

That ship sailed a long time ago. There is pretty much no aspect of
any part of travelling from one place to another in the modern world in
which the most timely and affordable solutions are available without an
internet connection. If this were uk.railway I would mention goats.

That's simply not true. I'm very happy to catch buses without any input
from the Internet - just a timetable and map at the bus stop.

You might be happy to do this, but it is definitely not the most
"timely and affordable" way of doing things.

It's more affordable than buying a smartphone.

Just the other day I was going to a friend's house in greater London,
and wanted to get a bus from the station to avoid a 20 minute walk.
There are two potential routes, leaving from two different bus stops by
the station. If I went with your "go to the bus stop and see what I
get" approach, I have a 50/50 chance of picking the wrong one and
getting a less timely journey. As it happened I used modern technology
to solve this problem, and was able to find out which bus was better
based on the specific circumstances of my journey. Of course your
solution also fails if the information displayed on the bus stop is out
of date or rendered illegible due to vandalism.

And where I live there are only two bus stops in the High Street, twenty
feet apart.
--
Roland Perry