History Of Transportation In The United States
New Era of Transportation Today In the United States, a new era of “taxi” like transportation is rapidly approaching. With the help of smart phones, mobile apps have created a new way of getting around. The new trend of transportation goes under the pseudo name of “ride sharing”, the question is, will the yellow cab cease to exist? In Malcolm Gladwell’s book the The Tipping point he discusses trends similar to that of “ride-sharing” and how they became to be popular. Companies such as Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber; have provided a service of transportation never seen before. Its like picking up a hitch hiker but in this situation the passenger isn't a threat to your safety, instead a consumer who wants to pay for a ride. The traditional taxi service is becoming less appropriate for todays interconnected society. This is why its been easy for tech companies to jump in on the transportation market. According to Lyft “One million Lyft rides have been shared since our launch last
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year but, most importantly to Lyft, 95% of those one million rides were rated 5 stars.” (Vator) These are 1 million consumers taxi services failed to obtain last year. Popular ride-sharing companies like Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber. Have created a reliable, faster and cheaper way to get around. It allows anyone to make money from rides, much like a taxi-driver, except ride-sharing drivers are allowed to use his/her own car and avoid paying the costly requirements that commercial drivers are forced to follow. The rapid expansion of ride sharing services will continue to grow and this new era of transportation will overtake the taxi service we are all familiar with. San Francisco based companies Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar have created a new era of transportation. They allow drivers to be their own boss and the ability to work at their own pace. Lyft, the pink mustache service, focuses on creating a community of drivers that are friendly and social. Uber’s business model is to provide a private, black car (luxurious) taxi service that users can call at the push of a button. It's similar to the service Lyft provides. The differences between Lyft and Uber is that Lyft’s goal is to build a service that is friendly and trustworthy, while Uber provides more of a private sleek fancy black car ride-sharing service. Sidecars peer-to-peer ride-sharing service is different from Lyft and Uber, it lets drivers set their own prices. Sidecar allows drivers and passengers to make their own decisions. As Paul the CEO of Sidecar states “Sometimes you want the nicer ride, sometimes you want the bigger capacity. Sometimes you want the guy with the Harry Potter audio books.” Sidecars purpose is to give consumers more options and help drivers make more money. The Sidecar app asks for your destination so drivers can say how much they'd charge to take you. (Sidecar) The various amount of options these companies have available for drivers and passengers compared to that of a taxi services is whats making this new transportation method so popular. As kooky as they sound at first, these apps do simplify the process of getting a ride. Rather than hailing a cab or calling a taxi dispatcher, you launch an app. Your phone tells the service where you are and shows you the nearest potential rides on a map with little car icons crawling around the screen like gerbils. Ride sharing companies have been successful at providing faster and more reliable service better than taxi services through a push of button. Taxi services have been unreliable for the past few years. A survey from the Taxi Service Commission conducted in 2012 reports “The inquiry found widespread customer dissatisfaction with taxi services, particularly around the quality of drivers, the reliability and accountability of booking services, the availability of services at peak periods and the ‘value for money’ provided by services.” (TSC) According to Rhetoric of Argument by Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor states that a causes that forces an event to actually happen is known as a “precipitating cause”, it triggers something before the effect. The unreliability taxi cabs have had in the past years is a significant part on why these ride-sharing companies came to exist. Taxi cabs regularly face complaints on how they drive or lack of service. In the TSC survey people were asked “what part of taxi services makes you the most unhappy?” The inquiry found “Driver quality is the main source of customer dissatisfaction with taxi services. The most common concerns include drivers with inadequate local knowledge, short trip fare refusals, poor personal behavior (such as drivers being discourteous, unhelpful or rude), unsafe driving practices and dirty cabs.”(TSC) The unreliable services taxi companies are delivering to the public are causing a downfall of consumers in the taxi industry. The poor managed taxi services are contributing to the growth of the ride-sharing trend. This new era of transportation has created new employment opportunities due to the popularity of the trend. The opportunity to work from your car without paying the expensive licenses taxi drivers have to pay to operate. Will have this trend spread quickly. To better understand the trend of ride-sharing apps, we need to understand the “conditions” and “influences” behind it. According to a Rhetoric of Argument, both terms are related, a condition explains what is going on physically in society and how it effects how a situation or event occurs, where as the influence is a condition that affects the speed at which an event or situation takes place (Fahnestock) The condition of trend is the development of ride-sharing apps and how they have created the process of contacting a transportation service easier than ever. Smartphone users simply open the app, tap a button, and are picked up by a personal driver within minutes. (Equities) Companies like Lyft, Uber and Sidecar, have grown rapidly in San Francisco because of how easy it is to use their service. To be come a driver you must go through a background check, for safety reasons. Also your personal car you'll be working with has to meet company requirements. Driving your car and getting payed to give people rides is an influence that has helped the growth of the ride sharing industry. It influences the trend because it attracts more people to work as drivers. Many drivers enjoy working at Lyft because it allows drivers to choose their hours, drive their own car and makeup to $35/hr. (lyft) A job doesn't have to be 9 to 5, ride-sharing companies allow drivers to work at their own time. Some drivers at these companies can make more than $800 just driving friday nights and weekends. The trend of ride-sharing has made driving fun again, with the rise of drivers the trend will continue to develop and quickly overtake the taxi industry. The trend has spread rapidly because of the strong working environments these companies have build made of friendly and trustworthy people. The new era of transportation services have created a “connector” based working environment. A “connector”, as Gladwell defines it, it someone who “is sprinkled among every walk of life, in other words, are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances.”(Gladwell) Ride-sharing companies encourage social people to become drivers, having someone who is social and friendly to all passengers helps build the business. Their focus is to build a strong friendly service that doesn't feel like a service, but instead a community of people who appreciate this method of transportation. According to Techcrunch “This sounds like something you do when your best friend picks you up, and that is exactly the experience that super-hot ride-sharing service Lyft wants to emulate.” (Techcrunch) The community Lyft has built is a group of connectors who love to talk and bump fists all day long. This new era of transportation has grown rapidly in the past few months which has caused Lyft to reach a company milestone. “Thanks to our incredible drivers and passengers around the country, one million Lyft rides have been shared since our launch” (Lyft) A connector based community is significant for the growth of these companies. Connectors are a important part of the ride sharing trend because they are trustworthy and social outgoing people who allocate better services then taxi cab drivers. The marketing techniques and reliable services ride-sharing companies have been providing are spreading the trend like wildfire. Pink mustaches from Lyft, black luxurious cars from Uber, and Sidecars lightning bolts relate to one of the terms in the book The Tipping Point. According to Gladwell one the three rules of epidemics is the “stickiness factor” (Gladwell). He states that the “stickiness factor” is when a message makes an impact and the person is unable get the message out of their head. It sticks in your memory. (Gladwell) Ride-sharing apps have become memorable because of there services they have developed through the employment of “Connectors”. Lyft, Uber and Sidecar have created a product that captivates users. These apps have become memorable because how reliable they have been transporting people around in our fast pace society. The convergence which is responsible for the popularity of the trend is the advancement of technology, and the community of connectors these companies have built. They have spawned a new market of mobile apps that have innovated a new era of transportation never seen before. Ride-sharing companies have influenced people to work as drivers and have the ability to get payed for giving people rides. Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber have created a community of connectors who are friendly and trust worthy. The stickiness factor is not only a funny marketing item in front of the car but is also the excellent service drivers provides to all passengers. Based on the Statistics: society may be approaching the age were the yellow cab many be no longer exist.
Work cited
Goldman, Joe.
“Startups Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar are revolutionizing Transportation.” Consumer- discretionary. Equities, 23 Jul. 2013. Web. 11 May. 2014
Gladwell, Malcolm. “Chapter 2 and 3.” The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston, Little, Brown, 2000. 31-132. Print
Fahnestock, Jeanne, and Marie Secor. “Chapter 7 Causal Argument.” A Rhetoric of Argument. New York: Random House, 1982. 179-227 . print.
W, Darren. “Lyft Transportation.” Yelp. San Francisco, 11 May. 2014. Web. 11 May. 2014
Tam, Donna. “Ride-sharing service Sidecar lets drivers name their own prices.”Cnet. San Francisco, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 May. 2014
“Uber.” Uber. San Francisco, Web. 11 May. 2014
“Lyft.” Lyft. San Francisco, Web. 11 May. 2014
Fels, Allan. “Consumer First service, safety, choice” Taxi Services commission. taxi.vic, 23, may. 2012. Web. 11 May. 2014
Lawler, Ryan. “Ride-sharing service.” Techcruch. 18 Oct. 2012. Web. 11 May.
2014
year but, most importantly to Lyft, 95% of those one million rides were rated 5 stars.” (Vator) These are 1 million consumers taxi services failed to obtain last year. Popular ride-sharing companies like Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber. Have created a reliable, faster and cheaper way to get around. It allows anyone to make money from rides, much like a taxi-driver, except ride-sharing drivers are allowed to use his/her own car and avoid paying the costly requirements that commercial drivers are forced to follow. The rapid expansion of ride sharing services will continue to grow and this new era of transportation will overtake the taxi service we are all familiar with. San Francisco based companies Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar have created a new era of transportation. They allow drivers to be their own boss and the ability to work at their own pace. Lyft, the pink mustache service, focuses on creating a community of drivers that are friendly and social. Uber’s business model is to provide a private, black car (luxurious) taxi service that users can call at the push of a button. It's similar to the service Lyft provides. The differences between Lyft and Uber is that Lyft’s goal is to build a service that is friendly and trustworthy, while Uber provides more of a private sleek fancy black car ride-sharing service. Sidecars peer-to-peer ride-sharing service is different from Lyft and Uber, it lets drivers set their own prices. Sidecar allows drivers and passengers to make their own decisions. As Paul the CEO of Sidecar states “Sometimes you want the nicer ride, sometimes you want the bigger capacity. Sometimes you want the guy with the Harry Potter audio books.” Sidecars purpose is to give consumers more options and help drivers make more money. The Sidecar app asks for your destination so drivers can say how much they'd charge to take you. (Sidecar) The various amount of options these companies have available for drivers and passengers compared to that of a taxi services is whats making this new transportation method so popular. As kooky as they sound at first, these apps do simplify the process of getting a ride. Rather than hailing a cab or calling a taxi dispatcher, you launch an app. Your phone tells the service where you are and shows you the nearest potential rides on a map with little car icons crawling around the screen like gerbils. Ride sharing companies have been successful at providing faster and more reliable service better than taxi services through a push of button. Taxi services have been unreliable for the past few years. A survey from the Taxi Service Commission conducted in 2012 reports “The inquiry found widespread customer dissatisfaction with taxi services, particularly around the quality of drivers, the reliability and accountability of booking services, the availability of services at peak periods and the ‘value for money’ provided by services.” (TSC) According to Rhetoric of Argument by Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor states that a causes that forces an event to actually happen is known as a “precipitating cause”, it triggers something before the effect. The unreliability taxi cabs have had in the past years is a significant part on why these ride-sharing companies came to exist. Taxi cabs regularly face complaints on how they drive or lack of service. In the TSC survey people were asked “what part of taxi services makes you the most unhappy?” The inquiry found “Driver quality is the main source of customer dissatisfaction with taxi services. The most common concerns include drivers with inadequate local knowledge, short trip fare refusals, poor personal behavior (such as drivers being discourteous, unhelpful or rude), unsafe driving practices and dirty cabs.”(TSC) The unreliable services taxi companies are delivering to the public are causing a downfall of consumers in the taxi industry. The poor managed taxi services are contributing to the growth of the ride-sharing trend. This new era of transportation has created new employment opportunities due to the popularity of the trend. The opportunity to work from your car without paying the expensive licenses taxi drivers have to pay to operate. Will have this trend spread quickly. To better understand the trend of ride-sharing apps, we need to understand the “conditions” and “influences” behind it. According to a Rhetoric of Argument, both terms are related, a condition explains what is going on physically in society and how it effects how a situation or event occurs, where as the influence is a condition that affects the speed at which an event or situation takes place (Fahnestock) The condition of trend is the development of ride-sharing apps and how they have created the process of contacting a transportation service easier than ever. Smartphone users simply open the app, tap a button, and are picked up by a personal driver within minutes. (Equities) Companies like Lyft, Uber and Sidecar, have grown rapidly in San Francisco because of how easy it is to use their service. To be come a driver you must go through a background check, for safety reasons. Also your personal car you'll be working with has to meet company requirements. Driving your car and getting payed to give people rides is an influence that has helped the growth of the ride sharing industry. It influences the trend because it attracts more people to work as drivers. Many drivers enjoy working at Lyft because it allows drivers to choose their hours, drive their own car and makeup to $35/hr. (lyft) A job doesn't have to be 9 to 5, ride-sharing companies allow drivers to work at their own time. Some drivers at these companies can make more than $800 just driving friday nights and weekends. The trend of ride-sharing has made driving fun again, with the rise of drivers the trend will continue to develop and quickly overtake the taxi industry. The trend has spread rapidly because of the strong working environments these companies have build made of friendly and trustworthy people. The new era of transportation services have created a “connector” based working environment. A “connector”, as Gladwell defines it, it someone who “is sprinkled among every walk of life, in other words, are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances.”(Gladwell) Ride-sharing companies encourage social people to become drivers, having someone who is social and friendly to all passengers helps build the business. Their focus is to build a strong friendly service that doesn't feel like a service, but instead a community of people who appreciate this method of transportation. According to Techcrunch “This sounds like something you do when your best friend picks you up, and that is exactly the experience that super-hot ride-sharing service Lyft wants to emulate.” (Techcrunch) The community Lyft has built is a group of connectors who love to talk and bump fists all day long. This new era of transportation has grown rapidly in the past few months which has caused Lyft to reach a company milestone. “Thanks to our incredible drivers and passengers around the country, one million Lyft rides have been shared since our launch” (Lyft) A connector based community is significant for the growth of these companies. Connectors are a important part of the ride sharing trend because they are trustworthy and social outgoing people who allocate better services then taxi cab drivers. The marketing techniques and reliable services ride-sharing companies have been providing are spreading the trend like wildfire. Pink mustaches from Lyft, black luxurious cars from Uber, and Sidecars lightning bolts relate to one of the terms in the book The Tipping Point. According to Gladwell one the three rules of epidemics is the “stickiness factor” (Gladwell). He states that the “stickiness factor” is when a message makes an impact and the person is unable get the message out of their head. It sticks in your memory. (Gladwell) Ride-sharing apps have become memorable because of there services they have developed through the employment of “Connectors”. Lyft, Uber and Sidecar have created a product that captivates users. These apps have become memorable because how reliable they have been transporting people around in our fast pace society. The convergence which is responsible for the popularity of the trend is the advancement of technology, and the community of connectors these companies have built. They have spawned a new market of mobile apps that have innovated a new era of transportation never seen before. Ride-sharing companies have influenced people to work as drivers and have the ability to get payed for giving people rides. Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber have created a community of connectors who are friendly and trust worthy. The stickiness factor is not only a funny marketing item in front of the car but is also the excellent service drivers provides to all passengers. Based on the Statistics: society may be approaching the age were the yellow cab many be no longer exist.
Work cited
Goldman, Joe.
“Startups Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar are revolutionizing Transportation.” Consumer- discretionary. Equities, 23 Jul. 2013. Web. 11 May. 2014
Gladwell, Malcolm. “Chapter 2 and 3.” The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston, Little, Brown, 2000. 31-132. Print
Fahnestock, Jeanne, and Marie Secor. “Chapter 7 Causal Argument.” A Rhetoric of Argument. New York: Random House, 1982. 179-227 . print.
W, Darren. “Lyft Transportation.” Yelp. San Francisco, 11 May. 2014. Web. 11 May. 2014
Tam, Donna. “Ride-sharing service Sidecar lets drivers name their own prices.”Cnet. San Francisco, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 May. 2014
“Uber.” Uber. San Francisco, Web. 11 May. 2014
“Lyft.” Lyft. San Francisco, Web. 11 May. 2014
Fels, Allan. “Consumer First service, safety, choice” Taxi Services commission. taxi.vic, 23, may. 2012. Web. 11 May. 2014
Lawler, Ryan. “Ride-sharing service.” Techcruch. 18 Oct. 2012. Web. 11 May.
2014