by James A. Bacon
Last week Governor Terry McAuliffe gave the Uber and Lyft ride-sharing services provisional permission to operate in Virginia as long as they comply with minimal standards for hiring drivers. Uber entered the Richmond marketplace around the same time, putting six cars on the road. Rates are competitive with those of local taxicabs but Uber offers the advantage of more timely pick-ups.
While taxicab companies are a political nuisance, using the regulatory apparatus in state after to state to block Uber from the market, the company’s toughest competitor is Lyft, according to a Wall Street Journal piece describing the relationship between the two San Francisco companies as “Tech’s Fiercest Rivalry.” Competition in the business of shared ridership, which includes other start-ups such as Sidecar, is intense. Companies are testing new innovations every day. Some ideas catch on, others fall by the wayside, but the business is evolving rapidly.
The latest permutation, rolled out by the two companies independently on the very same day, is carpooling. Lyft Line and Uber Pool let passengers ride with strangers and split the bill. While the innovation might reduce revenues temporarily, both companies are betting that they can more than offset the loss by growing the size of the shared-rider market.
This is entirely consistent with what I have long predicted: Shared ridership companies will continue to push their innovations “down market” — to less affluent customers — in order to build a larger customer base. Uber started as a company that provided luxury car rides at premium prices. Then it introduced UberX, which provides taxicab-comparable rides. Now it is moving into carpooling. A future next step — and if Uber doesn’t do it, someone else will — will be to introduce a jitney-like van service that provides rides along high-traffic transportation corridors at rates and schedules that are more than competitive with buses.
Hat’s off to the McAuliffe administration for fostering transportation innovation in Virginia rather than stifling it. Stick to your guns. If you think the taxicab companies can raise political hell, just wait until municipal transit companies start complaining that Uber or Uber-like companies are “skimming the cream” of their customer base. This ride ain’t over by a long shot.
