History reads that the first concepts of taxi’s started in 17th century with horse carriages, continued to from then to develop aiming at better service , speed etc , and obviously the concept totally changed with the invention of cars.
It wasn’t until 1891 when the taximeter was invented, and the world’s first dedicated taxi in 1897 called “Daimler Victoria”. Since then and over time , the service of taxi has evolved massively as the growth of human population , massive expansion of cities , rising costs of fuel, car ownership etc has fueled multiple variations of the taxi service . However I have to admit I have not seen a great leap in the quality of the service like what I noticed with Uber.
I know I am bit late in talking about Uber , after all I think they have spread now in some 200+ cities across the globe , but my intense interaction with Uber in the past month has been a massive eye opener to me on how technology has influenced our life in a positive way , and managed to revamp a service that is centuries old. I had to stop and write a review on Uber both as a customer but also as a technology professional.
I happen to use Uber in 3 different cities in the last month Cairo, London and Paris. Immediately a couple of important things catch you eye :
- How the service is almost the same across 3 different countries, where drivers coming from different cultures, yet the company managed to dictate and enforce a certain quality of service that you can not miss.
- No driver in what I think 15 something drivers I have been with in the last month has created a different variation of the service, attempted to make alterations or add like I would say their own “touch” to the service.
- Across the 3 countries, the price of service was always less than the regular price you would get from any of regular taxi’s you can stop on the road. (on regular pricing from Uber not in Surge price times , we will come to that later )
If you also google Uber you could not miss that they have raised some issues in some cities and caused traditional taxi drivers to go on protest, which honestly I find very comical . Imagine if mail service workers go on protest objecting on the availability of email cause it has caused a reduction in their business! I think with Uber technology has struck once again, left a mark on something very traditional and conventional that has no means of turning back.
Despite my overall extremely positive impression about Uber , I have to say there are still some vague points for me on how they operate that on the long run Uber as a company will have to tackle , to name a few :
- The concept of surge pricing still seems to me to be following some unknown guidelines. I have seen at instances the surge factor go to 2.2 , but I have seen people talk about a x7 factor. Regardless of it does go to that level or not , the company needs to get into explaining why and when apart from the standard sentence of we apply surge pricing to get more Uber’s on the road .
- From a technology point of view I think Uber can further leverage technology to boost a few more extra features like :
- When no cars are available allow the user to request and launch the call to the Uber drivers, maybe someone wants to go the extra mile and go execute on the ride.
- Leveraging better analytics of the pattern of their drivers to indicate when a car can be next available if no cars are available.
- Expand on the concept of charging to corporate credit cards , and making Uber the preferred service for large corporates when their employees travel , looking at ways to integrate with corporate used applications like Concur , Tripit etc..
- Integrate with one of the free messaging/calls apps like Whatsapp , Facebook messenger to allow more cheaper communication between passengers and drivers.
Overall I have to say I was impressed by the concept , the service and the easy way in which I consumed the service.
Long live Technology!!