from Hacker News

With Lyft Line, Passengers Can Split Fares for Shared Rides

by cstigler on 8/6/14, 4:35 PM with 103 comments

• by ladon86 on 8/6/14, 5:01 PM

  Lyft already has the full implementation in their app. Uber has a beta sign up list and a blog post. Occam's razor says that Uber got wind of this launch and quickly wrote up a blog post announcing the same thing in order to spear it.

• by evv on 8/6/14, 5:51 PM

  Everybody is talking about Uber's announcement, but Sidecar is also apparently experimenting with the same thing:

  http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/29/sidecar-shareable-rides/

  There are also many ways to grow the product: for example, I know that Uber will be getting into local package delivery before too long. It looks like Lyft/Sidecar/Hitch/Flywheel are keeping them on their toes in the meantime.

  One thing is certain: there is cutthroat competition in this industry that will only benefit the consumers.

• by matthewowen on 8/6/14, 6:41 PM

  Something I find interesting about this is that it weakens the notion of the app being a relatively pure marketplace connecting a driver to a rider. The more that these features emerge, the more complex the relationships, and the more prominent the role of Lyft/Uber/Sidecar as more than a "mere" broker.

  I wonder how much we're going to see things go full circle, and have a more employee-like relationship between drivers and these services (see also the "guaranteed wage" that these services have been offering to some drivers at peak hours).

• by dkrich on 8/6/14, 5:05 PM

  This is an awesome idea, but I wonder why it is debuting solely in San Francisco. Not that it doesn't make sense there (I'm not familiar with the city), but cities with Airports that are greater than 20 miles or so from dense urban areas (D.C., Atlanta, Dallas, etc.) seems like a huge market for this and a natural fit.

  Shorter distance rides aren't worth the hassle, and airport rides are a constant pain in the ass and a nearly 24/7 market.

• by 3Pi on 8/6/14, 8:22 PM

  Working in the vehicle routing industry, this is something that I has passed through my mind on more than one occasion. I'm quite pleased to see it implemented - I definitely did not have the means.

  In my mind, this sort of product is a great stepping stone towards the reduction in personal cars - it's starting to bring the cost of travelling down by sharing, hopefully by enough to make it accessible to less well-off people. I certainly couldn't afford a taxi to work every day. If this sort of service really takes off, it will hopefully also reduce the number of cars on the road, reducing congestion.

  The obvious next step for this sort of service is to use self-driving cars, reducing the cost even further as there are no drivers to pay.

  It is obviously an idea whose time has come, and I'm glad!

• by mattzito on 8/6/14, 4:49 PM

  Is this just a response to UberPool? Or vice-versa? It just seems curious to me that within 48 hours the two biggest car-sharing providers launch the same feature.

  Or did they hear the other was working on it and rushed it out the door?

• by twright on 8/6/14, 5:04 PM

  The video on the landing is well produced enough that it doesn't look like they just rushed this out, maybe shoved it though.

  > Cheaper than a breakfast burrito.

  What kind of burritos are they eating!?

• by gkoberger on 8/6/14, 5:38 PM

  Interestingly, this was how Lyft started (as a company called Zimride). That concept didn't take off and the Lyft one did, so they shuttered this a long time ago. They've come full circle.

• by Shenglong on 8/7/14, 2:54 AM

  "Sub solen nihil novi este"

  I've been backpacking around SE Asia for a few months now, and this sort of system has been active on an ad hoc basis for years in Chiang Mai, Thailand. There, it's expected that "red cars" (seemingly the only active taxis), will pick up other passengers.

  They'll stop for passengers flagging them down, and check location before issuing a quote, if in fact they're on the way. While this made traveling really cheap, there were times where a 10-minute trip stretched into over half an hour. I'm interested to see whether these services will customize allowable wait times to the individual, or whether all ride-sharers have roughly the same tolerance for delays.

  But, to say that any one company copied another in this case is a pretty stupid argument to make. I asked myself this question the first time I rode with Uber, and I'm sure many of you have as well. I would imagine that any good PM would've thoroughly investigated it; it's pretty obvious.

• by ryderm on 8/6/14, 4:48 PM

  Wow, how do lyft and uber manage to launch the same thing at the same time?

• by jonmc12 on 8/6/14, 6:58 PM

  I've been using Hitch the last month or so, and Sidecar has had the functionality for some time as well. Its cool to see Lyft and Uber offering the service.

  IMO, a big win for consumers, because offering more service-level options, and driving down pricing. With Hitch, it usually costs me $9 for what costs $16-22 on UberX, Lyft or Sidecar. Thats a nice savings, even if it takes me 10min more to get home. I could really see mass adoption coming from the service who nails this and provides the option that is better than Muni, but cheaper than individual car service.

  Another aspect of this service I wasn't ready for was that the social dynamic can completely change the ride-sharing experience. Its different when you are just chatting with a driver, vs a 3rd or 4th stranger jumping in the car. It will be interesting to see how others react and expectations evolve as it becomes mainstream.

• by pinkyand on 8/6/14, 5:27 PM

  Theoretically, since UBER support 6-passenger vans(UBERXL), they could offer almost half the price of lyft, on the right rides.

  Assuming people accept this, van availability would be a critical component of the competition in this field.

• by pastalex on 8/10/14, 3:09 AM

  Bandwagon, based in NY, has been doing this kind of ridesharing. They pointed out that Uber/Lyft's 'ridesharing' model wasn't really ridesharing (now it kinda is). See https://medium.com/@HiBandwagon

  and they work on taxi lines at airports, events: http://blog.bandwagon.io/post/92569728340/meet-the-hop-lane-...

• by surrealize on 8/6/14, 4:50 PM

  It wasn't clear if uber was going to start asking about destinations for uberpool. But lyft specifically mentions that; it seems necessary to do good matching. And the extra effort seems minimal.

• by kristint on 8/6/14, 8:09 PM

  But this was Lyft vision a LONG time ago- they started as a carpool app called Zimride, which didn't take off as quickly without mobile in the state it is today.

• by gordon_freeman on 8/6/14, 5:35 PM

  Does this mean You can split the fare with your friends (people you know) or even with complete strangers who want to share the same route as yours? Both features need different approaches and I guess the later one will drag down cost of transpiration much lower.

• by fivethree on 8/7/14, 3:41 PM

  How could they roll out this marvelous new idea so quickly. Uber was genius to think of this radical concept, "splitting a cab," there is no way Lyft could come up with it so quickly on their own.

• by sgustard on 8/6/14, 8:30 PM

  Honest question. When I read a sentence like this: "the guys at Lyft got to talking with the guys at Rover and they decided to work together instead."

  Does "guys" imply the teams are all male? Is that relevant, or just reflect the casual sexism of the Valley? Or is "guys" a truly universal term and this just reflects an excessively lazy/casual writing style for a supposed news outlet?

• by sbisker on 8/7/14, 1:43 AM

  Has anyone tried this yet? How was it?

• by zaidf on 8/6/14, 6:39 PM

  I wish Lyft would drop the mustache for the balloon in all their branding!

• by vishalzone2002 on 8/6/14, 6:43 PM

  i like lyft much better but I wonder why are not evaluated like uber is from investor's perspective

• by wclax04 on 8/6/14, 9:00 PM

  Little late to the party, ey?

• by dang on 8/6/14, 4:50 PM

  Two posts on this came up at the same time. We've buried the other one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8143303) as a dupe because this one has the active discussion. But we'll change the URL (from https://www.lyft.com/line) because the Techcrunch article provides a lot of background info. Happy to change it back if people prefer.

• by jdprgm on 8/6/14, 4:48 PM

  Now that's some impressive response time.

• by k-mcgrady on 8/6/14, 4:47 PM

  Very cool idea. Not too sure it's something I'd feel comfortable using but the savings would make it very tempting.

• by selectout on 8/6/14, 4:49 PM

  I understand that this is something that Lyft has obviously been working on for quite awhile and put plenty of resources and thought into, but for some reason I still have a sour taste when they launch this just the day after Uber.

  I'm really curious if this was rushed out as a response to Uber or if this specific date/time range was always perceived as the launch time.