from Hacker News

Introducing Driver Destination

by kyleslattery on 11/25/14, 7:44 PM with 118 comments

• by kalvin on 11/25/14, 11:33 PM

  I'm happy Lyft is demonstrating that it actually cares about its core/founding values of decreasing car usage.

  They could have viewed this as a distraction to expanding its existing dedicated-driver model, in order to better compete against Uber. (Lyft Line is just multiple passengers; Sidecar already does "driver destination" aka real carpooling, but they're also playing a different game focusing on drivers in general, and don't have the scale Lyft does)

  If they can get traction, they'll have cracked a problem that many people have tried to solve and failed at: how do you get Americans to carpool?

  Context: Lyft's founders pivoted into Lyft from Zimride after five years of building white-labeled carpool sites for colleges/companies + a public long-distance carpool/rideshare board, and discovering that a) that's not a VC-scale business, and b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start

  Anyway, I use Lyft over Uber when possible for many reasons, but this is one-- they started out trying to improve society in a particular way, and still are, even as they've changed their approach. And I think they should be commended for setting an example for how to achieve an activist-y goal through a startup/company. Or since it's not achieved yet, at least trying.

  (I have no affiliation with Lyft, see my profile.)

• by eli on 11/25/14, 8:22 PM

  Shared carpooling (called "slugging" here) has a been a viable commuting option for people in the DC area for decades. No money changes hands; the point is that a car with 3+ people can use the much faster HOV lanes.

  http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp

• by allendoerfer on 11/26/14, 1:28 AM

  Flinc [0], a start-up from Germany, does exactly this but in real time, too. It can hook up with the drivers navigation software so they are only asked to pick someone up, when it does not change their own route.

  I highly prefer this model over the classic Uber/Lyft service, because it actually delivers on the promises of the sharing economy. Resources are shared, from which both parties and the general public benefit. Its not just taxis with lower wages.

  Of course, critical mass is a bigger problem with this model, but there is the obvious entry point of white-label ride sharing platforms for companies, which flinc does, too.

  I think, it is about as cool as it gets, until I get my self-driving car, which transports passengers on-demand the whole day after it drove me to work, from time to time being recharged on inductive parking spots, powered by green energy.

  [0]: https://flinc.org/

• by fraserharris on 11/25/14, 9:22 PM

  The messaging here is off. "Driver Destination" implies it has generalized applications -> be a Lyft driver where ever you are going. In practice, they need to get traction in the one big market for this: commuters. Better marketing will call it what it is: Lyft Commute - share a ride from home to work

  (claiming the product name 'Commute' also stops Uber from using it)

• by awwstn on 11/25/14, 8:35 PM

  This is really great – though I wonder if Lyft runs the risk of people making the connection once (i.e. finding a person with similar commute times/locations who is willing to pay for rides) and deciding to arrange a paid carpool that doesn't go through Lyft.

• by DigitalSea on 11/26/14, 5:35 AM

  I am late to the Lyft party, but after recently leaving Uber because I did not agree with their questionable business ethics and attitude toward their customers, I must say I find the whole Lyft experience somewhat refreshing.

  Funnily enough, my first Lyft driver I had a week or so ago was telling me he leaves home a couple of hours earlier, does a couple of trips close by to his work and then on the way home from work he turns the app on and most of the time he is fortunate to get a ride that is going the same direction, so it pays his way home.

  Not an entirely new premise, car-pooling has always been a thing, but for my driver (his name was Brett) this is going to be an awesome feature and I imagined many other Lyft drivers. I like the feature of the app that allows you to tip drivers a little something extra when a driver has gone beyond what you are paying them for. In my first experience, Brett offered me and my pregnant wife a muesli bar, bottled water and even held an umbrella for us while we got in and out of the car.

  Seriously good job Lyft, you have a superior app/service and great drivers, you just need to get the numbers up and get some more brand awareness.

• by Rambition on 11/25/14, 9:06 PM

  20 years ago, I lived in a house that had a city implemented carpool pickup spot in the East Bay - every morning carpoolers would line up and wait for a rid into SF to get through via the carpool lane, back when the toll was only $2.

  Since it was city property, I don't believe my parents got anything out of it, and we couldn't park in front of our house Mon - Fri mornings, my brother did have the enterprising idea of selling coffee in the mornings, much like a lemonade stand with a forced audience.

  Seems like there was a demand for this type of service 20 years back though, interesting to see it is still an issue that companies are looking to solve today.

• by smokey_the_bear on 11/25/14, 9:02 PM

  This could work really well for things like getting to Tahoe on the weekends too.

• by nostromo on 11/25/14, 8:35 PM

  The TechCrunch article is much more informative.

  http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/25/lyft-driver-destination/

• by jrkelly on 11/25/14, 9:11 PM

  So lyft for the burbs and uber for the cities, then? Burbs require non-professional drivers (i.e. daily commuters) to become drivers since ride request density isn't high enough to support professional drivers.

• by tcdent on 11/26/14, 1:29 AM

  Having grown up with California's carpool lanes (a lane reserved for vehicles with two or more riders) I've always expected the number of commuters that are able to take advantage of it has to be minimal. In my experience, having that additional passenger only happens on special occasions; it never happens on the morning commute. This is what the carpool lane has always needed to be successful; networking.

• by mmanfrin on 11/26/14, 12:02 AM

  Man, I was thinking about this last night, how I could use my morning and evening commutes to take people home on my way home -- since I'd either stay in the city (killing time for traffic to die down), or be paid to sit in my normal evening traffic home across the bay. Only hiccup would be if I had a fare taking me to the south bay, but that seems a reasonable gamble.

• by kosei on 11/25/14, 9:00 PM

  Very interesting. The most important thing to me personally is convenience, which is an itch that I believe this scratches. If I'm able to input that I'm going somewhere and this will help automatically direct me to people I can pickup and drop off on the way, it avoids the huge hassle of coordination. Additionally, it (presumably) helps with the issue of liability?

• by michaelvkpdx on 11/25/14, 8:52 PM

  Trying to charge people for carpooling, something we've traditionally done for free. The "sharing economy" isn't about sharing- it's about monetizing free things and taking a cut.

  This is not in any way improving humanity. It's a step backwards.

• by monksy on 11/25/14, 8:16 PM

  That seems like it's going after a very small segment of the market.

• by judk on 11/26/14, 4:16 AM

  I remember when this was called carpooling. Weird to put the branding on it. But these days nothing counts unless it's in service of some corporate brand.

• by DINKDINK on 11/25/14, 8:30 PM

  Sidecar has had this functionality for a long time.

• by muzz on 11/25/14, 9:04 PM

  This is more inline with what the founders worked on originally, a ride-sharing service called ZimRide

• by belzebub on 11/25/14, 8:21 PM

  In a similar vein this could be used to replace restaurant delivery drivers.

• by zyxley on 11/25/14, 8:20 PM

  Procedural carpooling. Neat.

• by zan2434 on 11/26/14, 3:01 AM

  This is brilliant. Lyft is doing everything right as of late.

• by unicornporn on 11/25/14, 9:42 PM

  So, will this work in Sweden? The Google Play page says nothing about geographical restrictions, but it speaks about "DMV checks" which I have no idea what it is.

  Seems Americans sometimes forget that the internet is a global network.

• by pinaceae on 11/25/14, 8:46 PM

  ass backwards. you want the next bn dollar idea?

  while I am at work, my car sits in the parking lot of the building for 8-10hours, unused.

  i don't want to be a lyft/uber driver. i want MY CAR to work for uber/lyft in its off hours. have a driver pick it up in the morning at the office, then return it when i want to get home (full gas tank and cleaned car for an extra fee).

  someone takes this and get rich.