Originally Posted by
travelinmanS
Their inability to do anything about the taxi situation in Lujiazui is ridiculous. Fining Uber drivers on top of this is absurd, unless someone is making some serious coin out of the current situation. I imagine this is the case.
I still contend that the taxi apps are the worst thing that's happened to Shanghai in terms of transportation over the last 2 years. It used to be absolutely no problem to get a taxi in the city. Now you have to put up with 10 drivers with no passengers driving by you before one will stop. Uber is a temporary situation that I imagine will be shut down at some point. Even they are getting crazy with 3x surge pricing and 50 RMB minimums on Sunday evening when there were taxis available everywhere.
I agree with you that taxi apps a horrid on multiple levels. In addition to making it impossible to find taxis the old fashioned way (so you must use taxi apps), I'm not alone in finding the constant broadcasts of waiting passengers to be incessantly annoying (even more so than the latest generation ad serving seat back TVs that are harder than ever to turn off).
Uber is a little different because, instead of reallocating existing supply to passengers who use apps, it creates additional supply.
Furthermore, Peoples Uber non surge prices are significantly cheaper than taxis in most circumstances. That having been said, I've started to notice a serious bump in the frequency and amount of surges... which, often seem to have no rhyme or reason behind them. They are definitely playing around with Sunday nights (e.g. 3.2x), which as you intimate, certainly isn't tied to demand.
@
marcwdebeer, I too am curious about where you traveled to from PEK for Y18, 1/3 of the way to Lido? You really can't make it more than ~10km for Y18 than without a serious discount.