NEW RIDE-SHARE PROGRAM

OPEN TO PROFESSIONAL AND NON-PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS

CEO / FOUNDER OF MOBILOCITY2

HIRING DRIVERS NOW

727-692-9487 Download the FREE mobile app

At Google and Apple Stores…Use the keyword:

mobilocity

FREE sample Volume 1 May

26, 2015

Why Ride Sharing versus Commercial Taxi Medallion Is

Appealing to Professional and Non-Professional Driver

Raymond Ebbeler,

Marketing Director Mobilocity

The mobile app Mobilocity

(Android and Apple stores)

is designed to allow drivers

to have choice since the life

of a taxi driver is a difficult

one.

First and foremost a typical work day has the driver owe about

$100 to their company as payment just for the opportunity to

drive a taxi. At United Taxi, Anthony Michael (a pseudonym

since he is still an employee there) is a seasoned taxi cab

dispatcher and acting supervisor is the founder and CEO of the

Mobilocity mobile app who ofetn hears the complaints of his

drivers since these medallion drivers do not “break even until

halfway through their shift, or maybe not at all that day.” He

quips “in most American cities, they have to work very long

hours just to make a living. So moonlighting is usually the life

of a seasoned driver.”

Problem: during a routine shift, drivers are at risk when they

pick up anonymous customers. The customer could be a

pleasant family that tips them well, a drunk college kid that

vomits in their car, or a violent criminal that robs and assaults

them. After the customer leaves the car, there is no record of

their behavior in the taxi. This is not good for tracking

potential passengers by any standard which translates as loss

of money for the taxi company…

Solution: Mobilocity allows “self-dispatching” as a user-

friendly process that can be done from the privacy of a

driver’s home which means “decentralizing the taxi cab

industry standard” to allow seamless connection for drivers to

stay connected with their potential fair; potential passengers

identifying drivers in real-time their closest driver in their

immediate area through GPS. Wikipedia defines this as an

essential feature of any mobile app that offers ride sharing.

Potential market

A 2010 survey at the University of California, Berkeley found

20% of respondents willing to use real-time ridesharing at

least once a week; and real-time ridesharing was more popular

among current drive-alone commuters (30%) than transit or

non-motorized commuters.

The top obstacles to using real-time ridesharing were short trip

lengths and the added time of ride logistics.

Implementation

Early real-time ridesharing projects began in the 1990s, but

they faced obstacles such as the need to develop a user

network and a convenient means of communication.

Gradually the means of arranging a “ride shifted from

telephone to internet, email, and smartphone; and user

networks were developed around major employers and

universities.” As of 2006, the goal of taxi-like responsiveness

still generally eluded the industry; “next day” responsiveness

was considered the state of the art. More recently taxi-sharing

systems that accept taxi passengers’real-time ride requests via

smartphones have been proposed and studied. A number of

technology companies based in San Francisco premiered apps

for real-time ridesharing around2012. However, in the fall of

2012, the California Public Utilities Commission issued a

cease and desist letter to rideshare companies Lyft, Uber,

Wingz, and Sidecar (see controversy), and fined each $20,000.

In 2013 an agreement was reached reversing those actions,

creating a new category of service called "Transportation

Network Companies" to cover both real-time and scheduled

ride-sharing companies. Transportation Network Companies

have faced regulatory opposition in many other cities,

including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, and

Washington, D.C.

Two dynamic ride-sharing pilots in Norway received

government funds from Transnova in 2011. One pilot in

Bergen had 31 passenger in private cars during one day.

Thirty-nine users acted as drivers or passengers between June

30 and September 15 with four ridesharing episodes or more.

The phone apps that was used was

AvegoDriver and HentMEG. no cell

client, a prototype developed for the

NPRA of Norway. The other pilot is

run by the company Sharepool.

Some more advanced real-time ridesharing features have been

proposed but not implemented. For example, longer trips

might be facilitated using “multihop” matches in which

passengers change cars to reach their final destination.

Dynamicridesharing.org Chan, Nelson and Susan Shaheen.

“Ridesharing in North America: Past, Present, and Future.”

Transportation Research Board, 2010.

United States Department of Transportation. “ADVANCED

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS (2006)

Rationale: As a business psychologist one question that has

always perplexed me regarding medallion taxi cabs is…

Why is it that taxi drivers have to pay their

companies for the privilege of doing a difficult and

dangerous job?

After all, when you show up to your office, you don’t

pay a fee to your boss every morning?

According to the industry standard the reason taxi drivers have

to pay for the “right to work” is that drivers need access to a

“taxi medallion” to do their job – this translates as a costly

option!

The Failure of the Medallion Process IS Low Wages and

Abuse of the Drivers

Since a medallion is a permit issued by the government that is

required for drivers to drive a cab in most cities in America;

driver has the option to rent it out to other drivers on their own

or, more commonly, through a taxi company. Needless to say

that taxi companies that rent out access to the medallions have

immense economic power over the drivers. Often times

“manipulation” can be observed in any given day…

At Mobilocity “we give back control to the drivers” through

our exclusive mobile app that drivers will need to download

for free. Historically Taxi medallions are scarce, which is what

makes them powerful; it also makes them expensive;

medallions sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars on

secondary markets depending on the city.

In most American cities, there is a hard cap on the number of

permits issued. That number doesn’t change for years or even

decades. This scarcity of medallions is also the reason it’s so

hard to find a taxi in many American cities. Another question

that I asked…

”But what if you didn’t need a taxi medallion in order to drive

people around in exchange for money?”

Mobilocity2 is a startup company funded by Anthony Michael

a veteran dispatcher and received the green light to make

available to drivers and passengers their innovative mobile

app named Mobilocity

Mobilocity which is hybrid word for “Mobile” and “Velocity”.

Mobilocity is about “ride-sharing” founded by Anthony

Michael (CEO) and Raymond Ebbeler (CMC) Creative

Marketing Solutions to design and develop a network of two

positions: new and seasoned taxi cab drivers or non-taxi

drivers…where drivers are typically just regular members of

the community driving their own cars around in exchange for

money which IS a win/win proposition based on the growth of

the ride-share industry. Why? The graph below identifies the

direction and salary for medallion – based taxi cab companies

which is below the standard of living.

Mobilocity, is heads and shoulder above the competition

because of their innovative software / mobile app that uses an

agorithm – the definition that Wikipedia give for algorithm (i/ˈælɡərɪðəm/ AL-gə-ri-dhəm) is a self-contained step-by-

step set of operations to be performed. Algorithms exist that

perform calculation, data processing, and automated

reasoning.

Mobilocity’s algorithm is innovative or disruptive technology

(FREE) that can be expressed within a finite amount of space

and time (type of digital device: laptop, tablet, smartphone)

and in a well-defined formal language: real-time interactions

for seamless communication.

Thus an algorithm is a cost-efficient method best expressed

within a finite amount of space and time and in a well-defined

formal language for calculating a destination.

Starting from an initial state and initial input (non-existent

positioning), the instructions describe a formula computation

that, when executed by the driver and / or passenger proceeds

through a finite number of well-defined successive states,

eventually producing "output" and terminating at a final

ending state. The transition from one destination then can be

determined for actual mileage which is through a “virtual

meter” and / or a flat rate

One of the pages of the app

identifies a “menu” for

Making A Booking in real-

time. The passenger starts

from an initial state referred

to as zero-point with the

initial input as “pick up

time.”

The interface(s) are the

keyed inputs as command

instructions which describes

the action done and when

executed properly proceeds

through a finite number of

well-defined successive

states producing an "output”

as a final ending state.

As marketing director I am known as the White Hat Specialist

and believe that “control at you’re finger tips” is about high

tech and soft touch which perpetuates “seamless

communication between drivers and passengers.” The FREE

app download is compatible with Android and Apple

smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Here are the two links

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=mobilocity&c=apps

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobilocity-

./id994605164?mt=8

As a driver the only requirements is access to a car and

Mobilocity’s app which is a feasible alternative (cost efficient)

to becoming a driver for a medallion-based company. Another

question is…

“what would happen to today’s taxi drivers, the owners of

medallions, and the industry that exists to extract value from

the scarcity of the medallion?

The answer is disruptive or innovative technology similar to

the digital camera that destroyed the pola0roid camera for

instant picture development …imagine instant texting from

passengers or personal calls from passengers in a driver’s

immediate vicinity (5-miles) because of GPS or global

positioning service built-in as opposed to commercial GPS

systems that retail for over $100. Because the mobile app is

free this destroys the Taxi Medallion requirement…

The Taxi Medallion Process and Industry outlook

The current infrastructure of the American taxi industry has a

long-term profile which began in New York City when taxi-

medallions were introduced in the 1930’s.

However, in retrospect the technology available in the 1930s

provided limited solutions specific to the taxi safety problem.

This unfortunately spurred other cities to follow. (Many of

these Medallion companies have different names for their

licenses).

Point: the taxi medallion requirement had a negative

consequence - it made taxis scarce. The “right” to

drive a taxi become very valuable as demand

outstripped supply. When this medallion system was

introduced in New York City in 1937, there were

11,787 issued. That number remained constant until

2004. There are only 13,150 in New York. Not very

promising for the growth of the industry

Nevertheless the demand for taxis has increased with supply

relatively fixed, the cost of the medallion in New York City

has skyrocketed to over a million dollars per year

Counterpoint: Unfortunately, after adjusting for

inflation, taxi medallions prices are astronomical

One study found for the city of Boston the price of a

medallion is $625,000. In San Francisco, a driver would need

to have at least 10 hours a week if you want to hold a

medallion and lease it out. While veteran taxi drivers are able

to sell their medallions for $300K; the city of San Francisco

also takes a $100 K commission on the sale.

In the taxi market, there are three players:

Player 1: The medallion holder’s right to operate a taxi,

Player 2. The taxi driver’s cost to the medallion holder to drive the taxi

Player 3. The taxi dispatcher who enforces policy and manipulate drivers

Mobilocity2 obviously want to “give back control to taxi

drivers and non-taxi drivers” as an incentive to becoming self-

employed through self-dispatching by the driver, since as the

middleman, the dispatch company facilitates the transmission

of funds between medallion holders and provides some

infrastructure like scheduling, fleet maintenance, and

occasional customer leads for the taxis. Anthony Michaels

believes in “empowering individuals to take responsibility of

their “work environment” which is integrating all three

because of overlap. Accordingly there is some overlap

between these three entities. Sometimes drivers own

medallions, or taxi companies hold medallions. Still, it’s

useful to isolate these three main economic interests in the taxi

industry. How each of them reacts to industry disruption is

very different.

The Taxing Days of Taxi Drivers

Enter the “passenger” in America, and we often hear stories

about taxis never being around when it’s raining, or they don’t

show up when you need to get to the airport, the interiors are

filthy, and the drivers talk on the phone and drive

aggressively.

While this can make or break a taxi company because of the

negative environment perceived…bear in mind that while

there are bad passengers also, drivers have it even worse.

Mr. Michaels related that “the root cause of taxi drivers’

problems is that they need access to a medallion in order to

drive and make a living.”

“Because of this, taxi companies that distribute

medallion access can charge “high user fees and

freely abuse the drivers. If the drivers don’t like it,

well, then they can’t be taxi drivers then…”

In a research study conducted to determine “job satisfaction”

UCLA professors Gary Blasi and Jacqueline Leavitt found

that taxi drivers work on average 72 hours a week for a

median take home wage of $8.39 per hour.

Not only do they have to pay $2000 in “leasing fees” per

month to taxi companies, but the city regulates health

insurance provided by their companies and 61% of them were

completely without health insurance.

Moreover, the magazine the Boston Globe, published an

underground expose on the Boston taxi industry. One of their

writers (who used to drive a cab in college) started driving a

taxi for a company called Boston Cab. He discovered a corrupt

system where medallion access empowered taxi dispatchers to

abuse drivers.

According to the study’s outcome the fees drivers faced were

unfounded. Boston Cab charged the participant a standard

shift rate of $77, plus an $18 premium for a newer cab, as well

as a city-sanctioned, 30-cent parking violation fee. Factor in

the sales tax ($5.96) and optional collision damage waiver

($5), and his cost per shift is $106.26, not including gas. In

order to get the opportunity to pay this $106 fee, taxi drivers

had to bribe the dispatchers to get good shifts or to drive at all.

The study participant waited around for hours before he could

drive a taxi since he didn’t bribe the dispatchers.

On top of the base fees the driver owed the taxi company for

each day of work, the taxi company would arbitrarily make up

fees that drivers needed to pay. In the Globe reporter’s case:

After every shift, the reporter fills his gas tank at a

station less than three blocks away.

He pumps until the gas gurgles over, once onto his

shoes.

Where a driver is charged extraneous “fees” are third- party

interests Yet when he reaches the garage one night, the gas

attendant tells him he owes the company an additional $2.09.

Conversely, Passengers often complain that they feel unsafe in

a taxi with an aggressive driver. Actually, the drivers are the

ones who have to worry about safety. According to the Bureau

of Labor Statistics, a taxi driver is one of the top ten jobs that

result in work related fatalities. In the case of the Boston

Globe undercover driver, he (and his passengers) ended up in

the hospital when a drunk driver ran a red light and crashed

into his car.

Medallions require that drivers get permission from someone

else to drive a cab. This power asymmetry gives the

medallion-holders a lot of leverage over drivers and it appears

that they abuse it.

Mobile Apps, Smartphones, and Thou

A number of mobile phone apps are replacing taxi dispatch

services and allowing anyone with a car to become a taxi

driver without needing access to a medallion. Interestingly, if

you want to become a taxi driver all you need is a car and an

app that tells you where to pick up passengers.

In the last half decade, two trends conspired to end the taxi

medallion regime. First, people are more comfortable with

trusting strangers.

The below charts show where in San Francisco they get

pickup requests on an average Friday night.

The results are indexed to 100 to keep InstantCab’s (the

showcased taxi service) actual number of requests private.

High demand zones (over 100 pickup requests) are in yellow

and low demand zones (less than 100 pickup requests) are in

blue. Between 4 pm and 7 pm as people get off work on a

Friday, the high demand zones are mostly around “work”

areas.

Past 7 pm, as people head out to dinner and bars, the “hot”

area expands to include most residential neighborhoods.

Past midnight, as people head home from bars, the requests

are mostly along the bar heavy thoroughfares of the city.

This macro view might seem kind of obvious. Sure, after work

taxis should be downtown, during dinner time they should be

where people live, and late at night they should be at the clubs.

A driver might build this intuition on their own after a few

days. But in a world without data, it would take a taxi driver

years to know exactly where in these high demand zones they

need to be and when they should be there. If it’s 5 pm should

they be in front of JP Morgan or Zynga? If it’s midnight

should they be at Ruby Skye or Circa? Mastering these skills

takes years and is a requirement to making a good living as a

taxi driver.

How popular are these apps? In San Francisco, where most of

them started, there are only 1600 taxi medallions. That means

that there are only 1600 taxis on the road at any given time. A

vast majority of these licensed taxi drivers have adopted apps.

InstantCab alone has over 800 licensed taxi drivers using their

app, not including ride-share drivers.

According to publicly available statements from ride-sharing

companies, there is strong evidence that there are already

more community drivers on the road than regular taxis in San

Francisco.

In San Francisco, the transformation from a medallion

constrained taxi system to a free market is nearly complete.

These ride-sharing companies are all rapidly expanding across

the country.

The Winners and Losers of Disruptive or Innovative

Technology

Conclusion of the Study: If the Ride-Share system is allowed

to flourish, the medallion holders and dispatchers will be out

of business.

Thus the value of a medallion drops to almost zero because

anyone can be a community driver without one. The extent to

which they retain any value is the extent to which drunk

people continue stumbling out of bars and hailing a cab

without using their phones.

So, medallion holders speculated in holding a government

asset and lost. Some of these people were taxi drivers or

operators of taxi dispatch companies. The middleman in this

current system, is the taxi dispatch company, which will be no

longer available.

The software of Ride-Share services for Uber, Sidecar, Lyft,,

InstantCab and NOW Mobilocity allows drivers to dispatch

rides to customers, the app companies provide insurance, and

the drivers provide their own car maintenance.

Mobilocity2 concurs that dispatchers will be missed. They

have the power to mistreat drivers, and it seems like they

exercise that power freely.

Taxi drivers working for these apps reap a number of benefits.

Drivers will no longer have to pay outrageous fees or start the

day hundreds of dollars in debt, so they can start making

money the second they start driving. Picking up customers

now that cabbies have their credit cards on file is safer because

they have a record of everyone entering their taxis. Finally,

they are so far making more money per hour than under the

medallion system. Most ride-sharing app companies advertise

that you can make $20-$30 per hour, which is much better

than the current ~$10 an hour taxi drivers make.Drivers are in

two camps. The Opportunist who is doing it for extra money

(non-professional) and the Professional who has been doing it

day in day out for years, perhaps because of their experience

as a professional driver. The Professional always wins: they

can pick up and drop off customers faster, do a lot more runs,

and get paid more. Their knowledge and intuition have

evolved to remember how to navigate streets better and where

demand is going to be at a certain time.

The Professional driver also

gets significantly higher tips.

The best drivers have mastered

the basics of customer service:

quick pickups, reading cues to

figure out whether the

customer would like to check

their email in quiet or chat

about the Giants game, and

getting the customer there fast.

InstantCab the showcased ride – share program provided

actual earnings of drivers that use this company’s app.

Below is the monthly take home

income of ten drivers that drive in

the InstantCab fleet.

All ten of the drivers started at

InstantCab at roughly the same

time and drive nearly the same

number of hours per month.

Three of the drivers were

professionals, and seven

were non-professionals.

As the marketing director of Mobilocity2 what is important to

consider is the above chart which is the chart that taxi drivers

need to think about and reconsider their valuable choices for

becoming involved with ride –sharing as an incentive to

“moonlight” or do on a full-time basis. Why because a

professional driver would have the advantage over a non-

professional driver in terms of take home pay (secondary

income as an independent contractor with all the perks of

being self-employed – the best of both possible worlds.

The drivers that know what they’re doing (professionals) and

can afford to buy or lease their own cars may be able to make

a very good living under this system. Whereas non-

professional drivers probably would need more time…The

rational for the eMagazine Driver Magazine (FREE)What

should taxi drivers do to ride out this disruption?

The best bet is probably to try out a few shifts on a ride-

sharing app.

Mobilocity offers this for the first 30 days as an incentive for

determining market share.

While a professional driver could “drive for Uber, Lyft or

Sidecar requiring stand-alone “gadgets to determine the

passenger profile” LOL… if drivers find they like getting

customers from ride-sharing apps and can make more money,

it’s time to leave a sinking ship -- the medallion-based taxi

economy.

Mobilocity offers a 30 day feature to determine whether a

driver in general will make more money…

If they find they make less money, it’s probably in the drivers’

best interests to join a medallion-holder taxi company such as

Yellow cab

What YOU do is up to you the professional or non-

professional? Mobilocity will get YOU there for the first

30-days -- try out the software and determine your market

share. Do your due diligence…there are a myriad of

business oppportunities a person can choose to make a

corfortable living…at Mobilocity we want you to succeed

that soon to come will be a Referral program of drivers or

passengers (TBA).

In a news media report on Fox 7; Sidecar was singled out and

identified as not having a medallion which is a public asset.

However, Mobilocity2 believes that “value belongs to the

people regarding the benefit of the ride share system.” Mr.

Michael stated that

“The people who view medallions as a public asset

are the ‘beneficiaries of the current system: medallion

holders, taxi companies insulated from competition,

and, most likely, public officials whose job it is to

dole out medallions. This comes down to

centralization or corrupt politics.”

Mobilocity2 would like to believe that “a public asset is safe,

efficient transportation, to empower both professional and

non-professional drivers which adheres to a state’s regulation

policy concerning the Ride-Sharing industry which would

need to focus on “safety” by making it easy to run background

checks on drivers and have passengers get involved doing

driver reviews and to have drivers be more transparent

regarding incidents to municipal authorities based on self-

disclosure.

Right now, Mobilocity2 is a startup and is focused on having

“safe drivers” because of public scrutiny. However, there

exists a dark side to the industry – the gypsy taxi – which is an

illegal taxi service that most likely will try to compete in a fair

market within ten years.

Since professional and non-professional drivers can only work

for one ride-sharing app, the company you drive for is

responsible for 100% of your earnings - a level of

empowerment that Mobilocity2 believes is a solution to a slow

economy and for drivers in general to embrace as either a part-

time or full-time vocation.

At Mobilocity2 a driver should be able to freely get a pickup

call from the mobilocity mobile app as an alternative to other

ride-sharing apps which is good for creating an independent

contractor position for drivers and equally good for passengers

who desire the same opportunity.

Those that benefited from the taxi medallion system have been

protected for 80 years. In that time, they abused taxi drivers

and produced an inferior public service.

Whereas, Ride-sharing apps should be allowed to take over

the market – share until they too are disrupted by another

social change…And so the battle wages on.

What IS Meant By Right-to-Work

In an eye-opening article a bevy of “right-to-work” laws has

been introduced in state legislatures across the United States

this year. The legislation has generated intense debate and

contention, making headlines across the country. What was

most alarming about the parade of bills introduced this year,

however, was how their proponents manipulated facts in order

to propel them through state legislatures.

As a social psychologist who studies unions and someone who

relies on good quantitative data, I am bothered most by how

the mathematics used to justify these arguments is so deeply

flawed–mistakes that any student of statistics could easily spot

the case with the false relationship between right-to-work laws

and economic and job growth which actually produces lower

wages for drivers

Scientific research actually shows the opposite of what right-

to-work proponents have claimed. The most rigorous research

study available–published in 2011 by the nonpartisan

Economic Policy Institute and conducted by Heidi Shierholz

(now the chief economist of the US Department of Labor) and

Elise Gould–controlled for 42 variables. It found that right-to-

work laws result in lower wages and a lower likelihood of

health care and pensions for union and non-union workers. It

also shows right-to-work laws have no impact on economic

growth.

Manipulation By Right-to-Work Proponents,

However, the Wisconsin Public Research Institute, a member

of the free-market-oriented State Policy Network, published

such a report before the state passed its law that claimed that

adopting right-to-work could increase per-capita income by 6

percentage points. But the study only controlled for eight

variables, which isn’t nearly enough to control for all the

different factors that affect changes in income. In other words,

their conclusions were meaningless.

As a health psychologist this translates as testing a cancer drug

without using a control group that was not given the drug,

ensuring that its pure effect could be isolated. Another

problem with right-to-work proponents’ is their predictive

arguments using simple averages of other states’ growth rates

The problem with making predictions based on simple

averages is easy to see when we examine right-to-work

proponents’ favorite case–Oklahoma.

Misusing Anecdotal Evidence

Gessing told New Mexico lawmakers that Oklahoma’s

economic growth is the result of its 2001 right-to-work law.

But he failed to mention that over the same period

Oklahoma’s economy was benefiting from rising prices for oil

and natural gas – and more recently from higher levels of

production–factors that would make a significant contribution

to growth.

Gessing also argued that there are “reams of data” showing

right-to-work states create more jobs, which is not true.

He didn’t note, for example, that manufacturing employment

in Oklahoma fell sharply in the first three years after the state

passed its law in 2001 and is currently down about 22% since

then. So in the case of Oklahoma, what was likely actually

happening?

Oil and natural gas made rich people richer through their

investments, lifting per-capita personal income but not

average worker wages. It is unlikely that right-to-work laws

had any impact on Oklahoma’s economic growth. Nor is there

convincing evidence that they had an impact on job growth in

Michigan and Indiana, as proponents similarly have tried to

argue using averages, falling into the shoe size-heart attack

trap. RTW laws fail to lure business

Across the country proponents have also argued that right-to-

work laws would put their states into consideration for more

private sector jobs, a claim for which I cannot find any

scientific evidence at all in any state. Instead, they rely on

anecdotal examples to make their case. And ultimately, stories

about what employers may or may not do in the future if a

state were to pass a right-to-work law does not constitute

scientific data; there are so many other factors that affect

business decisions about where to open a factory or office.

Scientific research on the location decisions of US and foreign

corporations suggests that among the most important variables

are: market size, local taxes, wage rates and transportation

infrastructure – but not right-to-work laws. In the 2014 State

New Economy Index, which compares states every year for

their attractiveness to high-tech, high-wage manufacturers,

none of the top five states were right-to-work states, and only

two of the top 15 were. What were the companies surveyed

looking for? Perhaps surprisingly, they were not looking for

cheap labor but rather for states with good education systems,

good research universities and skilled workers who would stay

for a long time. What really drives an economy

The debate about right-to-work laws across the country has

misdirected our collective focus and energy away from what

solid evidence suggests will improve states’ economic futures:

creating a solid infrastructure, equipping our schools and

teachers with resources and seeking out emerging and

innovative industries that offer better and more permanent

jobs.

Scientific research also suggests that improving wages and

reducing inequality across the US depends on the existence of

strong unions. Although right-to-work laws are proffered as

part of a state’s economic development strategy, their real goal

is to undermine workers’ collective voice and power.

Posted by Portside on May 5, 2015

- See more at: http://portside.org/2015-05-05/lies-damn-lies-

and-statistics-behind-boom-america%e2%80%99s-right-work-

laws#sthash.dogf4DTa.dpuf

Of Interest is the rapidly growing technology company Uber

which released internal data on Thursday arguing that drivers

who use the app to give rides-for-hire in their personal cars are

making more money as chauffeurs than professional taxi

drivers do — as much as $17 an hour in the District and Los

Angeles, $23 in San Francisco and $30 in New York.

Similar to Uber and other Share Drive companies is

Mobilocity2 which is creating new kinds of opportunity for

workers as independent contractor who desire to “leave” the 9-

to-5 job which translates as “just-over-broke” or to replace the

boss.

Although Uber’s claim to fame is the earnings…of interest in

the study is the omission of data which left out a critical piece

of the equation: the steep costs people must pay to operate

their own cars as modern-day taxis.

The report that Uber released was the “new data co-authored

by Princeton economist Alan Krueger, a former chairman of

President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.”

The analysis, which includes a survey of 601 drivers, suggests

Uber’s drivers look notably different from the typical cabbie:

Nearly half of the Uber drivers surveyed had at least a college

degree, compared with 19 percent for taxi drivers and

chauffeurs as reflected in government occupational data.

The analysis also reveals for the first time the size of Uber’s

driver pool in the United States and the rapid rate at which it’s

expanding. In December, 162,037 “active drivers” completed

at least four or more trips for the service. The number of new

drivers signing up has doubled every six months for the past

two years. “The more I looked into it, the more I thought this

rapid growth is really not a result of a weak job market, but

the result of a new opportunity,” said Krueger, who was

contracted by Uber to conduct the study. As Uber has grown

into a tech giant valued by investors at more than $40 billion,

it has become something of an economic Rorschach test.

Some see in it the hopeful future of work in a digital age,

where anyone with a car (or a home, or a service to offer) can

be his own boss, choosing hours and determining income with

a flexibility that makes other pursuits — like raising children

or going back to school — more feasible.

Critics, meanwhile, see in Uber something more bleak, a sign

that people who can’t find better jobs in a bad economy must

settle instead for work as part-time “independent contractors”

with a tech company that offers them no benefits.

For these critics, the numbers Uber released Thursday did

little to dispel that skepticism. “This report is designed to

impress American mayors and disguise the predatory nature of

Uber’s relationship to its drivers — the company collects

money, while the drivers accept all of the risk,” said Dave

Sutton, spokesman for a public campaign by the Taxicab,

Limousine & Paratransit Association warning against services

like Uber.

Uber’s earnings data suggested that drivers in its biggest

markets are making about $6 an hour more than local taxi

drivers and chauffeurs. But Sutton countered that the

comparison is unfair given that Uber drivers must deduct from

their earnings the costs of gas, car insurance and vehicle

maintenance. Increasingly, drivers have organized protests

against the company in U.S. cities, objecting to fare cuts that

have lured new passengers to the service at the expense of

driver pay.

Fernando Chiara, a 26-year-old working full time in the

insurance industry in Los Angeles, began driving nights and

weekends for Uber to make extra cash in the summer of 2013.

At the time, he said, he regularly made $700 to $900 a week,

before expenses, working 20 to 30 hours. “It was great; there

were not a lot of fares, but the prices were a lot higher, and

that compensated,” said Chiara, who gave rides in his Toyota

RAV4. As Uber has done in many cities, it then began to

lower fares and the rate drivers earn per mile.

“A fare that used to be 40 bucks started to be 30 bucks, then

28 bucks and 25 bucks,” he said. “Now you can do the same

fare in 15 to 16 dollars. For me, it’s not worth it for that.”

Chiara stopped driving for the service in December, at a time

when Uber says 40,000 other new drivers in the United States

signed on. Uber’s driver survey reflected few of these

concerns: 71 percent of respondents said they had boosted

their income and financial security since joining the service.

And 73 percent said they prefer a job where they choose their

hours and work as their own boss, relative to a 9-to-5 job with

a set salary and some benefits.

As Uber continues to expand, it probably will face multiple

pressures to keep those drivers happy and their wages up. It

must drive down prices to lure new passengers without

pushing more drivers like Chiara away, all while keeping up

the explosive growth that has prompted investors to pour

billions into the company. “Looking forward, these [earnings]

may go down in the short run even further as Uber tries to

generate the numbers that it needs leading up to its IPO,” said

New York University Stern School of Business professor

Arun Sundararajan, referring to the broad expectation that

Uber will become a public company in the coming years. “But

I think that, over time, what will happen is that wages are

going to go up.” He predicts that drivers will become more

organized. And the amount of time they spend waiting on

fares will shrink as more passengers use the service, making

each hour of driving time more productive and lucrative.

David Plouffe, Uber's senior vice president of policy and

strategy who worked with Krueger in the Obama White

House, predicts a similar future. "As long as demand keeps

growing — and we see no sign that it won’t — that means

there are more riders, and that means drivers will be doing

more trips per hour," Plouffe says. "The more efficient the

driver is, the more money they’re going to make. That’s clear

in all of our data."

Notes and references

Amey, A., J. Attanucci, and R. Mishalani. "'Real-Time'

Ridesharing – The Opportunities and Challenges of Utilizing Mobile Phone

Technology to Improve Rideshare Services.” TRB Annual Meeting, 2011.

Ecosummit TV – ECO11 – Young Future Mobility Leaders – Panel -

ECOSUMMIT - Smart Green Economy Network and ConferenceLevofsky,

Amber and Allen Greenberg.

“ORGANIZED DYNAMIC RIDE SHARING: THE POTENTIAL

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS AND THE OPPORTUNITY FOR

ADVANCING THE CONCEPT.” Transportation Research Board, 2001.

Rayle, L., S. Shaheen, N. Chan, D. Dai, and R. Cervero.

App-Based, On-Demand Ride Services: Comparing Taxi and Ridesourcing

Trips and User Characteristics in San Francisco. University of California

Transportation Center, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/14/uber-taxi-service-

banned-berlin-safety-grounds

Brooks, Jon (7 November 2013). “Will ‘Ride Sharing’ Kill San Francisco’s

Taxi Industry?". KQED. Retrieved 19 December 2013.

Elizabeth Deakin, Karen Trapenberg Frick, and Kevin Shively. 2012.

"Dynamic Ridesharing.” Access, 40: 23-28.

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