APettyJ

APettyJ t1_j9klfcv wrote

Something I've wanted to try: apparently it's illegal in Philly for a cab to drive with a broken credit card machine, or it was. It wasn't illegal not to have one I don't think, but if a car was equipped it had to work. If a driver made a pickup with a broken card machine, a rider had the right to leave the car without paying. What many people who did this found was the machine wasn't actually broke, the driver just didn't want to take credit card payments, as they got less from the fare. Suddenly a broken card machine worked. All the cabs I've ever used, and to be sure there haven't been many, had working card machines.

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APettyJ t1_j9kedr4 wrote

The pushback to describing it as "loop around" is that it implies it adds extra time to a pickup vs parking on the shoulder, and it doesn't. It adds an extra minute to stopping, but once in the lot there is little to no difference in pickup times. The "loop around" only matters if someone for some reason was driving nonstop through the lot to go to arrivals, which Uber and Lyft drivers do have to do in order to access the the commercial road from where they make pickups, but they don't have a choicr tomdo what they need to do. However, if you are coming early to pick someone up, there is virtually no difference between sitting in the lot vs sitting on the shoulder, except one is legal and had vending machines and the other is illegal and dangerous. One caveat is if parked on the bridge shoulder, which is even worse but thankfully most cars are not parked there. Other caveat is of there is traffic on the arrivals road from the lot.

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APettyJ t1_j9cdeo5 wrote

Cabs do have an upperhand, in price and in wait time, especially at airports. Just a lot of people have been burned by them pretty bad pre-uber days, or pre-uber-going-bad and are just used to Uber, they don't think much of using one even when there is a line of cabs waiting in front of them while they are waiting for an Uber to show up. Just told someone the other day about this, although because of his prior experiences he said he was inclined to just wait for Lyfts.

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APettyJ t1_j9bevsd wrote

They are always tweaking the algorithm. There's "priority rematch", introduced back in 2018which is when the apps (Uber/Lyft) pair a driver making a dropoff at the airport with someone needing a ride who has just arrived. This is supposed to lead to riders get their rides just a bit quicker while removing the need for drivers to go to the lot. As a result however, if incoming flights aren't making heavy demands on ride-share vehicles someone in the lot can wait a long time for a ride than would be the case before they implemented priority rematch.

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APettyJ t1_j9b57kj wrote

If you are referring to the lot on Bartram, that's not the lot anymore. The new lot is entered off of the car rental road, same road used to access the Marriott as well, and empties out further back up the road at the split for the car rental road and road to arrivals and baggage claim. Yeah, the old lot, which was fairly close to the Wawa, and also for a time served as the lot for Black car/limos and briefly for ride-share cars, wasn't as well lit and also not as populated. The new road is squarely on airport property and is more well lit and "secure feeling".

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APettyJ t1_j99rlqn wrote

The main Uber lot is on Island Ave, across from what used to be the Overseas Terminal. 4700 Island Ave, next to the Double Tree hotel. There is a an additional lot close to the pickup area for Comfort class and Lux vehicles, sharing the lot with limos and other Black car vehicles, next to the cab staging lot past the gatehouse.

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APettyJ t1_j99r22i wrote

Shouldn't find too many Uber's waiting on the shoulder. There's a lot for them very close to the pickup area, next to the lot for taxis and limos, past the gatehouse that causes the backup there. Safer, closer and there is a bathroom.

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