In response to questions around the app’s accuracy, one Uber staff member reportedly told Heather that driver locations are meant to be more of a ‘screen saver.’.
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Uber users – you’ve seen those little cars that drive around the map on your mobile app? According to the representative the app is only showing partners on the road.
NEW YORK – Uber says there are no phantom cars in its app. At least not intentionally. According to customers, the number of cars that is displayed on the app is much bigger than the available cars in real life.
The researchers said: “The presence of those virtual cars on the passenger’s screen does not necessarily reflect an accurate number of drivers who are physically present or their precise locations”. Although the cars are lagging a bit behind in real time, they are real. “Another reason is that the app only shows the nearest eight cars to avoid cluttering the screen”, an Uber Spokesperson told The Telegraph.
This was a quoted email from an Uber Help representative, in which they state that all the “nearby cars” you see on the map might not actually be there.
Well, they might be fake.
The company has denied that the symbols are just there to make us believe that there are cars near our location.
The article thus speculates that phantom cars could be intentional on Uber’s part: “If a potential passenger opened up the app and saw no cars around, she might take another cab service”.
The fact that cars are constantly on the move means there might be a slight delay in viewing auto locations (which Rosenblat cites).
Uber claims that it aims to be as accurate as possible, LBC says, although it’s not always technically possible, while it also wants to protect the safety of the drivers by not revealing their location until a taxi is booked. Its surge pricing is supposed to be based on marketplace data for real-time demand, but the paper’s authors have scrutinised Uber’s patents, finding that surge pricing is based instead “on the projected demands of drivers”. “We would love to know more about what’s happening in Uber’s system in these cases”.
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The main issue seems to be that neither customers nor drivers have a clear and proper insight into Uber’s mechanisms.
