Uber Update Lets Users See How They Have Been Rated by Drivers

Especially for people living in densely populated cities like Los Angeles or New York, it can be difficult to justify owning a vehicle. Traffic is usually difficult to deal with, parking can be nearly impossible to find, and unless you're driving a significant distance each day, the combination of gasoline, insurance, and maintenance can make it all too costly. Fortunately, ride-sharing technology gives people a way to get around town without having to own a car of their own.

While there are many ride-sharing smartphone applications, the two most popular and well-known are Uber and Lyft. Each has similar business plans: they take a percentage of every dollar earned by one of their drivers. Both driver and rider have the opportunity to rate each other, and the ratings help other drivers and riders to choose whether they want to use the service. Until recently, riders could see all of the ratings (on a 5-star scale) that other riders had left for their driver, and drivers could see ratings left for riders. According to Tracey Lien's L.A. times article, a recent update to the Uber app will allow riders to view their own ratings.

Uber executives hope that this update will help both drivers and riders to improve the ride-sharing experience. The riders can rate the drivers on safety, friendliness, and cleanliness of the vehicle, while drivers can rate riders on whether they leave a mess in the car or if they slam the doors. Because riders will now be able to see what drivers think of them, it is hoped that they will be more cognizant of their behavior and will, therefore, become better passengers.

Everyone wants to have a high rating on apps like Uber because the app's algorithm matches up riders and drivers based on similar rankings. So, if a rider has close to 5 stars, they will likely get paired up with a driver with a 5-star rating. If they have a lower score, they will, in turn, be paired up with a less-sought-after driver. While this update should be beneficial to everyone, another update aims to help drivers avoid being negatively affected by the behavior of other passengers in an UberPool, in which a rider chooses to share the ride with another user of the app. Lately, Uber has had some bad press, but the changes they are making could help to improve their image, retain their drivers, and win back potential riders.

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Maintenance Issues at California's Refineries Lead to Gasoline Price Increase

5/1/15 - Drivers throughout California have been noticing gas prices climbing swiftly over the past few weeks, and they don't like it. In the last week by itself, prices have gone up by almost 34 cents, 6 cents of which happened over the course of a single day. Is this due to the state of the economy, or to supply-and-demand, or due to something much harder to control? Samantha Masunaga and Andrew Khouri, in their L.A. Times article, conclude that the increasing prices are mainly due to mechanical issues in gasoline refineries around the state.

California's refineries produce most of the gasoline used within the state, since production and delivery of California's “cleaner-burning blend” can be too expensive for out-of-state refineries to consider it economically viable. Furthermore, since the refineries produce as much gasoline as possible, any break in the production chain can cause massive issues throughout the system. Even if one factory would have to close down for repairs, the amount of gasoline in California would fall, making the available gasoline that much more expensive. The system leaves very little room for delays.

Unfortunately, refineries have been forced to stop or lessen production in order to perform maintenance work, whether planned or otherwise. After a February explosion at Exxon Mobil Corp.'s refinery in Torrance as well as some other, minor, issues elsewhere, the supply of gasoline is running low, thus forcing up the prices. Although the oil-refining companies are producing less, they still have contracts that obligate them to provide a certain amount of gasoline to customers, such as gas stations. In order to do this, they are forced to pad their supplies with purchases of gasoline from other refineries.

Many are upset about the price increases mainly due to the shock of it. When the price of a tank of gas increases by $20 to $30 in a month, it is hard to see it coming. To make matters worse, companies that purchase gasoline from other refineries during a time of low production try to keep such transactions secret, so as to not case a “pop” in the market. On the other side of the argument are the average Californians, who use gasoline and want some way to be able to predict when prices will go up. When a company has to purchase gasoline from another refinery, it is pretty obvious that they are having some issue with production.

The average person has had to cut down on certain “unnecessary” expenditures in order to put more money toward filling up the tank. Some have been forced to cut items when grocery shopping, and others have stopped eating out at restaurants. While gasoline prices are still, on average, below what they were this time last year, some areas are feeling far worse effects. A big cause of this, as Khouri and Masunaga point out, is that the market full of secrecy. If people know when companies are planning to purchase large amounts of gasoline from other sources, they will be able to more easily predict fluctuations and therefore plan out their gasoline purchases in a more beneficial manner. Gasoline has almost become like stocks, constantly changing and difficult to predict successfully. That could all change if refineries develop some transparency and give customers a fighting chance.

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Rush Hour: A Thing of the Past?

8/4/14 - Don't you hate sitting in rush hour traffic on the 405 and 101 freeways, spending hours a week staring at brake lights and bumpers? Wouldn't life be so much easier if there were a bus or train able to bypass all of that congestion? Up until recently, the San Fernando Valley was a “no fly zone” when it came to light rails, a form of public transportation designed in a such a way that, since it has its own system of rails, it doesn't have to deal with the gridlock on surrounding freeways. An article by Laura Nelson of the L.A. Times discusses Governor Jerry Brown's reversal of a bill that, since the early 1990s, has prevented the development of a light rail in the San Fernando Valley.

Although Brown's signature has overturned the so-called “Robbins Bill,” Nelson states that this is only the first step on a long road to the development of a Valley light rail. The Valley, which contains only two of Los Angeles' 80 commuter rail stations, needs something more than buses to lessen traffic and convince drivers to choose more environmentally-friendly transportation options. According to this article, officials are looking into the costs and level of difficulty that would be present in attempting to connect the Valley's already existing Orange Line bus system, which is very similar to a “light rail” with the Red Line and Gold Line of other areas.

The possibility of a light rail, while exciting, is also not likely to bear fruit for quite a while. For such an immense project to be undertaken, according to Nelson, over half of Metro's directors would need to agree to the request for a light rail. While the Orange Line was a clever way to get around the restrictions against light rails, its use of a separate road and avoidance of traffic congestion has attracted so many new customers that it is seen by many as “overcrowded and inefficient.”

A light rail, while beneficial to its users, could also have a dramatic impact on drivers of the 405 and 101 freeways. With a high speed, zero congestion transportation option available, many commuters may choose public transportation, thus reducing gridlock on the freeways. The light rail, now a possibility, may still take years to approve, and years more to develop. Thus, the best option at present, especially for those living in the San Fernando Valley, seems to be such transportation options as the Orange Line, which is about as close as we will get to a light rail at the moment.

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