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Data Shows Yellow Cabs, Not Uber, Still Rule Manhattan

Cab owners claim Uber is inflicting “catastrophic harm" on the industry. What do the numbers say?
Image: Pank Seelen/Flickr

Cab owners in New York City are filing a lawsuit claiming that Uber is inflicting "catastrophic harm on this once iconic industry" and squeezing the people who make a living from it. But do the numbers add up?

Todd Schneider, an engineer at Genius, scraped together some 1.1 billion data points to put together a collection of maps and charts that gives us a clearer picture at what's happening on the streets. The data shows that yellow cabs still rule by a wide margin in Manhattan, and green and yellow cabs combined in the outer boroughs make up about 50 percent of all pickups.

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For a company that brokers data between drivers and riders in order to make its millions, Uber releases very little of that information to the public. But the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission is far more transparent. There are records ranging from January 2009 up to June 2015, and the metadata contained in those records includes pickup and drop-off locations as well as times and fares.

The data compiled by Schneider shows that yellow cabs still account for the vast majority of pickups in Manhattan, but the number of pickups has indeed dropped since Uber arrived on the scene, and the rideshare company is growing at a breakneck pace in Manhattan. Schneider notes that the number of Uber pickups increased by 275 percent from 2014-2015, and cab pickups dropped by 9 percent during the same period.

In this chart you can see that from January 2014 to July 2015, yellow taxis make most of the pickups in Manhattan, with an average of about 11 million pickups per 28 days.

One of the talking points in the lawsuit claims that Uber rides have shot up in the core of Manhattan by 3.82 million, while cab rides, suspiciously, saw 3.83 million fewer rides in the same area. Though Uber has gaps in its data, you can also see that it is cutting into taxi pickups, though it's hard to qualify whether Uber's ~1.8 million pickups versus yellow cabs' 11 million is actually inflicting "catastrophic harm," as the taxi companies' complaint claims.

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"Even though Uber picked up nearly 2 million Manhattan passengers in June 2015, Uber still accounts for less than 15% of total Manhattan pickups," Schneider wrote.

While Uber and taxi drivers aren't neck and neck in Manhattan, competition is closer in the outer boroughs, where there are far fewer taxis and Uber is expanding rapidly:

Note that the gap is closing between Uber and Green Boro taxis, which were launched in 2013 in an attempt to expand cab coverage in boroughs outside Manhattan.

It also points to another question, whether Uber is being anticompetitive or tapping into an untapped market. While Manhattan is much more traveled, more people live—and party—in Brooklyn, judging by the number of cab rides between 10 PM and 5 AM. Schneider's taxi maps point to Brooklyn's Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Bushwick as the major pick-up points for late night cabs:

Image: OpenStreetMap map created by Todd Schneider

The data goes well beyond the scope of Uber too. With the surprising amount of metadata taxis put together, Schneider also found where bankers like going, whether it's possible to get from 72nd to Wall Street in a half hour by taxi (it is!), and which places people end up taking taxis late at night. It's a fascinating and fairly wide look at where people are going and why, and I highly suggest you take a look.