For example, there have appeared automated boxes for recipients to pick up packages.
You mean a mail box?
Step 2: Develop AI to automate the work using data generated in step 1.
Step 3: Convince investors that your AI is close to finished. Use the money to actually build a working version.
Step 4: Fire all the humans.
There is a factory at the edge of town which employs one human and one dog. The human's job is to feed the dog. The dog's job is to keep the human away from the machines.
This sort of thing would be unthinkable in central Moscow and most other large European city centres (the only European city I've ever felt unsafe in is Brussels, and that's still quite different from NYC).
Nothing ruins a good story like facts. That's also why you should always raise before you launch or enter a new market, etc. People are suckers for a story, and our brains are pre-wired to explain phenomena rather than to question them. Once you master that psychology (and manipulation) of people, you'll be better at fundraising - and apparently at journalism as well!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Russia [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
> Either way, it represents a significant decrease over the previous 15 years (in 2001, the homicide rate was 30.5). In 2018, according to Rosstat, there were 7,067 murders, and the homicide rate in Russia fell below the United States for the first time in recent history, falling to 4.9 per 100,000 compared to the US rate of 5.0 per 100,000 in 2018.
A common thing that happens in these comparisons is that people look at the Rosstat statistic that includes attempted murder.
Also, I'm specifically making my point about the major cities. Moscow sees a huge amount of investment of course, and I would expect the same from US cities like NYC or SF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/deliveroo...
My first time on jury duty in nyc the case was armed robbery of a delivery worker to steal his cell phone - this was pre smart phone era, so let's say the phone's value was <$200.
Was a very depressing case tbh. One person at risk of death and another at risk of a long prison term for what was really petty theft (armed robbery makes the punishment much much worse than just petty theft would be).
If this is a known crime hotspot, shouldn't police just be hanging out there?
I used to hang around some trucking forums and found that in the 70's-80's into the 90's Hunts Point was legendary among truckers as a war zone. From the stories and anecdotes the route between the ports and the expressway was a gauntlet of armed highwaymen. It was so bad truckers would not stop for red lights or stop signs for fear of being hijacked in broad daylight. It was customary to lean on the horn and try to roll through. A few even admitted to illegally carrying a pistol for protection.
I think a ban on guns, and eg., an extreme historical scarcity of them in the UK means we aren't in the same position at all.
Yes there may be gangs. Yes there may be murders. But I think people delivering food on bikes arent in danger basically anywhere.
The political system of these major Democrat dominated cities is entirely dysfunctional. The only thing the public sector unions, and their political puppets, offer as a solution, is more social spending:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long...
The US is just ahead of the pack in unraveling.
(That link only covers through 2019, but if you look at the official CompStat data the two year trend for 2019–2021 is also negative: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statist...)
"Safe" is also very hard to define. Safe for who? Safe in what sense? It's a giant grey area and no one has ever been able to "solve" the crime problem. Getting tough on crime doesn't work, nor does endless social programs, nor does sweeping it under the rug.
Hopefully Adams will take a pragmatic approach and do what he can without making it worse. I wish him well.
I wonder if we’re seeing history repeat itself? Cities grew in the 50’s, then saw people leave in the 60-70’s, then return in the 90’s.
Our threat vectors are a bit different in that the bikes are more likely to be snatched when the rider is dismounted and in a building for a pickup or delivery. We’ve been experimenting by keeping a GPS in the frame and triggering something akin to a car alarm when the bike starts moving too significantly while the rider’s phone isn’t in the vicinity of the bike.
Our primary challenge has been finding the ideal way to lock the bikes while dismounted. The best chain locks are too unwieldy to use for the pace our couriers move at. Wheel locks were interesting but would end up breaking spokes when couriers would inevitably ride them while still locked. We’re currently giving folding locks a go. Open to suggestions if anyone has ideas or experience with other solutions.
Possibly something like the Velo Guard steering locks? They lock the steering in a fixed position (making the bike impossible to ride).
Crime in Montreal is actually quite a bit higher than in NYC. In 2019, with data from Statistics Canada (for Montreal) and the FBI (for NYC)...
Montreal's violent crime rate (1140 per 100k people) is double that of NYC (571 per 100k people). The property crime rate in Montreal (2,222 per 100k people) is similarly higher than NYC (1,460 per 100k people).
Sources: https://www.areavibes.com/montr%C3%A9al-qc/crime/ and https://www.areavibes.com/new+york-ny/crime/
Have a look [1].
'Murder' is a straight forward thing to define. Someone gets killed.
But 'assault' is a very vague thing.
According to that list 'Iceland' is a crime ridden country with overall crime 4x more than the US, even though murder in the US is more than 10x greater?
More like reporting, charges, definitions, data collection is different.
That said: Montreal is slightly sketchy for petty crime, and some places getting drunk and fighting is normal (UK/Nordic) and in some places, they use knives (i.e. Wales, Scotland).
[1] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-...
The motor controller could do electric braking if the rider's phone isn't in the vicinity of the bike. This would mean you can't push the pedals, but the wheels will still turn without resistance. If you forget to unlock it, you won't break the spokes, and there's no sudden halt, so you can still manually and safely break.
You could still run off with the bike on foot of course. But maybe if the pedals are blocked by the motor, you can use the standard lock without breaking the spokes?
One of the big risks is that the cargo bikes are worth stealing with a truck or pickup. The resell value is great and even if the bike is inoperable, the parts can be easily dismantled and sold off. I worry that the tactics will shift more towards that direction as the bikes themselves get harder to ride off on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs8uyPsDaw0
I think that bike theft should be handled the way that horse theft was handled in the wild west.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ela_Bhatt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_Employed_Women%27s_Associ...
From a systemic perspective (which may run counter to your goals), I believe the best solution, which I know won't soon happen in a nation like the US that values comfort and convenience over health and nature, but it's to return to home cooking over deliveries. While it would decrease these jobs, it wouldn't hurt the economy. People who saved delivery money would still spend it, just not on these dangerous jobs.
It makes sense from a systemic perspective. We say we need immigrants to do the jobs Americans don't want to do, but I believe that view reverses cause and effect. Rather than having job vacancies first and need people second, when people divorced from the actual work see lots of cheap labor, they find ways to use it that no one would choose for themselves.
We once had butchers, grocers, and tailors. Then big box stores drove them out of business and replaced them with slaughterhouses and such, incredibly dangerous jobs increasing the disparity of wealth. I see reversing that trend as helping restore safety and dignity to the work and a middle class to the nation.
My result: I don't think I've ever had something home delivered besides the post office, UPS, and Fedex, which don't have these time limits. Shopping for myself and cooking save time and money, plus I meet and form relationships with my counterparts at the coop, farmers market, and CSAs. I pollute a lot less too, taking two years to fill a load of garbage since I avoid packaging.
What you're doing is quite interesting as someone else in the Montreal area :)
The same technology that can propel a Tesla to 100km/h in under 5 secs is also the same technology in new cordless powertools. And the theives steal those too!
Your only real defense is for them to have something better to steal. Make your bike uglier!
Not easy to retrofit though.
We gotta find some way to stop companies from repeatedly settling the same claims to avoid a ruling against them. The system is set up so they can pay to sweep individual cases under the rug while maintaining the systemic problem.
The real innovation is in skirting labor laws and shifting risks/costs to workers.
The day to day running of the system for each particular market could be handled by an NGO, a cooperative or something of the sort.
How did something like this even get funded? I mean, I could understand if the development costs were being funded by VC money, but actual deliveries? Even if one company were to actually dominate the market, it would still need to continue subsidizing variable costs and there is no moat to protect them from competition.
Who would benefit from that? Delivery companies offer a simple and practical way to process orders and payments. Restaurant chains can and do provide their own in-house delivery services. The added-value is not the software infrastructure but the service that's provided.
What exactly is the value proposition of open-sourcing a platform?
I can imagine some kind of federated system where restaurants put out a contract in response to a customer order, workers bid on it. Maybe there's even blockchain based reviews.
It seems that efficiently connecting buyers and sellers in the delivery labor market, without an middle party to collect huge fees, would be beneficial to everyone.
Secondly you suggest a co-op, which could maybe work if this were actually a profitable sector. Currently it's still loss-leading
However I think setting up something like a worker-owned cooperative to replace various gig economy companies would be a really cool project. Honestly if such a service existed, and my friends continued to use the (cheaper) VC-subsidised option, I'd ostracize them for it.
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
The odd thing is that many PDs around the country are doubling down rather than re-examining their mission and culture.
Gorillas especially has been hit hard with literal revolt by riders, which let to some pretty amusing press conferences by their CEO.
The end user could authorize their own new devices unless they lost access to both devices and info needed to do so and the manufacturer could handle same if and only if you were the original registered owner or ownership had been transferred in a verifiable way.
See why phone theft isn't as big a deal anymore they aren't worth anything if they can't easily be used anywhere.
The other ridiculous conditions are solved by making them threat their employees as employees and pay them a minimum wage for time spent including spent idling + millage.
If this plus vc money eventually exiting makes some portion of the work uneconomical so be it.
"He reported both to the police, but the cases went nowhere, an experience common enough that many workers have concluded calling 911 is a waste of time."
Is so frustrating. The theft of thousands of dollars worth of equipment with the threat of violence in a known location and the police aren't interested?
Frustrating, still, but improvement seems at least possible.
Agreed with the treating of employees properly though, these guys go through the ringer just from regular customers and order systems I can't imagine adding thieves to the mix.
You just need to make stealing the bike annoying enough for would-be thieves to find something better to do with their time.
(Compare how flimsy most people's front door locks are, yet, they still help compared to no lock.)
I mean look at cars; just taking the wheels or radio out is already worth the effort. The radio is less viable these days though, since they're built in so more difficult to remove, and there's a lockout if it's disconnected from power (for which you need a code).
I mean theoretically you could, but not in a safe way.
It could broadcast I'm a stolen bike with cords with the electrical pathway to the transmitter being also wired to something else more vital.
You could pass an encoded unique to device signal over the rest of the system with chips elsewhere expecting that signal and noping out if they don't get it to foil rewiring.
You could require a periodic modifier received over the air encoded in chip2 .. chip n but not available in chip 1 like a series of codes for your key fob to unlock your car.
You could absolutely make it as hard to defeat as defusing a bomb and lunatics who wave glass bottles are no longer stealing your bikes.
This has got to be 90% of the problem.
The problem is that you would need to reach mass adoption of the technology, so that the fact of that specific item not being worth stealing would become common knowledge.
Compare https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/10/california-wants-... and https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-wages-in...
Basically, there's not much binding riders to a specific delivery app. Many cities have multiple competing apps that riders relatively easily switch between.
