[teruakohatu]

Where I live there are few wheelchair taxis and they need to be booked in advance, sometimes months in advance if it’s a holiday. If a driver is sick most likely all their customers are staying at home. Costs are significantly subsidised and yet still there are not enough drivers.

It is hard to scale because it requires drivers with well above average patience, empathy and a caring personality. It’s not a job for profit focused individuals.

To scale it would require drivers paid a salary not paid per trip/mile. It would also require generous allowances for time (wheelchair taxi drivers are often delayed through no fault of their own).

[mdorazio]

It’s even worse. Wheelchair accessible vehicles are extremely expensive. As in, a basic wheelchair retrofit to a standard minivan adds over $30k of cost. And then the modifications to the vehicle prevent the cabin space from being used to the same level as before (you lose seats and cargo space). So it’s monetarily a bad proposition on many levels for taxi operators.

The best way around it is to push vehicles like the Cruise Origin that come with wheelchair-ready space by default but then you’re into purpose built vehicles that have their own downsides.

[AlotOfReading]

The Origin is also not currently in production and indefinitely delayed [0].

[0] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45989501/gm-self-driving-...

[morsch]

> a basic wheelchair retrofit to a standard minivan adds over $30k of cost

What's a basic retrofit? I just looked and I think a ramp etc is less than 5000 EUR in Germany, installed?

[mdorazio]

Side entry powered wheelchair access like from BraunAbility. Ramps generally require assistance or a large amount of space around the vehicle.

[mhandley]

It's not like it cannot be done - all London taxis are required to be wheelchair accessible. But it does require political will.

https://levc.com/technology/accessibility/

[bombcar]

We have a local state/city sponsored ride share program for elderly, infirm, disabled, and it can do wheelchairs.

And it is still often simpler to just buy a (subsidized) wheelchair van for the person and let their caretaker drive them.

[ajross]

> It is hard to scale because it requires drivers with well above average patience, empathy and a caring personality. It’s not a job for profit focused individuals.

To be glib: that's ridiculous. Offer $1000/ride and I guarantee you'll find a long line of patient, empathic and caring drivers signing up for your service.

It just costs money. Maintaining a wheelchair-capable vehicle and operating rides for wheelchair-bound people is simply more expensive than driving millenials around to their dinner dates. Someone needs to pay for that. Law suits and regulation like those detailed in the linked article are part of the mechanism by which we as a society decide how to do that.

[teruakohatu]

> To be glib: that's ridiculous. Offer $1000/ride and I guarantee you'll find a long line of patient, empathic and caring drivers signing up for your service.

Do you honestly believe paying a huge salary will attract kind empathetic people? I can say it will for sure attract a lot of people who will claim to be.

But I do think the genuine angels that do so much to help people do deserve to be paid well.

[ajross]

> Do you honestly believe paying a huge salary will attract kind empathetic people?

You missed the point (and the joke).

No, but for $1000 even an asshole will act empathetic. I mean, go to a high end hotel or restaurant. You genuinely think that all those emphatically polite and helpful wait staff are doing it because they're nice people? No, they're doing it because (1) good service is required by their job and (2) their job pays better than similar jobs at proletarian places. So they do it. Same principle here.

[teruakohatu]

> No, but for $1000 even an asshole will act empathetic.

Hopefully this is something you will never need to understand in life, but no it’s not the same as a sycophantic server.