Quote:
Originally Posted by k1052
That's for one person though. The advantage erodes dramatically as you have more people in your party and taking a cab means you're not schlepping luggage all over the place.
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That has always been the case. It's called carpooling, or passenger pooling. A solo cab ride is not cost efficient, but a multi-person cab ride might be.
I did this with my parents and my brother's family when we travelled from Zhuhai to Guangzhou in China a couple of years ago. China has a fantastic high speed rail between the two cities, and Guangzhou has a fantastic modern subway system. We were going to take rail-to-subway, but we were solicited by some van drivers at the Zhuhai rail station. Initially, we basically ignored them, especially since they were fairly aggressive (common mainland Chinese trait, especially among the hustling workers). But then we did some math in our heads:
1. We needed to wait in a long line to buy the HSR tickets, since they require passports to purchase. Not the most efficient process.
2. We needed to walk our luggage and two small kids to the correct HSR track. Train stations are big & cavernous.
3. Once at the Guangzhou HSR station, we needed to walk our luggage and two small kids all the way to the subway station. Not a short walk.
4. The Guangzhou HSR stations (there are a few) are all at the outskirts of the city. So it takes a 1 hr subway ride with transfer to reach our hotel (and not a simple across-platform transfer)
5. The end subway station was a long walk or short taxi/bus ride to the hotel.
So we ended up taking the van drivers on their offer. It was a pretty good deal overall, and ended up taking a bit less time than the rail-to-subway route. The main speed advantage of rail-to-subway was the HSR, but that advantage disappeared because the Guangzhou HSR stations are all around the outskirts of the city. The deal was good enough that we contracted the driver to drive us to Zhongshan for a one-day trip a few days later.
Another issue to consider is traffic. Cabs are definitely the most convenient option, and are often the fastest option. But they are not always the fastest, especially if you're going with rush-hour traffic.
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