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Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

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Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#31

Post by vertex-four »

jmckib wrote: post #21
gambiting wrote: post #10

>>Most notoriously, attaining “The Knowledge” required for a taxi license involves memorizing hundreds of routes, business locations, and places of interest throughout the city. Charming, but expensive — and quite unnecessary in the age of smartphones. Says a person who has never been to London and doesn't understand the enormous benefit of intimate knowledge of all the streets of London and how to navigate them quic…

I understand that it's useful for a taxi driver to have this knowledge, but do we really need the government to impose it as a strict requirement? One could imagine multiple taxi services that compete on different axes. One service, competing on price, could have less knowledgeable drivers equipped with GPS devices. Another service, competing on its drivers' knowledge, would be more useful for taking you to obscure l…

For people who want to get around cheaply, London has an excellent mass public transport system, between the tube, buses, and intra-city train services.

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#32

Post by [deleted] »

yeureka wrote: post #3

I am not a fan of the medallion system, but Uber does seem to impact the businesses of traditional, local cab drivers while raking in profits on a global scale. It looks like a perfect middle-class job destroying operation that centralizes profits in one multinational company. As someone put it, those with the more powerful computers will win the economic spoils.

[deleted]

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#33

Post by rayiner »

lukasm wrote: post #4
Argorak wrote: post #2

The article concentrates on aspects that are certainly archaic - the expectancy that a taxi driver knows every street in a city. On the other hand, it totally ignores the benefits of the regulation: the client can have normalized expectations over all businesses. E.g. in germany, your insurance status if an Uber car crashes is unknown - it depends whether the driver is insured. On the other hand, it is clearly regula…

Is that really a problem? If he's not insured you're just gonna sue him or Uber.

You can't sue Uber if a driver crashes, because drivers are independent contractors. You can sue the driver, but he has no money and can just dodge the judgment in bankruptcy.

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#34

Post by gambiting »

lukasm wrote: post #20
gambiting wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suing takes time, and even if you succeed the person/company might not be able to pay. Insurance companies pay out immediately if there are medical bills to pay.

We're talking Germany here. Free healthcare.

Even with free healthcare you might be compensated for permanent injuries. In that case the insurance company still pays.

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#35

Post by Grue3 »

Aardwolf wrote: post #8
Argorak wrote: post #2

The article concentrates on aspects that are certainly archaic - the expectancy that a taxi driver knows every street in a city. On the other hand, it totally ignores the benefits of the regulation: the client can have normalized expectations over all businesses. E.g. in germany, your insurance status if an Uber car crashes is unknown - it depends whether the driver is insured. On the other hand, it is clearly regula…

In cities such as Bangkok or New Delhi, taxi's are very plenty, and not very expensive, so extremely useful important piece of infrastructure (except the traffic jams). However, in cities in Europe, the price of a taxi is simply way too high. Whether you can afford it or not, paying 20 Euros to be transported a few KM or 70 Euros if it's a few 10 KM's is just too insanely high. It is more something for abnormal occas…

Taxis in Bangkok are really something. There is so many of them and they are constantly driving around the city, most of them empty (red light). The economics of this must be really strange. Don't they have to pay for gas? How much fuel is burned by keeping all these cars in motion (not that there's anywhere to park them anyway).

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#36

Post by PinguTS »

jmckib wrote: post #21
gambiting wrote: post #10

>>Most notoriously, attaining “The Knowledge” required for a taxi license involves memorizing hundreds of routes, business locations, and places of interest throughout the city. Charming, but expensive — and quite unnecessary in the age of smartphones. Says a person who has never been to London and doesn't understand the enormous benefit of intimate knowledge of all the streets of London and how to navigate them quic…

I understand that it's useful for a taxi driver to have this knowledge, but do we really need the government to impose it as a strict requirement? One could imagine multiple taxi services that compete on different axes. One service, competing on price, could have less knowledgeable drivers equipped with GPS devices. Another service, competing on its drivers' knowledge, would be more useful for taking you to obscure l…

There is a thing called: customer protection. This applies for all sorts of products and services. One of those services is taxi as part of transportation. Part of this is, that drivers are educated, trust worthy and the vehicles are in good shape as well as having a minimum insurance in protection of the customer.

Also if you have 2 or more companies competing over who has the best service, that is good. But all of them have to provide a minimum quality service. Especially, for foreigners who don't know anything. For that reason regulation is required.

That regulation also can go wrong, is a different story. Then, of course, it has to be fixed.

But Uber (and some others) try to undermine any kind of regulation and so cutting costs to enable cheaper service.

That is like Food safety regulations. Like there is a new startup, which has provides a service like Amazon Fresh. It is cheaper by using just peoples cars, which may have no cooling possibility in their vehicles. Then blaming the food safety regulations are wrong because they require cooling facilities for fresh food not putting peoples life at risk.

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#37

Post by dia80 »

gambiting wrote: post #10

>>Most notoriously, attaining “The Knowledge” required for a taxi license involves memorizing hundreds of routes, business locations, and places of interest throughout the city. Charming, but expensive — and quite unnecessary in the age of smartphones. Says a person who has never been to London and doesn't understand the enormous benefit of intimate knowledge of all the streets of London and how to navigate them quic…

I have a spinal cord injury (snowboarding) and use a wheelchair as a result of having no sensation/movement below my chest. One of the most annoying consequences is being unable to move around London quickly. The tube is inaccessible, buses are slow and you often have to have a pitched battle with pushchairs.

Black cabs provided a relatively quick/convenient method of transport since they all have a ramp - not without issue but possible to get in one in less that a minute. I've not tried uber yet as I'm apprehensive about the hassle of getting in and out and getting the driver to help stow my chair. People are usually pretty keen to be helpful but it's a bit tricky and their default idea of helping is often counter productive. Also if they don't stop near the kerb you have to get them to move and the passenger side of a car is harder to get in and out due to the height of the kerb.

Black cab resides effectively subsidise my ability to get around so I am somewhat concerned to think they might be 'disrupted' wholesale.

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#38

Post by PinguTS »

lukasm wrote: post #20
gambiting wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suing takes time, and even if you succeed the person/company might not be able to pay. Insurance companies pay out immediately if there are medical bills to pay.

We're talking Germany here. Free healthcare.

That means, the public should pay for one companies profit?

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#39

Post by DanielBMarkham »

I love the idea of rating services and customers as each business transaction happens. This allows both sides to quickly weed out bad actors.

The more I see services like Ebay, AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, and so forth operate, the more I'm amazed at how much former regulation can be replaced with better information for all concerned.

Re: Uber isn’t the problem; taxi regulations are

#40

Post by CaptainZapp »

Aardwolf wrote: post #8
Argorak wrote: post #2

The article concentrates on aspects that are certainly archaic - the expectancy that a taxi driver knows every street in a city. On the other hand, it totally ignores the benefits of the regulation: the client can have normalized expectations over all businesses. E.g. in germany, your insurance status if an Uber car crashes is unknown - it depends whether the driver is insured. On the other hand, it is clearly regula…

In cities such as Bangkok or New Delhi, taxi's are very plenty, and not very expensive, so extremely useful important piece of infrastructure (except the traffic jams). However, in cities in Europe, the price of a taxi is simply way too high. Whether you can afford it or not, paying 20 Euros to be transported a few KM or 70 Euros if it's a few 10 KM's is just too insanely high. It is more something for abnormal occas…

In Bangkok Taxis are dirt cheap.

What I noticed, though, are more and more cabs with doctored meters. That can be rather small time. For example: manipulating the kilometers driven in order to get a higher fare at the destination, or it can be very, very blatant.

I once took a cab from the airport to Silom. The initial fare was correct (35bt), but then the meter immediately went into cardiac arrest mode and just went ape shit.

This shouldn't be the case. The 35bt entry fee (about $1) gets you about a mile (depending on wait times), before it slowly goes up in 2 bt intervals. That meter must have been doctored by a factor of 10 - 15 (which I thought stupid as hell, because instantly noticeable).

A trip to my hotel at that meter rate would easily have been 3000 - 5000 baht. Instead of the normal 300 - 400 bt.

However, this being Thailand, what you should never, ever do is directly accusing the driver. There's that face saving thing, that Thais take very, very seriously.

Accusing him may get you into one of the less touristy areas in town, where you meet a number of the driver's friends wielding crow bars and baseball bats. And I'm not exaggerating here.

I resolved the dilemma, by pretending to consult my watch, making a shocked face and mumbling something around the line of "oh, Friday; traffic very, very bad in Bangkok, please bring me to Skytrain station").

The interesting thing was he knew that I knew, but didn't make any problems and brought me there.

While this example was extreme I experienced multiple rides that where slightly more expensive than they should have been in Bangkok.

So: beware!

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