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Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

metropolitan.fi

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Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#21

Post by dyyni »

jpatokal wrote: post #8
dyyni wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxis aren’t that expensive in Finland compared to other Nordic countries or countries with similar living costs as Finland. Swedish taxis are unregulated and there fares have risen faster than in Finland. And Uber as a ride hailing service was perfectly legal in Finland. The issue was they were hiring drivers that didn’t have taxi permits (and didn’t pay taxes).

C'mon. Getting a taxi permit in Finland requires taking a bunch of mandatory courses on highly Uber-relevant topics like "how to use your taxi meter" (185 EUR) and "local navigation without a GPS" (260 EUR), then passing an exam with questions like "from memory, name all roads between random location X and random location Y", meaning you're looking at a bare minimum of 700 EUR and several weeks of full-time study to…

You’re confusing taxi driver’s permit (which requires exams, not courses) with a taxi licence/permit. Uber drivers didn’t have either and the latter is where the law is very strict. Licenced taxis pay much higher insurance and the cars have to be inspected more often, meaning the costs of a legitimate taxi business are much higher than unlicensed Uber drivers.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#22

Post by [deleted] »

mandelken wrote: post #7

Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. Their use is exactly for night or irregular use. Go to Mumbai, Jakarta, or any low income country and you'll find yourself stuck for hours in a cheap taxi. We need regulation because the market will not build railroads and metro's. "A developed country is not where the poor drive a car, but where the rich take public transportation". Visit and compare Switzerland with Egypt…

[deleted]

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dyyni wrote: post #21
jpatokal wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon. Getting a taxi permit in Finland requires taking a bunch of mandatory courses on highly Uber-relevant topics like "how to use your taxi meter" (185 EUR) and "local navigation without a GPS" (260 EUR), then passing an exam with questions like "from memory, name all roads between random location X and random location Y", meaning you're looking at a bare minimum of 700 EUR and several weeks of full-time study to…

You’re confusing taxi driver’s permit (which requires exams, not courses) with a taxi licence/permit. Uber drivers didn’t have either and the latter is where the law is very strict. Licenced taxis pay much higher insurance and the cars have to be inspected more often, meaning the costs of a legitimate taxi business are much higher than unlicensed Uber drivers.

> Licenced taxis pay much higher insurance and the cars have to be inspected more often

I have yet to visit a city where these inspections and insurance premiums seem a reasonable cost-benefit trade-off for the median rider. The long-term competition from ridesharing, and lack of prevalent organized rider (versus driver) opposition to it, corroborates that observation.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#25

Post by [deleted] »

dyyni wrote: post #6
illuminati1911 wrote: post #3

Uber left Finland last summer due to the harassment from the government and police, but it still made huge difference to the Finnish taxi system. Before the taxi rides were expensive, service was mediocre and there was no apps nor anything else. After Uber started mixing the market, many new companies have started operating in the field offering travel packages etc. and almost all taxis can now be ordered with an app…

Taxis aren’t that expensive in Finland compared to other Nordic countries or countries with similar living costs as Finland. Swedish taxis are unregulated and there fares have risen faster than in Finland. And Uber as a ride hailing service was perfectly legal in Finland. The issue was they were hiring drivers that didn’t have taxi permits (and didn’t pay taxes).

[deleted]

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#27

Post by pluma »

illuminati1911 wrote: post #3

Uber left Finland last summer due to the harassment from the government and police, but it still made huge difference to the Finnish taxi system. Before the taxi rides were expensive, service was mediocre and there was no apps nor anything else. After Uber started mixing the market, many new companies have started operating in the field offering travel packages etc. and almost all taxis can now be ordered with an app…

I can't speak for Finland but to me Uber seems similar to Facebook in many ways (though it currently doesn't seem like Uber is as successful internationally):

Taxi apps started out in 2007/2008 according to Wikipedia, most apps I'm personally aware of (in Western Europe) seem to have popped up at some point in 2010, roughly the same time as Uber launched in the US. I remember using a taxi app in 2011 but the signup was too much of a hassle compared to just dialing the local taxi dispatch number for the city. Currently taxi.eu seems to be the most successful brand in Germany but it's still far from ubiquitous. Uber isn't available (except for UberX, which is using a third-party limousine service, and UberTaxi, which is using regular taxis) for obvious reasons.

Facebook expanded beyond English-speaking students in late 2006. Prior to its launch in Germany there were a number of competitors, most prominently StudiVZ (later MeinVZ) which started in late 2005 and targeted German-speaking students exclusively (StudiVZ was obviously drew inspiration from Facebook at several points but I recall similar networks popping up -- and dying -- even earlier than that). There were also more general social networks like Lokalisten (founded mid 2005) and Werkenntwen (launched in late 2006) that also had similar features to Facebook and attempted to build similar online communities.

Many of these sites were initially far more popular than Facebook. Because Facebook wasn't initially available in German, Facebook was simply not relevant at the time. It was just one network among many and it didn't have much appeal.

Over time more people joined Facebook for various reasons and eventually the alternatives faded into obscurity. Many of the networks that were widely known at the time don't even have a Wikipedia article and didn't get much news coverage at the time, so it's easy to forget they even existed. Instead Facebook is credited as having been revolutionary in ways that simply don't hold up to scrutiny.

It seems the perception of Uber is similar to that of Facebook, except the competitors are still around. I don't think Uber was a necessary nor sufficient factor in popularising taxi apps. I'm not familiar with the situation in Finland but considering what is happening elsewhere, I'm not convinced Uber caused taxi apps to become a thing, taxi apps were already becoming a thing alongside Uber and maybe you're just seeing a causation where there's only a correlation at best.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#28

Post by xya3453 »

mattmanser wrote: post #20
mandelken wrote: post #7

Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. Their use is exactly for night or irregular use. Go to Mumbai, Jakarta, or any low income country and you'll find yourself stuck for hours in a cheap taxi. We need regulation because the market will not build railroads and metro's. "A developed country is not where the poor drive a car, but where the rich take public transportation". Visit and compare Switzerland with Egypt…

I disagree, from experience. I live in an urban environment in the UK with extensive public transport and haven't had a car for the last 5 years. I have friends and family who live in the 'burbs. There are plenty of times I take a taxi over public transport, including: 1. I'm in a rush 2. I need to transport something not small 3. I'm feeling lazy Note, that all public transport suffers from some fundamental problems…

Taxis are only quick in the UK because everyone else is using public transport.

In any undeveloped capital you're forced to use a taxi (or unregulated alternative) to travel any significant distance. Getting anywhere can take hours (travelling at 5km/h is common), is dangerous and uncomfortable (AC is not even ubiquitous in 40c heat).

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#29

Post by deanclatworthy »

staticelf wrote: post #18

Finland is just killing it lately, I wish Sweden could be more like Finland.

It’s funny the outsiders perspective of Finland. I can assure you there are plenty of problems here. The government being broke for one and making obscene cuts across the board.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#30

Post by dagw »

mattmanser wrote: post #20
mandelken wrote: post #7

Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. Their use is exactly for night or irregular use. Go to Mumbai, Jakarta, or any low income country and you'll find yourself stuck for hours in a cheap taxi. We need regulation because the market will not build railroads and metro's. "A developed country is not where the poor drive a car, but where the rich take public transportation". Visit and compare Switzerland with Egypt…

I disagree, from experience. I live in an urban environment in the UK with extensive public transport and haven't had a car for the last 5 years. I have friends and family who live in the 'burbs. There are plenty of times I take a taxi over public transport, including: 1. I'm in a rush 2. I need to transport something not small 3. I'm feeling lazy Note, that all public transport suffers from some fundamental problems…

So while I like and appreciate our public transport, it can be a huge timesink and when you don't want to pay the "time tax" of public transport, taxis fill the role.

Last time I was in London for work I naively hopped in a Taxi at Paddington Station because I was late for a meeting and the tube would take 30 minutes. The taxi took 35 minutes and cost an order of magnitude more.

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