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Some regulations are fine. Like requiring that your drivers have insurance. Or even requiring that your drivers pass some sort of test which demonstrates that

by asr 9y ago

Some regulations are fine. Like requiring that your drivers have insurance. Or even requiring that your drivers pass some sort of test which demonstrates that they are actually skilled drivers, if you want. But I actually don't like any of the regulations you mentioned. The most egregious is this one: cab drivers from city A may drive passengers to city B, but not pick up passengers in city B. Once again, this is not just to protect taxi drivers in city B (because the meter in taxi A may have lower tariffs), but also to ensure a competent driver for passengers in city B. This is almost always a rule to protect cab drivers in city B. And it's horribly inefficient as it means the cab spends 50% of its time empty. If driving between cities is common, fares have to be much, much higher to compensate drivers for this. Knowledge of local roads is close to ok, it ties into being a good driver. The other items on your list are nice-to-haves, but at what cost? If tourists really want all this stuff, they can take the cab at the stand outside their hotel or at the airport instead of calling an Uber. But, speaking for myself, I'd prefer to save 10-20 euro on a trip from the airport. Disclaimer: the closest I have come to Germany is flying through the airports. So feel free to critique my lack of local knowledge.

mschuster91 9y ago
> This is almost always a rule to protect cab drivers in city B. And it's horribly inefficient as it means the cab spends 50% of its time empty. If driving between cities is common, fares have to be much, much higher to compensate drivers for this. Most of the time, that rule doesn't hit at all - the major exceptions are the Berlin and Munich airports, which are located outside of the city borders. The remainder that gets hit by this policy are fares crossing regional boundaries on the countryside where it doesn't really matter anyway if a cab goes 5km empty. All the major cities are in one regulation zone exactly to avoid this - which has the downside that in the mega-urbs Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin the amount of knowledge required for taxi drivers is immense, and it doesn't really help that there are often enough more than 2 streets of the same name in Berlin (mostly, an aftereffect of the DDR/BRD split and reunification).

by asr 9y ago

mschuster91 9y ago

> This is almost always a rule to protect cab drivers in city B. And it's horribly inefficient as it means the cab spends 50% of its time empty. If driving between cities is common, fares have to be much, much higher to compensate drivers for this. Most of the time, that rule doesn't hit at all - the major exceptions are the Berlin and Munich airports, which are located outside of the city borders. The remainder that gets hit by this policy are fares crossing regional boundaries on the countryside where it doesn't really matter anyway if a cab goes 5km empty. All the major cities are in one regulation zone exactly to avoid this - which has the downside that in the mega-urbs Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin the amount of knowledge required for taxi drivers is immense, and it doesn't really help that there are often enough more than 2 streets of the same name in Berlin (mostly, an aftereffect of the DDR/BRD split and reunification).