3 ms·

I'm not surprised that the American model of classifying your workers as "self-employed sub-contractors" isn't going to work out in Europe. On topic: Yes, taxi

• fergie 9y ago
  Yes, taxi laws need to be revised, but there are sound reasons for licensing taxis operating in a city: - Limiting the amount of traffic on the roads - Ensuring that vehicles are nice enough (that there isn't a "race to the bottom") - Ensuring that drivers are nice enough (qualified, not scary violent criminals) - Ensuring that drivers are compelled to pick you up and drop you off no matter who/what you are, and where you are going. - Ensuring that there is a central point of contact for hailing a taxi. - No ambiguity about who and what is a taxi with regard to parking etc. To be sure, a lot of licensed taxi services are pretty terrible. But thats not to say that the idea of licensed taxis is bad- its actually pretty reasonable. Its worth noting that San Fransisco and the Bay Area was the "perfect storm" for creating Uber about 5 years ago- you had a fairly car-dependant transport network, an absolutely abominably terrible licensed taxi service, a lot of local skill in making web services, access to venture capital, (relatively) lax regulation, a healthy disregard for the working classes, and a naively/cynically optimistic view on self driving cars. But try to transfer those conditions to, say, a European city, and Uberization suddenly becomes a lot more difficult.
  • jopsen 9y ago
    The only argument I've heard for licensing is coverage of rural service area. Most of the others can be fixed by regulation of ride-sharing services.