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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 yo

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/India/... and you'll see.

jpatokal 9y ago
This argument seems like a non-sequitur. Helsinki already has a well-developed public transport system, particularly considering its size, and nobody's about to abandon it and switch to taxis, regulated or not. Jakarta and Mumbai have crappy public transport because of a toxic mix of poverty and incompetent governance, and in both taxis are a luxury for the richest of the rich. I always figured the primary point of taxi regulation in Finland was to ensure that the service would be available even in remote areas that couldn't otherwise sustain it -- but Uber makes it far easier to service those as well.
- qplex 9y ago
  The overall quality of the taxi service _will_ go down with the price cuts. There isn't any way around this. It was obvious already when Uber was testing their service in Helsinki without adhering to any of the legal requirements. But it's not just Uber - many other taxi companies operate in Finland already with comparable smartphone apps etc. And they also manage to do it without breaking the law ...
  - tinus_hn 9y ago
    Monopolies are hardly a recipe for quality service.
TomMarius 9y ago
The market would build railroads and metros given the chance.
- oblio 9y ago
  The market did build those. Look up robber barons.
  - Retric 9y ago
    This was pre car, it's hard to find recent examples.
  - acompetency 9y ago
    We did have robber barons build one here, look up the länsimetro.
- Reason077 9y ago
  Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback. Most of that return is not direct in the form of ticket revenues, but externalised in the form of economic growth along the metro routes, as well as environmental and social benefits. Even where you have private companies building and operating metros, it's usually with the direction and financial support (such as land grants and loan guarantees) from governments.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    There is no need for the initiative to be for profit. People are perfectly capable of getting together and doing stuff - in much bigger scale than a metro.
    - InitialLastName 9y ago
      Yes, and when they do, we sometimes call it "government".
      - TomMarius 9y ago
        Nope. No one is allowed to opt out and people are forced to pay even though they don't want to or straight up can't use it and/or don't agree with it.
mattmanser 9y ago
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 (at the moment[1]). I live in the south of the city. For anywhere I want to travel to in the north I have to walk 10 minutes to get to the bus stop. In certain hours buses get out of sync with their timetables, so you can add another 10/15 minutes of waiting. Also a lot of public transport has moved to the "hub" model, where you have a central hub which connects different routes. While perhaps more efficient in some ways, it's incredibly inefficient for the traveller. It adds a minimum of 20 minutes to any journey where you have to go through a hub. My sister used to joke it takes an hour and 20 minutes to visit a friend living on a different tube line in London. My home town is either 3 lines switches away, adding an hour and a half of waiting to a journey, or I go through the London Hub, inexplicably having to pay a premium. 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. [1]I say at the moment as we can imagine a point in the future where you request public transport with your phone and it can on-the-fly accommodate you.
- xya3453 9y ago
  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).
- dagw 9y ago
  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.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
golergka 9y ago
> Their use is exactly for night or irregular use I have exactly the opposite experience. Although public transport here is pretty good (by US standards, anyway - especially the subway system), I usually take the taxi. After all the apps appeared and started to compete with one another, it became extremely cheap (usual ride is about $3, expensive one is $6-7), clean and convenient. And on top of it, taxis can use public transport lanes - so the traffic isn't that much of an issue.
tuukkah 9y ago
This taxi deregulation is just a part of wider transport deregulation in Finland. The aim is at Mobility-as-a-Service startups to provide novel apps that integrate taxis, public transport as well as new services like Uber Pool into a seamless and efficient transport network. For example, all public transport in Finland will be required to provide a ticket sales API for these new apps. The app can sell you a trip from A to B and fulfill by ordering a taxi to the railway station plus a train ticket to your destination. Here's the press release for an open API from Helsinki Regional Transport Authority HSL: https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2017/hsl-launch-worlds-first-public-transport-retail-interface-open-everyone-11602 https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2017/hsl-launch-worlds-first-publ...
nitwit005 9y ago
> Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. You mean, cars don't scale in an urban environment. The limits on the number of taxis is typically to force up the cost so the taxi drivers could make more, not to improve traffic.
- fulafel 9y ago
  Cars don't scale outside urban areas either: Widespread daily private car use is not environmentally sustainable even with EVs, which still have about 50% of the lifetime CO2 footprint of fossil cars. Taxis have the advantage that you can use them very sporadically, so they're a good solution for a world with less cars.

jpatokal 9y ago

This argument seems like a non-sequitur. Helsinki already has a well-developed public transport system, particularly considering its size, and nobody's about to abandon it and switch to taxis, regulated or not. Jakarta and Mumbai have crappy public transport because of a toxic mix of poverty and incompetent governance, and in both taxis are a luxury for the richest of the rich. I always figured the primary point of taxi regulation in Finland was to ensure that the service would be available even in remote areas that couldn't otherwise sustain it -- but Uber makes it far easier to service those as well.

qplex 9y ago
The overall quality of the taxi service _will_ go down with the price cuts. There isn't any way around this. It was obvious already when Uber was testing their service in Helsinki without adhering to any of the legal requirements. But it's not just Uber - many other taxi companies operate in Finland already with comparable smartphone apps etc. And they also manage to do it without breaking the law ...
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  Monopolies are hardly a recipe for quality service.

TomMarius 9y ago

The market would build railroads and metros given the chance.

oblio 9y ago
The market did build those. Look up robber barons.
- Retric 9y ago
  This was pre car, it's hard to find recent examples.
- acompetency 9y ago
  We did have robber barons build one here, look up the länsimetro.
Reason077 9y ago
Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback. Most of that return is not direct in the form of ticket revenues, but externalised in the form of economic growth along the metro routes, as well as environmental and social benefits. Even where you have private companies building and operating metros, it's usually with the direction and financial support (such as land grants and loan guarantees) from governments.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  There is no need for the initiative to be for profit. People are perfectly capable of getting together and doing stuff - in much bigger scale than a metro.
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    Yes, and when they do, we sometimes call it "government".
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      Nope. No one is allowed to opt out and people are forced to pay even though they don't want to or straight up can't use it and/or don't agree with it.

mattmanser 9y ago

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 (at the moment[1]). I live in the south of the city. For anywhere I want to travel to in the north I have to walk 10 minutes to get to the bus stop. In certain hours buses get out of sync with their timetables, so you can add another 10/15 minutes of waiting. Also a lot of public transport has moved to the "hub" model, where you have a central hub which connects different routes. While perhaps more efficient in some ways, it's incredibly inefficient for the traveller. It adds a minimum of 20 minutes to any journey where you have to go through a hub. My sister used to joke it takes an hour and 20 minutes to visit a friend living on a different tube line in London. My home town is either 3 lines switches away, adding an hour and a half of waiting to a journey, or I go through the London Hub, inexplicably having to pay a premium. 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. [1]I say at the moment as we can imagine a point in the future where you request public transport with your phone and it can on-the-fly accommodate you.

xya3453 9y ago
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).
dagw 9y ago
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.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

golergka 9y ago

> Their use is exactly for night or irregular use I have exactly the opposite experience. Although public transport here is pretty good (by US standards, anyway - especially the subway system), I usually take the taxi. After all the apps appeared and started to compete with one another, it became extremely cheap (usual ride is about $3, expensive one is $6-7), clean and convenient. And on top of it, taxis can use public transport lanes - so the traffic isn't that much of an issue.

tuukkah 9y ago

This taxi deregulation is just a part of wider transport deregulation in Finland. The aim is at Mobility-as-a-Service startups to provide novel apps that integrate taxis, public transport as well as new services like Uber Pool into a seamless and efficient transport network. For example, all public transport in Finland will be required to provide a ticket sales API for these new apps. The app can sell you a trip from A to B and fulfill by ordering a taxi to the railway station plus a train ticket to your destination. Here's the press release for an open API from Helsinki Regional Transport Authority HSL: https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2017/hsl-launch-worlds-first-public-transport-retail-interface-open-everyone-11602 https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2017/hsl-launch-worlds-first-publ...

nitwit005 9y ago

> Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. You mean, cars don't scale in an urban environment. The limits on the number of taxis is typically to force up the cost so the taxi drivers could make more, not to improve traffic.

fulafel 9y ago
Cars don't scale outside urban areas either: Widespread daily private car use is not environmentally sustainable even with EVs, which still have about 50% of the lifetime CO2 footprint of fossil cars. Taxis have the advantage that you can use them very sporadically, so they're a good solution for a world with less cars.