6 ms·

Why are Hart Taxis more expensive?

40 points by jfax 6y ago

_asm 6y ago
Bizarre seeing this on the front page... this is my local taxi firm
- dltj 6y ago
  Had any experiences with them? (Good or bad?)
  - _asm 6y ago
    Just a standard taxi firm. Today must be a slow news day!
santoshalper 6y ago
My overly simplistic theory on why everything turns into a race-to-the-bottom is that cost is easily measurable and all the other things that Hart mentions, while important, are not easy to measure.
- throwaway314158 6y ago
  > all the other things that Hart mentions, while important, are not easy to measure Some can be easily measured but would require significantly more regulation/data gathering; for example, calculating on time arrival and how optimal the route chosen was. Others would require publicizing data that some stakeholders might be resistant to reveal, such as the number of vehicle safety infractions they've accumulated in the past 90 days.
  - santoshalper 6y ago
    Yes, and that's why they are not easy to measure and cost is.
- zucked 6y ago
  For many people, price is the only factor; it's a luxury to be able to consider other aspects.
  - santoshalper 6y ago
    I'm sure there are some, but I think most people can afford to care about their safety. People who cannot are probably using mass transit and not taxis, since that is a very high cost method of transportation. I think most people really believe they are all the same (and they might be right) and aren't willing to pay for a hypothetical benefit.
908B64B197 6y ago
They are selling a commodity. When you are in a commodities market only price matters. The article also mentions a series of issues with traditionally taxi. > Furthermore there are some taxis who will cut costs by not providing a good service. This may be by promising to arrive at a certain time but then regularly turning up late. Sometimes late enough for you to miss your flight or your train at the station. They may arrive looking scruffy, unshaven or badly dressed. They may take you on a longer route than you expected and hike the fares up that way. All these were pretty much fixed by Uber. At a lower price than legacy taxi operators.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  Unshaven drivers? I can't help but read this as a dogwhistle to people who don't like regular taxis because they're often driven by immigrants with facial hair. Incidentally I happen to believe uber's initial rise to popularity exploited this as well. Lots of people talking about how great it was that uber's drivers were 'just regular guys', as if other taxi drivers are in some way 'irregular.' The only difference I ever saw was the relative proportion of immigrant drivers (a gap which, to Uber's credit, narrowed a lot over the subsequent years.)
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > I can't help but read this as a dogwhistle to people who don't like regular taxis because they're often driven by immigrants with facial hair. Now that I read the sentence again, yes I can see it. > Lots of people talking about how great it was that uber's drivers were 'just regular guys', as if other taxi drivers are in some way 'irregular.' Sadly, I think they meant "not professional drivers". Pre-Uber taxis had an horrible reputation for bad service in a lot of metro areas.
    - giarc 6y ago
      In my limited experience, taxis drivers know the routes and where to go. It's obvious they drive a lot, but they often drive aggresively. Uber drivers on the other hand are safer drivers, but I find they never listen to the GPS and I'm always reminding them of the upcoming highway exit they are about to miss.
jtbayly 6y ago
I'm sympathetic, but it also reads a lot like FUD.
sradman 6y ago
> The fact of the matter is that there is a set minimum cost to doing business in the taxi trade. This cost includes such items as hourly rates for drivers, servicing costs for vehicles, insurance, licence fees etc. I think the "license fees" for taxis has evolved [1] into a suboptimal market system that is difficult to unwind: > The medallion system is a government-created intentional constraint on the supply of taxicabs, and since historically cities have increased the number of medallions much more slowly than the growth in demand for taxis, medallions have generally been considered a great investment; though recently the increased supply of cars for hire created by ridesharing companies has been eroding the value of medallions. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > medallions have generally been considered a great investment; I'd put a citation needed on that. There's nothing that keep a city from doubling the number of medallions available, other than some shady lobbying groups. There's a reason most banks shy away from these assets (and those who touch is consider them extremely volatile assets).
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Maybe they shy away now, but I remember reading that banks used to view them as valid collateral for loans. From a 2019 NYT article (open a new browser container): >They said some drivers were happy to use climbing medallion values as collateral to take out cash, and that those who sold their medallions at the height of the market made money. >The lenders said they believed medallion values would keep increasing, as they almost always had. No one, they said, could have predicted Uber and Lyft would emerge to undercut the business. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medallions-suicides.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medall...
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      Some banks did. But I seriously doubt they treated them like real estate when pricing the risk on them.
SilasX 6y ago
Meta: This ... actually works pretty well as an analysis of the tradeoffs in using the cheapest service. But, it's also a self-serving statement (an ad in all put positioning) from the very provider claiming to have a good reason to charge you more, and so it feels too close to spam to put on HN, you know?
tareqak 6y ago
The points they make are interesting. Imagine if Uber/Lyft/your-preferred-method-of-transportation showed you those particular details for that trip i.e. number of hours driven preceding this trip, vehicle condition, etc. Yes, a lot of riders no doubt consider the trip to be a commodity such that only the lowest price matters, but some people did/do pick Lyft over Uber when Uber had the better price for reasons other than price.
popey 6y ago
Woah. Didn't expect to see my local town appear on HN today. One thing they don't talk about is the customer service. I find Uber drivers are typically way more friendly and accommodating than the local firms. Not specifically Hart taxis, but one of their competitors in the area - Rushmoor Taxis - have been atrocious. Drivers making racist comments about brown people - their co-workers, drivers huffing and complaining bitterly if I dare use a debit card to pay, driver not even turning up and claiming it's my fault I "didn't see them" when I am standing out in the open. Our local cab firms need to up their game. It's not just about price.
ahepp 6y ago
It sounds nice in principle. But often low quality services will lie about being high quality services, and there's not much recourse once you've paid. Thus I have found myself participating in the race to the bottom, not because I'm per se unwilling to pay for quality, but because I am required to trust that the quality difference exists, while the money saved is certain.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  This is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons The same principle, only applied to selling cars: > Suppose buyers cannot distinguish between a high-quality car (a "peach") and a "lemon". Then they are only willing to pay a fixed price for a car that averages the value of a "peach" and "lemon" together (pavg). But sellers know whether they hold a peach or a lemon. Given the fixed price at which buyers will buy, sellers will sell only when they hold "lemons" and they will leave the market when they hold "peaches". Eventually, as enough sellers of "peaches" leave the market, the average willingness-to-pay of buyers will decrease (since the average quality of cars on the market decreased), leading to even more sellers of high-quality cars to leave the market through a positive feedback loop. Thus the uninformed buyer's price creates an adverse selection problem that drives the high-quality cars from the market. Adverse selection is a market mechanism that can lead to a market collapse.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Hart Taxis boasts higher driving safety, but what are the statistics for being involved in a road accident with a taxi really like? If the odds of an accident are already minuscule with the cheap taxi services, and only marginally more minuscule with Hart Taxis, then I imagine many passengers would go with the £15 cheaper option. With regard to their drivers earning a "living wage", I would rather let the workers themselves speak about that – you can’t really trust anything an employer says here unless it has been vetted through collective bargaining.
virtuous_signal 6y ago
>With Hart Taxis you get: - Smart drivers who have been working a maximum of 12 hours in a single shift and a maximum of 6 shifts per week. - Smart, washed and valeted cars - Road legal vehicles with full service history. - Vehicle tracking services so you can see where your driver is from when they accept your job to when they arrive. - Text information detailing the make, colour and registration of the vehicle that will be picking you up. - Meet and greet service at the airport where we monitor your incoming flight and only send the driver at the appropriate time. - Bottled water on arrival at our airport jobs. - Automated booking via our Oliviar booking system with the industry’s leading booking and despatch software - Full E-receipt provided on completion of job, if required. If I understand things correctly, then the only difference between this and Uber/Lyft is primarily item 1 (although I'm not sure why it matters that the driver is "smart"). Items 2 and the bottled water could probably be gotten through Uber Black which also costs more. So it seems one pays a premium to help certain drivers earn a living wage, and support an ethical company; more cynically, to not feel like one is participating in Uber-style exploitation. I imagine that some in the effective altruism community[1] would consider this and other sorts of ethical consumption to be "ineffective", and would recommend people just donate the price difference to needier people, or to an organization better equipped to create structural change. But I'm not an effective altruist so I may be misrepresenting that perspective. [1] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2015/1228/Forget-Fairtrade-just-give-cash-to-the-poorest-philosopher-says https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-A...
- misthop 6y ago
  I'm fairly certain that _smart_ is in the British English sense of clean or neat
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    As a Brit, if that's not a normal usage, what do Americans think the second point "Smart, washed and valeted cars" means?
    - misthop 6y ago
bruceb 6y ago
Some people complain about companies charging too much. Some people complain companies don't pay their workers enough. Sometime these are the same people. They don't realize it.
- hobs 6y ago
  Some people realize that companies can pay their workers enough and not overcharge by reducing their profits, but they don't want to do that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - test6554 6y ago
    Some people don't realize that profits are not the same thing as revenue. Sometimes profits are negative for multiple years. sometimes they are great. If you don't jealously guard profits, you can be forced to let down a lot of people that depend on you when markets or competitors or regulations put pressure on your bottom line.
diebeforei485 6y ago
Uber Select is a lot nicer than UberX, for sure. Uber Black is an even higher tier that I've only used once and don't really see the difference from Select unless it's a super long ride. However, the longer the ride, the larger the price differential.
bischofs 6y ago
99% of the Ubers/lyfts I've been in are trips to the airport - and most of those cars had worn out suspension, bald tires, or raw wheel bearings. Some even to the point where I wasn't sure the vehicle was going to get me where I was going. It doesn't help that in the midwest the roads are 3rd world quality. The business model is flawed and I would rather use a company that maintains a vehicle fleet where a mechanic is involved and knows if a vehicle should not be on the road.
- pcthrowaway 6y ago
  > Some even to the point where I wasn't sure the vehicle was going to get me where I was going. It doesn't help that in the midwest the roads are 3rd world quality. I suspect you haven't taken an Auto/Tuk-tuk in Delhi/Mumbai/Bangkok. I've never experienced the same kind of fear with a driver-for-hire in North America.

40 points by jfax 6y ago

_asm 6y ago

Bizarre seeing this on the front page... this is my local taxi firm

dltj 6y ago
Had any experiences with them? (Good or bad?)
- _asm 6y ago
  Just a standard taxi firm. Today must be a slow news day!

santoshalper 6y ago

My overly simplistic theory on why everything turns into a race-to-the-bottom is that cost is easily measurable and all the other things that Hart mentions, while important, are not easy to measure.

throwaway314158 6y ago
> all the other things that Hart mentions, while important, are not easy to measure Some can be easily measured but would require significantly more regulation/data gathering; for example, calculating on time arrival and how optimal the route chosen was. Others would require publicizing data that some stakeholders might be resistant to reveal, such as the number of vehicle safety infractions they've accumulated in the past 90 days.
- santoshalper 6y ago
  Yes, and that's why they are not easy to measure and cost is.
zucked 6y ago
For many people, price is the only factor; it's a luxury to be able to consider other aspects.
- santoshalper 6y ago
  I'm sure there are some, but I think most people can afford to care about their safety. People who cannot are probably using mass transit and not taxis, since that is a very high cost method of transportation. I think most people really believe they are all the same (and they might be right) and aren't willing to pay for a hypothetical benefit.

908B64B197 6y ago

They are selling a commodity. When you are in a commodities market only price matters. The article also mentions a series of issues with traditionally taxi. > Furthermore there are some taxis who will cut costs by not providing a good service. This may be by promising to arrive at a certain time but then regularly turning up late. Sometimes late enough for you to miss your flight or your train at the station. They may arrive looking scruffy, unshaven or badly dressed. They may take you on a longer route than you expected and hike the fares up that way. All these were pretty much fixed by Uber. At a lower price than legacy taxi operators.

stretchcat 6y ago
Unshaven drivers? I can't help but read this as a dogwhistle to people who don't like regular taxis because they're often driven by immigrants with facial hair. Incidentally I happen to believe uber's initial rise to popularity exploited this as well. Lots of people talking about how great it was that uber's drivers were 'just regular guys', as if other taxi drivers are in some way 'irregular.' The only difference I ever saw was the relative proportion of immigrant drivers (a gap which, to Uber's credit, narrowed a lot over the subsequent years.)
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > I can't help but read this as a dogwhistle to people who don't like regular taxis because they're often driven by immigrants with facial hair. Now that I read the sentence again, yes I can see it. > Lots of people talking about how great it was that uber's drivers were 'just regular guys', as if other taxi drivers are in some way 'irregular.' Sadly, I think they meant "not professional drivers". Pre-Uber taxis had an horrible reputation for bad service in a lot of metro areas.
  - giarc 6y ago
    In my limited experience, taxis drivers know the routes and where to go. It's obvious they drive a lot, but they often drive aggresively. Uber drivers on the other hand are safer drivers, but I find they never listen to the GPS and I'm always reminding them of the upcoming highway exit they are about to miss.

jtbayly 6y ago

I'm sympathetic, but it also reads a lot like FUD.

sradman 6y ago

> The fact of the matter is that there is a set minimum cost to doing business in the taxi trade. This cost includes such items as hourly rates for drivers, servicing costs for vehicles, insurance, licence fees etc. I think the "license fees" for taxis has evolved [1] into a suboptimal market system that is difficult to unwind: > The medallion system is a government-created intentional constraint on the supply of taxicabs, and since historically cities have increased the number of medallions much more slowly than the growth in demand for taxis, medallions have generally been considered a great investment; though recently the increased supply of cars for hire created by ridesharing companies has been eroding the value of medallions. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion

908B64B197 6y ago
> medallions have generally been considered a great investment; I'd put a citation needed on that. There's nothing that keep a city from doubling the number of medallions available, other than some shady lobbying groups. There's a reason most banks shy away from these assets (and those who touch is consider them extremely volatile assets).
- SilasX 6y ago
  Maybe they shy away now, but I remember reading that banks used to view them as valid collateral for loans. From a 2019 NYT article (open a new browser container): >They said some drivers were happy to use climbing medallion values as collateral to take out cash, and that those who sold their medallions at the height of the market made money. >The lenders said they believed medallion values would keep increasing, as they almost always had. No one, they said, could have predicted Uber and Lyft would emerge to undercut the business. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medallions-suicides.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medall...
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    Some banks did. But I seriously doubt they treated them like real estate when pricing the risk on them.

SilasX 6y ago

Meta: This ... actually works pretty well as an analysis of the tradeoffs in using the cheapest service. But, it's also a self-serving statement (an ad in all put positioning) from the very provider claiming to have a good reason to charge you more, and so it feels too close to spam to put on HN, you know?

tareqak 6y ago

The points they make are interesting. Imagine if Uber/Lyft/your-preferred-method-of-transportation showed you those particular details for that trip i.e. number of hours driven preceding this trip, vehicle condition, etc. Yes, a lot of riders no doubt consider the trip to be a commodity such that only the lowest price matters, but some people did/do pick Lyft over Uber when Uber had the better price for reasons other than price.

popey 6y ago

Woah. Didn't expect to see my local town appear on HN today. One thing they don't talk about is the customer service. I find Uber drivers are typically way more friendly and accommodating than the local firms. Not specifically Hart taxis, but one of their competitors in the area - Rushmoor Taxis - have been atrocious. Drivers making racist comments about brown people - their co-workers, drivers huffing and complaining bitterly if I dare use a debit card to pay, driver not even turning up and claiming it's my fault I "didn't see them" when I am standing out in the open. Our local cab firms need to up their game. It's not just about price.

ahepp 6y ago

It sounds nice in principle. But often low quality services will lie about being high quality services, and there's not much recourse once you've paid. Thus I have found myself participating in the race to the bottom, not because I'm per se unwilling to pay for quality, but because I am required to trust that the quality difference exists, while the money saved is certain.

Viliam1234 6y ago
This is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons The same principle, only applied to selling cars: > Suppose buyers cannot distinguish between a high-quality car (a "peach") and a "lemon". Then they are only willing to pay a fixed price for a car that averages the value of a "peach" and "lemon" together (pavg). But sellers know whether they hold a peach or a lemon. Given the fixed price at which buyers will buy, sellers will sell only when they hold "lemons" and they will leave the market when they hold "peaches". Eventually, as enough sellers of "peaches" leave the market, the average willingness-to-pay of buyers will decrease (since the average quality of cars on the market decreased), leading to even more sellers of high-quality cars to leave the market through a positive feedback loop. Thus the uninformed buyer's price creates an adverse selection problem that drives the high-quality cars from the market. Adverse selection is a market mechanism that can lead to a market collapse.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

Hart Taxis boasts higher driving safety, but what are the statistics for being involved in a road accident with a taxi really like? If the odds of an accident are already minuscule with the cheap taxi services, and only marginally more minuscule with Hart Taxis, then I imagine many passengers would go with the £15 cheaper option. With regard to their drivers earning a "living wage", I would rather let the workers themselves speak about that – you can’t really trust anything an employer says here unless it has been vetted through collective bargaining.

virtuous_signal 6y ago

>With Hart Taxis you get: - Smart drivers who have been working a maximum of 12 hours in a single shift and a maximum of 6 shifts per week. - Smart, washed and valeted cars - Road legal vehicles with full service history. - Vehicle tracking services so you can see where your driver is from when they accept your job to when they arrive. - Text information detailing the make, colour and registration of the vehicle that will be picking you up. - Meet and greet service at the airport where we monitor your incoming flight and only send the driver at the appropriate time. - Bottled water on arrival at our airport jobs. - Automated booking via our Oliviar booking system with the industry’s leading booking and despatch software - Full E-receipt provided on completion of job, if required. If I understand things correctly, then the only difference between this and Uber/Lyft is primarily item 1 (although I'm not sure why it matters that the driver is "smart"). Items 2 and the bottled water could probably be gotten through Uber Black which also costs more. So it seems one pays a premium to help certain drivers earn a living wage, and support an ethical company; more cynically, to not feel like one is participating in Uber-style exploitation. I imagine that some in the effective altruism community[1] would consider this and other sorts of ethical consumption to be "ineffective", and would recommend people just donate the price difference to needier people, or to an organization better equipped to create structural change. But I'm not an effective altruist so I may be misrepresenting that perspective. [1] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2015/1228/Forget-Fairtrade-just-give-cash-to-the-poorest-philosopher-says https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-A...

misthop 6y ago
I'm fairly certain that _smart_ is in the British English sense of clean or neat
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  As a Brit, if that's not a normal usage, what do Americans think the second point "Smart, washed and valeted cars" means?
  - misthop 6y ago

bruceb 6y ago

Some people complain about companies charging too much. Some people complain companies don't pay their workers enough. Sometime these are the same people. They don't realize it.

hobs 6y ago
Some people realize that companies can pay their workers enough and not overcharge by reducing their profits, but they don't want to do that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- test6554 6y ago
  Some people don't realize that profits are not the same thing as revenue. Sometimes profits are negative for multiple years. sometimes they are great. If you don't jealously guard profits, you can be forced to let down a lot of people that depend on you when markets or competitors or regulations put pressure on your bottom line.

diebeforei485 6y ago

Uber Select is a lot nicer than UberX, for sure. Uber Black is an even higher tier that I've only used once and don't really see the difference from Select unless it's a super long ride. However, the longer the ride, the larger the price differential.

bischofs 6y ago

99% of the Ubers/lyfts I've been in are trips to the airport - and most of those cars had worn out suspension, bald tires, or raw wheel bearings. Some even to the point where I wasn't sure the vehicle was going to get me where I was going. It doesn't help that in the midwest the roads are 3rd world quality. The business model is flawed and I would rather use a company that maintains a vehicle fleet where a mechanic is involved and knows if a vehicle should not be on the road.

pcthrowaway 6y ago
> Some even to the point where I wasn't sure the vehicle was going to get me where I was going. It doesn't help that in the midwest the roads are 3rd world quality. I suspect you haven't taken an Auto/Tuk-tuk in Delhi/Mumbai/Bangkok. I've never experienced the same kind of fear with a driver-for-hire in North America.