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Probably everyone who has used a Taxi in Germany in the past can tell you how professional, knowledgeable, and safe Taxis were there, and that came through very
by anyfoo 3y ago
Probably everyone who has used a Taxi in Germany in the past can tell you how professional, knowledgeable, and safe Taxis were there, and that came through very strong regulations.
Getting a taxi concession was no joke. You literally had to study on the layout of the city. And given that those are European cities, there is no grid system. You also had to know about safety and take first aid courses.
Additionally, taxis require special inspection on top of the rigid inspections necessary for cars in Germany (you wouldn’t want to endanger people with a rust bucket on the autobahn). So yes, they were exceptionally safe.
Taxis are mostly Mercedes in Germany, as traditionally Mercedes had the most experience with taxis, and the proper programs in place for taxi use. When I see a Mercedes E wagon on a freeway, I still think "taxi" (like some think police car when they see a Crown Victoria).
Source: There was a time where I took a taxi almost every day in Germany, and a close family member owns a German taxi concession for many decades now.
Lyft+Uber are an absolute joke in comparison.
(I talk mostly in the past tense, because I haven’t lived in Germany for long now. I don’t know whether the gig economy damaged the enormous quality of taxis over there.)
- xrd 3y ago100% this. I used to love to go to NYC and ride in the taxis. Such interesting people. Now, I get into a car and have to pretend I'm happy there are mints because they don't want to be poorly reviewed. When no one had to care about reviews, people could be real, and occasionally uncomfortable, but always authentic. Those days are long gone and fuck Uber for destroying that.
- bogota 3y agoYeah and outside of NYC and a few other cities you just ended up stranded because one never showed up or more likely people just drove drunk.
- meowtimemania 3y agoAll my pre-uber memories of taxis in NYC are negative. The drivers drive super crazy, accelerating and breaking a ton because the meter pays them a higher rate if they hit a certain speed. I enjoy uber much more and still meet interesting people.
- nerdponx 3y agoUber drivers in NYC are just as bad as taxi drivers in my experience.
- bawolff 3y agoI dont go in taxis/uber to make friends.
- malcolmgreaves 3y agoI think you misunderstood the commenter. Having a genuine conversation with a stranger doesn’t really ever mean that you’re going to turn that into a friendship. It’s quite normal to connect with someone in passing and leave it at that.
- bawolff 3y ago"make friends" is a saying. It doesn't literally mean to make actual friends. Regardless. If I'm taking an uber/taxi/etc, I want to get to my destination safely in a reasonable time, in a clean vehicle. If the driver strikes up a friendly conversation that's fine. But its definitely not what I am in the car for. If the driver is silent for the entire trip, that is also fine as long as they get me where I need to go.
- eru 3y ago> Probably everyone who has used a Taxi in Germany in the past can tell you how professional, knowledgeable, and safe Taxis were there, and that came through very strong regulations. If you required taxi drivers to have a PhD, they would be even better!
- bombcar 3y agoAfter my father got his PhD and returned to his hometown, he drove taxi for awhile. I don't know if it made him better.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- anyfoo 3y agoI don’t know how to read this comment. Assuming it’s about regulations potentially impeding the ability to scale, the (million people) city I grew up in did not seem to have problems providing enough taxis in any way. As far as I’ve heard from my family member, taxi concessions were highly sought after, but from my experience there were always more than enough to serve the population well. Some taxi drivers were employees of actual owners of the taxis, some (like my family member) owned their own taxi(s).
- eru 3y agoTaxi medallions in New York used to be traded for more than a million dollars in 2013. Taxi customers effectively had to pay for the labour of the driver, the actual cost of running a car, and for the cost of capital to finance the medallions. Taxi medallions set a cap on the available supply of taxi services. Demand was driven by the market. Cost of labour was driven by what drivers could earn in other industries. We can treat the actual cost of running the car as approximately fixed. Because of the fixed supply of taxi services and high demand, prices were high. But the extra profit went all into inflating the cost of the medallions, because labour costs were essentially determined by competition for labour from other industries. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion#New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion#New_York_City After Uber and friends entered the market, the cap on supply was effectively lifted. Prices of medallions crashed, because with extra supply and approximately the same demand curve, the market price for taxi services dropped to just above the cost of labour and car. > [...] but from my experience there were always more than enough to serve the population well. Whether you interpret the pre-Uber era of New York's taxis as 'enough to serve the population well' is up to you. But keep in mind that the drivers themselves did not benefit at all, since the cost of capital for the medallions ate up all the excess income. (Many medallions were rented out by investors, but some drivers were also medallion owners. So in the latter situation they benefited in their capacity as medallion owners, but were 'exploited' in their role as drivers.)
- sgregnt 3y agoHow does UBER compare to taxi pricewise?
- anyfoo 3y agoI just looked it up on Wikipedia. Apparently, in Germany Uber only dispatches to local rental car and taxi providers, so it effectively seems to be a frontend to German taxis. They also mention the rather strong transport laws, that most likely prohibit them from offering the same model as in the US. (But I really don’t know.) So, not comparable it seems.
- sgift 3y ago> They also mention the rather strong transport laws, that most likely prohibit them from offering the same model as in the US. (But I really don’t know.) You are correct. Uber tried their usual model here and we threw the law at them. Then they tried to ignore it (cause, why not, it worked in various US cities). And got hit over with the law again and again. Then they changed it to their current model.