5 ms·

Presumably, the taxi industry is "heavily regulated" for the benefit of the customer, then shouldn't customers flock to this excellent, regulated service on the

Presumably, the taxi industry is "heavily regulated" for the benefit of the customer, then shouldn't customers flock to this excellent, regulated service on their own? Why are those artificial and arbitrary limits necessary?

officemonkey 13y ago
The last time I went to Brasserie Flo after a concert at New Morning I waited 90 minutes at a taxi stand for cabs behind a 50-foot line of other late-night revelers. Cabs came 10 minutes apart. I have never waited so long for a cab in a major city. The industry may be heavily regulated, but it does not seem to be rigged in favor of the customer. If I knew I would get a ride in 15 minutes, I would snap at this in every city I travel to.
diminoten 13y ago
Not necessarily, not if some companies are committing fraud, or creating a monopoly.
southpawgirl 13y ago
In some Italian cities the situation is no different: taxi licenses are issued only on a fixed, limited number and are sometimes inherited from father to child, often sold for mind-boggling amounts (comparable to the price of a house). The service as a result is quite crap: long waits, high prices per km and all the most contrived surcharges you can think of (5 additional Euros for the airport and some tourist destinations, etc). Each time a deregulation is proposed (and it does happen) there are immense backlashes from a small category that would be not only stripped of a privilege, but actually, properly ruined: some cabbies have to take 10 yrs mortgages to buy a license. It's a legacy state of affairs that carries on only because it's difficult to remove, not because it's of actual advantage to anyone.
- gioele 13y ago
  > high prices per km In Italy, and in other European countries, the taxi prices are set by the city councils, not the taxi drivers.
  - officemonkey 13y ago
    And those councils are aggressively lobbied (and possibly bribed) by those taxi drivers. The most depressing thing about public corruption is how cheap it is.
- mikeash 13y ago
  The same basic situation exists in New York City. They're called taxi medallions there, and the small supply and large demand causes them to cost a surprisingly large amount of money. The government even has a convenient graph of the average price over time: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/price_trends_chart.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/price_trends_chart... That shows a cost of 359,000 in 2006. More recent data is even crazier: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/avg_med_price_2013_november.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/avg_med_price_2013... According to that, they cost a million dollars apiece these days.
onebaddude 13y ago
>the taxi industry is "heavily regulated" for the benefit of the customer I get your point, but people decry the regulation that Uber is fighting against...until Uber implements free market "surge pricing". Then people are more than happy to leap back into the yellow cabs, which have their price regulated. Just read through some of the fallout. In other words, all the free market vs regulation talk is lip service. People want what's best for themselves.
- spindritf 13y ago
  until Uber implements free market "surge pricing". Then people are more than happy to leap back into the yellow cabs, which have their price regulated That is assuming they can find one. Surge pricing incentivizes drivers to actually show up and compensates them for tougher conditions and additional risk.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    Do you have any numbers or stories showing that extra drivers begin working when surge pricing comes into effect at uber?
  - onebaddude 13y ago
    >Surge pricing incentivizes drivers to actually show up and compensates them for tougher conditions and additional risk. I get it, and I believe it's well within their right, and also an interesting strategy. I'm not really knocking Uber, I'm knocking some of its supporters. Again, read through some of the comments on mainstream articles regarding the surge price kerfuffle. Filled with people saying, "Suck it Uber and your dynamic pricing! I took a regular taxi!" Meaning, they'll support the unregulated market, as long as it's cheaper. People want more de-regulation, but fail to see the seemingly "good" that comes from regulation; in this case, predictable pricing when you're trying to get somewhere.
mikeash 13y ago
The entire point of rational regulation (not to be confused with insane regulation, which is sadly common) is to avoid market failures such as the tragedy of the commons. By their very nature, those market failures mean that a regulated industry cannot compete with an unregulated one, but people are still better off with the regulated one. That's not to say that these regulations are beneficial or that regulations are needed at all here (I have no idea either way), merely that you can't judge the utility of regulations by letting them compete with deregulated industry and seeing which one wins.
- yankoff 13y ago
  > a regulated industry cannot compete with an unregulated one, but people are still better off with the regulated one. Can you please give one example?
  - cycrutchfield 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Application http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Applicat...
  - chc 13y ago
    Probably the clearest example: If one company is required to clean up its waste responsibly and the other one is allowed to do whatever it wants with its waste, the unregulated company will destroy the other one (perhaps literally by burying it under a mountain of waste).
    - thisosound 13y ago
      > to clean up its waste responsibly Why won't the unregulated company get sued if they dump their waste onto someone else's property (in/directly)?
      - mikeash 13y ago
        Because that "someone else's property" is often shared water/air resources, and when you cause $30 million in damages by causing 10 cents in damage each to 300 million people, there's no way to turn that into a lawsuit, even when tons of other people are doing the same thing and adding up to thousands of dollars of damage per person.
elag 13y ago
"BART drivers earn six figures. Why do they even need a union?"

officemonkey 13y ago

The last time I went to Brasserie Flo after a concert at New Morning I waited 90 minutes at a taxi stand for cabs behind a 50-foot line of other late-night revelers. Cabs came 10 minutes apart. I have never waited so long for a cab in a major city. The industry may be heavily regulated, but it does not seem to be rigged in favor of the customer. If I knew I would get a ride in 15 minutes, I would snap at this in every city I travel to.

diminoten 13y ago

Not necessarily, not if some companies are committing fraud, or creating a monopoly.

southpawgirl 13y ago

In some Italian cities the situation is no different: taxi licenses are issued only on a fixed, limited number and are sometimes inherited from father to child, often sold for mind-boggling amounts (comparable to the price of a house). The service as a result is quite crap: long waits, high prices per km and all the most contrived surcharges you can think of (5 additional Euros for the airport and some tourist destinations, etc). Each time a deregulation is proposed (and it does happen) there are immense backlashes from a small category that would be not only stripped of a privilege, but actually, properly ruined: some cabbies have to take 10 yrs mortgages to buy a license. It's a legacy state of affairs that carries on only because it's difficult to remove, not because it's of actual advantage to anyone.

gioele 13y ago
> high prices per km In Italy, and in other European countries, the taxi prices are set by the city councils, not the taxi drivers.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  And those councils are aggressively lobbied (and possibly bribed) by those taxi drivers. The most depressing thing about public corruption is how cheap it is.
mikeash 13y ago
The same basic situation exists in New York City. They're called taxi medallions there, and the small supply and large demand causes them to cost a surprisingly large amount of money. The government even has a convenient graph of the average price over time: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/price_trends_chart.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/price_trends_chart... That shows a cost of 359,000 in 2006. More recent data is even crazier: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/avg_med_price_2013_november.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/avg_med_price_2013... According to that, they cost a million dollars apiece these days.

onebaddude 13y ago

>the taxi industry is "heavily regulated" for the benefit of the customer I get your point, but people decry the regulation that Uber is fighting against...until Uber implements free market "surge pricing". Then people are more than happy to leap back into the yellow cabs, which have their price regulated. Just read through some of the fallout. In other words, all the free market vs regulation talk is lip service. People want what's best for themselves.

spindritf 13y ago
until Uber implements free market "surge pricing". Then people are more than happy to leap back into the yellow cabs, which have their price regulated That is assuming they can find one. Surge pricing incentivizes drivers to actually show up and compensates them for tougher conditions and additional risk.
- jacalata 13y ago
  Do you have any numbers or stories showing that extra drivers begin working when surge pricing comes into effect at uber?
- onebaddude 13y ago
  >Surge pricing incentivizes drivers to actually show up and compensates them for tougher conditions and additional risk. I get it, and I believe it's well within their right, and also an interesting strategy. I'm not really knocking Uber, I'm knocking some of its supporters. Again, read through some of the comments on mainstream articles regarding the surge price kerfuffle. Filled with people saying, "Suck it Uber and your dynamic pricing! I took a regular taxi!" Meaning, they'll support the unregulated market, as long as it's cheaper. People want more de-regulation, but fail to see the seemingly "good" that comes from regulation; in this case, predictable pricing when you're trying to get somewhere.

mikeash 13y ago

The entire point of rational regulation (not to be confused with insane regulation, which is sadly common) is to avoid market failures such as the tragedy of the commons. By their very nature, those market failures mean that a regulated industry cannot compete with an unregulated one, but people are still better off with the regulated one. That's not to say that these regulations are beneficial or that regulations are needed at all here (I have no idea either way), merely that you can't judge the utility of regulations by letting them compete with deregulated industry and seeing which one wins.

yankoff 13y ago
> a regulated industry cannot compete with an unregulated one, but people are still better off with the regulated one. Can you please give one example?
- cycrutchfield 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Application http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Applicat...
- chc 13y ago
  Probably the clearest example: If one company is required to clean up its waste responsibly and the other one is allowed to do whatever it wants with its waste, the unregulated company will destroy the other one (perhaps literally by burying it under a mountain of waste).
  - thisosound 13y ago
    > to clean up its waste responsibly Why won't the unregulated company get sued if they dump their waste onto someone else's property (in/directly)?
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Because that "someone else's property" is often shared water/air resources, and when you cause $30 million in damages by causing 10 cents in damage each to 300 million people, there's no way to turn that into a lawsuit, even when tons of other people are doing the same thing and adding up to thousands of dollars of damage per person.

elag 13y ago

"BART drivers earn six figures. Why do they even need a union?"