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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,

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.

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.