is what didn’t happen. This, from Commonwealth Magazine:
there were no other proposals to lift taxi and livery regulations that control price, cap the number of cabs, and, in places such as Boston, mandate taxi companies use a radio service rather than an app for dispatching.
Good heavens. A radio service. Perhaps regulators should also require the use of shoeboxes full of little scraps of paper in keeping records.
I’m just going to repeat what I said on this topic a month ago (which is a reiteration of what I’ve been saying for years):
what the taxi industry needs is not for Uber et al. to be regulated out of existence. What the taxi industry needs is to be freed from the yoke of antiquated, oppressive regulation that has failed to keep up with the times (as I’ve been saying for years). Get rid of the medallions. Get rid of town-by-town regulation and the nonsensical rules prohibiting Boston cabs from picking up fares outside city limits. Let taxis compete directly with Uber and Lyft and win back their business, not because the state made life more miserable for everyone, but because they do a better job.
I don’t know enough about the differences between the Baker bill and the Forry/Moran bill to have a firm preference, though my instinct in this area is to prefer a lighter regulatory hand to a heavier one, so my instinct is that the Baker bill is probably better. But if the problems of the taxi industry are going to be solved, someone needs to step up with a serious effort at regulatory reform that will bring taxis into the 21st century, not push their competitors back into the 20th.
A rumor that has unfortunately circulated too much here at BMG is something to the effect that “Uber drivers have no insurance”. This is used to construct a public-safety argument that Uber and Lyft put passengers, drivers, and other motorists at risk. I made the same rash assumption in some earlier exchanges.
More recently, I did some research (and talked to several more Uber drivers). The truth is that ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft have provided insurance for drivers all along — sort of.
Those of us who have lived in Massachusetts for awhile know that automobile insurance in Massachusetts has always been, well, special. The process of setting rates and coverage has been tortuous (sometimes more so, sometimes less so). There was an extended period when MA auto insurance rates were essentially controlled by the state — a number of insurers stopped writing policies here as a result.
As things now stand, there is currently a gap in the insurance options available to ride-sharing drivers — even those who WANT to properly insure themselves. This gap is the period during which an Uber driver is signed into the Uber app (as a driver) and waiting for his or her next passenger request.
Unlike several other states, insurance to cover this gap is NOT AVAILABLE in Massachusetts. It isn’t clear to me whether this is a result of our tortured regulations, a result of the very limited number of insurance companies who write policies for automobile insurance in MA, a result of the tight regulations still imposed on automobile insurance rates in MA, some combination of these, or some other factor.
In my view, the answer is obvious — do whatever it takes to make such coverage at least available, and perhaps even mandated. It is stupid (though that’s never stopped our government in the past) to mandate coverage that isn’t offered and therefore can’t be bought.
It strikes me as unfair for this community to malign drivers for Uber and Lyft as likely insurance fraudsters, when in fact many or most are already taking full advantage of whatever insurance coverage is already available.
It is simply false for this community to assert that public safety is at risk when a passenger hires an Uber or Lyft ride. It is not — that portion of the trip IS covered and has been for some time now.
Do these drivers need any more insurance than any of us who may give a friend a lift from time to time?
I think there are rules in personal auto insurance policies about charging for rides.
Virtually all personal automobile insurance policies include a provision where the insured says that the vehicle is not used for commercial purposes.
Uber and Lyft are basically trolling the cab cartels by skirting their monopolistic regulatory regime. And they are trolling fair labor practices by pretending they aren’t a transit company. Declare them a transit company, declare their ‘independent contractors’ employees, have Uber pay the insurance, and reform taxi’s along the lines David has proposed.
The fact that the cab cartel thinks it can lobby it’s way out of it’s self imposed market failure, does not portend well for the likelihood of this solution. I fear they will either succeed in muscling their competitors out, which is bad for consumers, or, Uber will simply pick up all the pieces of a dead industry which is bad for the cab drivers. They both gotta play by the same set of rules, rules that should protect consumers and workers before protecting either sides profits.
How is it “trolling” to get around an acknowledged monopolistic regulatory regime? How is the question of whether they are or aren’t a transit company relevant to fair labor practices, never mind “trolling” them?
Why do you insist on calling independent contractors employees? They aren’t. Contract programmers aren’t employees. Contract house cleaners aren’t employees of the final customer. The world is FILLED with contractors who aren’t employees — why do you single out Uber/Lyft drivers for this bias? These drivers are issued 1099s and pay taxes accordingly. They DO have insurance (see above), and they already pay for it.
I find your commentary on nearly every issue informed and insightful — I wonder why you seem so intent on setting up strawmen about this one.
We surely agree that that the existing taxi industry is dead. We agree on most aspects of what shape new regulations should take. I have become a reasonably frequent customer of Uber. I engage virtually every driver with conversation along the lines.
I have yet to meet an Uber driver who feels abused, exploited, or otherwise manipulated by Uber — this is in marked contrast to the taxi drivers I used to use.
I don’t understand your animus against Uber, Lyft, and by implication Uber and Lyft drivers.
Here is my beef with Uber; they are exploiting loopholes in order to take down an existing industry. It is irrelevant whether that industry should be taken down – this is not the way to do it.
Every industry has government imposed costs. They are generally – though not always – in place for a social good. Want to reduce them? Have a debate and get the legislature to change the law.
This would be like someone coming up with a loophole for a “bank”. It wouldn’t technically be a bank, so it could:
* Offer higher rates because it wouldn’t have to pay people devoted to regulations.
* Allow more flexibility on cash withdrawals and deposits – no federal reporting requirements.
* No ADA compliance costs, no requirement to offer translation services.
* No regulations preventing redlining.
Sounds great for most consumers, doesn’t it? So let’s do it! Take down the banking industry by allowing a company to compete in their space without any of the regulations a bank has. And for the people who need things like ADA compliance and loans in poorer areas, hey, there’s always a bank, which *must* provide those services.
Now let’s rinse and repeat for all industries! Workers are costing you too much? Then great, fire them all and classify them all as “independent contractors” and save big on your costs. Want to allow people to smoke in your bar? Call it a “social club” and let people decide if they want to join and smoke there. The possibilities to end-run government are endless.
By that logic, the vanishing number of us who have landlines would still be leasing telephones from MA Bell, it would still be illegal to change the telephone wiring in our homes, and so on.
In my view, innovation is nearly ALWAYS driven by entrepreneurs who make an end-run on existing players and whatever regulations apply to them.
Oh, and by the way, there are a great many cities in the US and Canada that have “private clubs” that do just that. I don’t know about smoking, but I know that they exist in order to allow club-goers to carry on after the legislated curfew.
I, frankly, don’t know how else innovation should happen. I think the onus is on government to keep its regulations current with existing industry practice and the public good. In my view, the use of government and government regulations to squash an emerging industry because it successfully transforms a market is bad idea that I will resist.
Which is precisely why the regulations need to be rewritten to account for modern realities. This is not what either Uber or the cab cartel is asking for, they are both asking the legislature to create a legal environment where they will thrive and their competitors will vanish. I think the public and the workers lose out in those considerations.
Gov. Baker’s approach seems like a sensible one to me.
If you are insisting those regulations are onerous you are putting yourself well to the right of our avowedly libertarian Governor.
From WCVB
I agree. That’s what I attempted to convey when I wrote “I think the onus is on government to keep its regulations current with existing industry practice and the public good.”
It is the animus against companies who make an “end-run on regulations” that I reject. In my view, that’s what companies do. That’s why we need modern and flexible government, and that’s why Massachusetts needs legislators who embrace the consequences, as well as economic benefits, of “the innovation economy”.
I wouldn’t endorse this as a blanket policy, I think there is a firm middle ground between the world of The Jungle and Massachusetts using 1940s laws to govern 2015 ride sharing apps, and I think we both seek it and I applaud Gov. Baker for doing the same.
I was referring to the animus I read in the comment from nopolitician that I responded to.
I agree with you about the middle ground. Surprisingly, I too applaud Mr. Baker’s posture. I think we Democrats are not helping ourselves by being perceived as trying crush Uber/Lyft.
It would be better, in my view, if Mr. Baker signed onto a optimal approach proposed by our side, rather than the way it seems to be playing out.
In the 1980s, technology providers made an “end run” on movie producers and distribution companies by providing an affordable way for consumers to watch movies at home. In the 1990s, technology providers made an “end run” on the broadcast industry by providing a way for individuals to publish material as easily as newspapers and print publishers.
By the argument you make here, VCRs would have been squashed — and then laser disks, DVDs, and today web video. We would have no netflix, we would have no youtube, we would essentially have no web.
This community would not exist. This medium, on which we are having this exchange, would not exist.
I have to say that I pretty much categorically reject your premise.
We both agree it’s a good thing the market is killing King Coal, and we oppose efforts by the rent seekers to keep it viable past it’s sell by date. But just because natural gas fracking is new and innovative and produces a cleaner product than coal, does not mean it shouldn’t be subject to new regulations and the law should catch up with the technology. We agree when it comes to privacy that the right to privacy is not lost simply because technological advances have made it significantly harder to preserve. So there are rights and responsibilities that stay constant even as technological innovations take hold.
And I for one won’t dismiss the valid public safety and worker protection concerns Uber has been criticized for. We can mitigate against them without continuing to hold water for the cab cartel. I think our Governor has done that.
Movie producers and distribution companies did not have regulations on them which served a social good. At best, you might be able to make the case that network television was forced to operate under rules that cable-only channels did not need to follow (like nudity/swearing).
Here’s a better example: compounding pharmacies. Those morphed in Massachusetts from something small to something big without much attention/oversight, so they lacked the regulations that are required of large-scale drug manufacturers. Oops. Meningitis epidemic. 53 deaths. Turns out that the large-scale New England Compounding Center was operating under 50-year old rules designed for the local drugstore/pharmacy.
Innovation isn’t “who can circumvent the government best”. Uber has a good tool, and as a concept, the idea of electronic cab-hailing isn’t bad (putting aside the argument over whether a “job-sharing economy” is good or not). Has the medallion system outlived its usefulness? We should at least have the debate with the historical perspective of why it came about. Is government setting of cab rates a good thing? Again, before we throw that out, let’s understand why we are where we are.
Uber should have approached local governments with its idea, shown how it benefits things, and asked for the lifting of certain regulations. They did none of that. They jammed their way in with a deliberate strategy to disrupt the market and get as much market share as possible before being called out.
Of course movie producers tried to use regulations to strangle a disruptive, consumer friendly, technology that threatened their business model. They just failed, to the lasting benefit of all.
Jack Valenti lobbied hard against VCR’s, while Mr. Rogers and others helped save them. In the end, video sales ended up being a huge boon to the movie industry, even today, aftermarket DVD revenue can sometimes bump up the long term profitability of films that were middling performers at the box office.
Movie producers used laws which protected their intellectual property. These laws serve no direct societal benefit – they may have an indirect benefit by allowing people to profit from their works.
These laws are not “regulation” any more than the laws that prevent me from stealing apples from someone else’s orchard are considered “regulation of the apple industry”.
And you are missing the point that people have called bullshit on the assertion that taxi regulations have anything at all to do with safety or providing any societal benefit at all.
Here are some examples of taxi regulations:
* Taxis can’t park their cars on streets waiting for a fare.
* Taxis must all charge a uniform rate per mile.
* Taxis must have a working meter, and must show the amount of the fare as it increases.
* Taxi companies must have cars available to pick up disabled patrons.
* Taxi drivers must be able to speak and read English (Greenfield had this rule).
* Taxi cabs must be kept clean.
So those rules have nothing to do at all with safety or providing a societal benefit? They’re in place to protect the taxi industry? I thought this was a reality-based site.
That was the specific regulation that David was discussing in his OP, per the article:
Those are the luddite regulations that gotta go if cabs want to survive. The choice between legislating Uber out of existence or letting the cabs get Uber’d out of existence is a false one, and I strongly feel that a compromise should consider such reality based but apparently radical notions that cabs should be allowed to use apps for dispatching, should be required to offer credit card services, should be allowed to cross municipal lines, and the artificial scarcity of the medallion system should be modified if not scrapped. I’m on board with the Russell Holmes proposal to buy medallions back, and bail out the drivers, but their lousy companies don’t deserve a bailout since they are dragging their feet into the 21st century.
Uber is winning because it offers a better service, but it is also operating in a regulatory black hole that needs to be filled with common sense legislation. The Governor’s proposal seems pretty straightforward in that regard, though some of the worker and consumer safety elements from the Moron-Forry proposal should be considered as well.
You bet. Easy to do, good for the taxi business, good for customers.
Ditto.
Taxis are allowed to cross municipal lines now. They can cross municipal lines when they pick up fare “in town” and, if called (not hailed), they can pick up fare out of town and deliver to another out of town, never even driving in their home city.
What I think you’re asking for is for taxis to be allowed to be hailed from the street or line up in queues outside of home city. They can’t do that now. Frankly, with the exception of non-Boston cabs having to deadhead back from Logan Airport, I don’t see this as a big value-add. This isn’t the change that’s going to fix taxis, not by a long shot.
And, importantly, it’s an extremely difficult change to make. It eviscerates not only medallions, but the ability of local communities to determine their own taxi rates. It also runs the risk of exacerbating the problems associated with plenty of cabs in Region X, but none in Region Y. If you can pick up hails or queue outside of your home city, then you’ll end up with even worse service in many non-Boston inner suburbs, as those cabs flock to downtown Boston and the airport instead of providing local service.
Is there really scarcity any more? In which community are there people chomping at the bit to become taxi drivers, but there’s not enough medallions? Everything I read is that the taxi industry is shrinking. More medallions (or no medallion system) doesn’t turn that around. For example, Brookline doesn’t have medallions, and their number of taxis just went way down with the bankruptcy of Red Cab.
I just don’t see how the medallion — artificial scarcity issue is that important right now. The taxis are getting killed because both they have lower quality of service most of the time and they’re not winning on price either. Methinks tremendous progress can be made on those issues without changing the rules to allowing out-of-town taxis to pick up hails and queue or by scrapping medallions. Maybe those things are good ideas, but in the short run changing either of them won’t help taxis survive Uber. The first two things would in my opinion.
Why is that the government’s job, to ensure the perpetual survival of an artificial monopoly that provides really poor services, and has been delivering really poor service for decades and decades? The only reason that communities “have an interest in setting rates” is to make sure that the artificial monopolies they have created make heaps of money. It is incestuous and corrupt. The sooner this and the entire medallion system can be eviscerated, the better.
Crappy taxis have been competing with “by phone” limousine services for many years. I started using them in the early 90s when I dropped my wallet THROUGH THE HOLE IN THE TAXI CAB FLOOR. Uber is no different– except that it is easier to use the app. And now, oh, no, we have to proect our precious taxi medallion owners! Tough.
There are some old lefties back in Cambridge who marched in solidarity with the cab drivers during their Cambridge stunt a few months ago and want to ban Uber. I am not of that mind, precisely for the reason that when I am in smaller cities like Boston or Pittsburgh that have unreliable cab services, I use Uber almost exclusively.
We waited over an hour for a cab driver on the way to a wedding last autumn in Pittsburgh, from our awesome airbnb hosts I might add so we are clear I support a well regulated sharing economy, and gave up and got an Uber so we wouldn’t be late for the ceremony. I haven’t even bothered using cabs in Boston since I had to wait 90 minutes in the snow for one after a house part a few winters ago.
I love the drivers, which is why I dislike their whole management. I think their CEO intentionally views his employees as disposable and jumps through legal hoops to prevent having a legal relationship with them. Their response to valid complaints about surge pricing during emergencies and valid reporting of sex assaults are atrocious. And yeah, next to the Boston cab cartel they look virtuous, but I would rather the legislature laws that protect the public rather than continuing to protect the cab cartel or simply switching it’s allegiance to Uber.
There is a meme going around that claims that taxi companies are the ones who lobbied for all this regulation over the years to freeze out competition. I believe this is a conservative meme to get people to argue for exactly what you are arguing: “get rid of all the regulations!”
Certainly getting rid of all regulations on taxis and Uber would put them both in the same position. That, however, throws away all historical perspective on why the regulations were created to begin with.
Yes, some of the regulations are likely unnecessary now, but others may still be important. I’m guessing the rule to mandate “radio service” for dispatch was put in long before anyone knew what an “app” would be. I tried to do a little research on this point; it seems that in the 1940s, before radios were used to dispatch, the way only you got a cab was to step out into traffic and try to hail one. Cabs didn’t have “in use” lights on them back then, so a lot of people were apparently getting injured by stepping into traffic.
I found something else that suggests that cab rates were set (maybe indirectly) based on profitability data supplied by cab companies, and that there was a concern that companies without radios had higher “dead times” for their cabs, so the companies without radios were driving up everyone’s costs. Maybe the mandate was due to that.
Another angle might be a a public safety aspect. I found a number of references to the usefulness of radios, from reporting traffic situations and even to warding off people who tried to rob cabs.
It makes perfect sense to revisit whether that rule is still necessary from the public’s perspective. Yes, that is going to take some work – but that is what the legislature is supposed to do. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to just throw out all regulations without reviewing them because they are “a yoke” that prevents cab companies from competing the Uber – the company that found a loophole in the definition of what a “hail” or “dispatch” actually consists of.
Why on earth would the circumstances in the 1940s relating to the method of dispatch be at all relevant in 2014? Why the heck were rates ever set by anything other than the people charging them? If what you say is true, the fact that this has never been updated in the time since is something of a searing indictment of the entire regulatory structure, and strongly suggests that there is no baby in this bath water.
You completely missed my point. Each regulation has a historical reason. Ignoring them en masse is like people saying “hey, no one has had Rubella in a long time, so why don’t we stop requiring the vaccine”? It takes time and effort to go through them and propose sensible changes. Republicans used to do that. Now they just say “throw them all out” and Democrats resist by saying “go to hell”.
They aren’t saying no to regulations, they are saying no to ancient regulations that were set up to preserve the cab cartel in the 1940s. I am all for throwing those out, what I am not for is getting rid of the regulations entirely and letting Uber take a turn writing the laws for this century. I think the public should have a say, especially consumers, but also the workers for both kinds of companies. It’s a tall order to argue either the cab status quo or the Uber status quo is progressive, they need to be reconciled and play by the same rules.
Uber has very clearly been saying no to all regulations involving cabs, because their strategy hinges on them not being declared cabs, yet competing with cabs. They continue to fight being classified as cabs when they are, for all intents and purposes, serving the same function as cabs, but with an electronic hail rather than a hand-waving hail.
Uber has a hole in its coverage, and there was an example in San Francisco in 2013 where an Uber driver killed a six-year old girl. The driver’s insurance refused to pay because they claimed the driver was “working”. Uber’s insurance refused to pay because they claimed that since the driver wasn’t carrying a passenger, he wasn’t working. Uber ultimately settled, and California changed its laws to require insurance for Uber drivers. It would not have been right for the legislature to absolve cab companies from the insurance requirement because “those rules were written long ago and they are a yoke around the neck of the industry”.
Because a taxi is a pure commodity good. The user is better off with a single rate structure for all cabs, because the advantages of the industry (hailing, taxi queues) go out the window with price competition.
Maybe it was true pre-Uber, pre-smartphone, pre-no way to get a ride other than flag down a cab. But it makes little sense to me now. If you go to call an Uber but see that surge pricing is in effect and you don’t want to pay it, then try your luck with Lyft or a cab. Similarly, Uber gives you an estimate before you call the car (I think you commented on another thread that it was flat rate, but it’s not – it’s based on time and distance, like taxis), so you can decide what you want to do.
The reason for regulation/uniformity of fares is that 1) It is impossible to know the price of a trip from a traditional cab, and 2) cabs are often taken by people who have no clue as to how much they should cost.
I remember taking a cab from an airport outside of Houston to the downtown area. There was a sign in the cab which said “the cab ride should not exceed $X, if it does please call this number”. Why is this important? Because I could get into the cab, be driven downtown, and the cabbie could say “OK, you now owe me $200” and I would have no idea and no recourse.
Surge pricing would be horrible for traditional cabs because very often you don’t have a choice to take a cab. They have you by the short hairs. Imagine leaving a restaurant, it starts to rain, and the cabbie says “sorry, my rate just tripled, have fun walking”. It may make market sense (though some research has shown it does not actually increase supply), but it is generally just gouging, charging people in desperate situations the most possible. It is an ugly side of capitalism that should not be encouraged.
On my last trip home from downtown, I got the “surge pricing” notifier from Uber — a 1.5x increase. I canceled the request and took the T.
It’s just not that big a deal — assuming, of course, that the T exists and operates.
I’m arguing why they make sense for taxis.
You walk out of the airport, get in the taxi queue. The entire functioning of the queue relies on there being a single rate for all taxis in the queue. Otherwise, the next person in line would have to determine which of the 15 vehicles has the most advantageous price, rinse, repeat. Where people are using a taxi queue, uniform pricing is necessary for efficiency.
You put your arm out to grab a cab. Same story. You don’t want to be in the position of asking the taxi its price, and then turning it down. It’s horribly inefficient for the taxi, for you, and for the cars and bikes on the road who have to weave around even more double parked taxis than they do now.
I’m not arguing for regulated pricing for pre-arranged rides (including Uber). I’m arguing for regulated pricing if you’ve got the right to respond to hails or use taxi queues.
We called an Uber ten minutes before we left a downtown restuarant on Saturday to get to our train on time, we waited 8 minutes to find the guy in traffic and I couldn’t understand him over the phone. Cancelled it and hailed the first available cab which got us to our train right on time. Waiting for Uber would’ve made me late.
Waiting for a cab I called in Pittsburgh nearly made me late for a wedding, calling an Uber got me there in time. So for me, if I am already outside and needing transport sometimes hailing a cab makes more sense for a short-medium term ride where the price isn’t really that different. I think cabs could use metered rates for those rides, and surge pricing and apps for pre called rides to pick up lost business from Uber. If only they weren’t lobbying the state to prevent that reasonable lifeboat…
Airports are sui generis, it seems to me: they are usually in places where it’s very difficult to walk to a city street where you’d have other options (like Uber), people often have a lot of luggage which makes it hard to walk very far, and they are often located on property that is totally controlled by the local airport authority so that access can be restricted. Boston doesn’t have special airport rates, but other places do, and I assume that Massport could impose rules saying that anyone picking up passengers for hire at Logan must charge the same rate. Beyond that, I guess I still don’t really buy the argument that mandated uniform rates make sense anymore.
What would be better for the people providing the service? Do taxi drivers make more than Uber drivers? Do they get better benefits?
I suspect that neither cab nor Uber drivers get much there – both are generally classified as independent contractors. Income is a good question. However, we know from the Globe’s very interesting exposé on the taxi industry that many taxi drivers start in a fairly deep hole; Uber drivers don’t, AFAIK.
Unfortunately I worry that the special interests in both camps will drown out the concerns of the public. Cabs will throw whatever clout they have left to just kill Uber rather than risk competing with them on an even plain, and it’s clear Uber is exploiting the lapsed regulatory environment to eek out a competitive advantage. It makes far more sense to rewrite the rules for the current climate, and do so in a way that is even handed to all stakeholders. It really isn’t rocket science, and I am saddened to see an either or dichotomy develop rather than a reality based approach.
I know, there’s a Boston taxi cab hail app, but it stinks. To do it right, there’s no doubt that taxis will have to reinvent dispatch, but…
the state of the art in Boston, today, is as follows:
Uber: the app tells you when your ride will arrive, is accurate to within a minute or two, and gives you real time updates on your vehicle’s progress to where you are waiting. You also have a pretty good idea of the price of the trip at the time of request.
Taxi: the app (or dispatcher if you call) gives you a wild estimate of when your ride will arrive, is rarely even close to accurate, and while you wait you have no idea if the taxi will ever show. You also have no idea what the ride will cost.
None of this has to do with medallions, with employee vs. contractor, or with insurance. This is straight up customer service. I believe that if the taxis could figure out how to implement Uber-like app hails, they’d really stop the bleeding. It doesn’t solve all their problems, but it would at least let them continue to compete for those who value high customer service first and foremost.
I suspect a main reason Uber is able to be more timely is that they do not have limits on how many drivers can be operating, and their drivers haven’t yet figured out that they can’t really make much of a living with the unlimited competition Uber allows between them.
I did some more research and found that, at least in the 1940s, DC law changed to limit the number of cab licenses. It may have been in response to soldiers returning from WW2 and flooding the market. An ad taken out by the Combined Cab Service Inc., laid out these reasons to limit the medallions:
* Washington has more cabs per capita than any other large city in the USA.
* Something should be done to protect the $10 million investment represented by Washington’s taxicab industry which provides the livelihood for 30,000 persons.
* Limit cabs and reduce traffic.
* It referenced the number of empty cabs that cruised the downtown streets pre-war, noting there were 4,500 cabs at that time, and that there were 7,000 in 1946 and the licenses were being issued at a rate that would double them in a year.
* Taxicab owner is entitled to a stabilized business. The majority of drivers owned their own cabs and are “small businessmen”.
I found some other information suggesting that traffic congestion was another reason that cities wanted to limit the cabs – before the limits were in place, endless cabs circled the streets like sharks and posed danger to pedestrians. However, the primary motivation here appears to be to limit the amount of cabs so that the industry wasn’t flooded.
It doesn’t matter if you have 1 vehicle “on the streets” or 10,000. The concept is exactly the same. The only difference is the actual wait time.
I’m not arguing that taxis should have an app-hail wait time of under 3 minutes. I’m arguing that they should follow Uber’s lead in providing good user interface, and more, more complete, and more correct information for the user.
The number of vehicles is irrelevant to the point.
Variability is largely linked to distance from you to the cab and secondarily linked to having an open cab (because loading/unloading a passenger is somewhat unpredictable).
If you have more open cabs then that distance is smaller and the cab has one mission: to get to you, rather than having a queue of trips to process and having to fight a couple of miles of traffic.