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NYC Taxi Commission Nixes Cab-Hailing Apps
An anonymous reader writes "Uber is a company that creates apps to connect taxi and limo drivers with potential passengers. They've been rapidly expanding their service to cities across the country, but they're now getting pushback from New York City. This week the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission issued a public notice saying, 'A driver must not use any electronic communication device (PDF), including a cell phone or smartphone running a hail or payment app, while operating a taxicab.' The commission says its current contractual obligations forbid the use of such technology."
NYC has a different types of cabs and they all have different rules on picking up.
Yellow is street hails
Then there limo services where you call them to schedule a pickup. Not real limos but that's what they are called
I think there are one or two other kind of medallions as well
The medallions are owned by Regular people and very expensive so there are lots of interests in keeping the system as it is
Why not consider a possibility that licensing and regulation are two different words because they mean two different things before you start writing knee jerk posts you anonymous coward.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
This is all about turf wars between limo services and cab services in NY. Basically a cabbie in new york, according to regulations, HAS to stop for anybody that hails them. Where as a limo service is appointment only and CAN'T stop to pick people up on the road ... they have to only pick up the appointment.
So bascially, this app makes cabbies into a pusedo limo service. They by pass people on the street hailing them, and go pick up the appointment.
There is a bunch of noise about discrimination against people without smart phones ... but what is boils down to is, once again, government regulations stopping free enterprise. They need to drop this silly non-sense about limo service vs taxi service.
The article says it's because their current contract with their payment processor gives them exclusivity until February. In February, the ban will no longer be in effect, and they'll be free to experiment with new payment systems and taxi-related phone applications that accept payments.
And yes, I know I cheated. I knew I wasn't supposed to read the article, but I just couldn't help myself.
Dude, the call center IS the taxi company. When it's replaced by an app, licensed cab drivers could use their own taxi and keep the full fare. Someone will have to figure out how to handle taxes though.
The NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission screwed things up in in the early 80s when it allowed cabbies to be treated as independent contractors, which broke the taxi union and changed the balance of power.
Combine that with the few (if any) new medallions issued and you essentially have a cartel of medallion owners that are screwing the drivers and the public.
A similar problem exists in most cities where taxi services are available. In the metropolitan area where I reside the city council and a special board determine the number of taxi licenses to be issued for a particular time period. The situation is so perverse that smaller taxi businesses have been bought-out by their competitors because the smaller taxi companies cannot afford the licenses any more. It is organized crime approved by the government.
Yes and no. In NYC to operate a taxi legally you need a medallion on the cab. The current prices for the medallions run about $1 million and as such the industry is heavily concentrated among just a few operators who then lease the medallion to the driver (at a price of roughly $130 per 12 hour shift). Getting rid of the call center would not change the dynamics of the industry at all since the medallion regulation defines the industry more than the call center.
At least in NYC. Cities without medallions like DC it would definately effect them, but the cities without medallions already have large numbers of owner operates (and have a completely different set of problems).
It only raises the cost of living if you ride around in cabs all the time. You're talking about what's basically a luxury service,
Sincerely, fuck you. When I hop around on crutches, public transportation isn't a real choice, and taking a taxi isn't luxury.
Taxis serve a useful public service.
I'd say RTFA, but since not even the editor or submitter seems to have done so, it's seems a little lame. Suffice to say that this is not a new regulation banning Uber, but simply a memo reminding cabbies that they're not supposed to use cell phone apps while driving.
I hope I'm not breaching protocol by asking, but would you be willing to share any numbers on how much you're spending on the cabs? Just curious how it compares to owning a car.
I'm not the original poster, but SF has a usable transit system (not perfect, not even great, but usable), so for a $70/month transit pass you can use transit to get to work and many other places. If you spend $40/weekend on Uber rides, then you're still way ahead of owning a car, since you can easily spend $150 - $300/month for a parking space depending on where you live (and thanks to increasingly more aggressive parking enforcement by the City, you'll probably end up spending more than that on tickets if you park on the street)
Of course, your Uber expenses are largely dictated by where you live and where you're going -- if you live in the Outer Sunset and are regularly going to North Beach, it's going to cost around $30 per trip on Uber. Make 8 round trips on Uber and you're up to around $500.
Except it isn't a small minority. Its the majority. In 2010, it was estimated that 58 percent of all workers in the US were earning minimum wage. http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2010.htm [bls.gov]
From your own source:
3.6% isn't even close to 60%.
I'm sorry, but you're spreading some misinformation.
In NYC, in order to 'reduce' traffic* and protect the interests of the taxi drivers, they have their medallion system. Each taxi has to have a medallion to be legal. Medallions are handled like 'real property', in the sense that they can be sold, don't need renewing, etc...
Latest auction prices for the least restrictive medallions is around $1M. Ones marked only for 'independent operators' where the taxi driver is the owner are a bit cheaper, but still more expensive than the car they drive. Cheaper yet(at the moment) are the 'green' medallions that require you to drive a hybrid (Ford Escape, last time I read about it). As such, it's not a $1M 'fee' where you'll never get the money back. It's a $1M investment that you can get back next week by putting it up for auction again.
*Not that it's really worked; the market will find a way. In this case with non-livery cars that you call and they pick you up. Legally only actual taxis can respond to street hails.
I don't read AC A human right
Not to be a jerk here... But the memo doesn't state that they can't use the cell phone apps while driving (that line is at the end). The memo states that those type of apps like Uber are not allowed due to a contractual obligation that they (The commission) has made with payment processors. It also points out that it could also cause problems with the rules for prearranged rides provision in the law.
I think this app is great if implemented properly.
Its the customer, not the cabbie, who should be fiddling around with a cellphone.
The fare would be given the opportunity to link to a routing computer over the phone. The routing computer would know the status of every subscribing cab, its availability, location, and direction, and be able to notify the proper cab of an awaiting fare.
The cabbie gets a GPS display, much like the existing ones, but this one would be linked to the routing computer and flash where his fare is waiting. There is no reason to annoy the cabbie with anything more than where his fare is, and select one cabbie so they all don't do a mad rush. The cabbie may be given a few seconds to accept the fare, else the routing computer will select another cabbie. The computer would know which cabbies are busy delivering, which are idle, and the idea is to keep the idle ones busy and minimizing non-passenger distance. The routing computer will then inform the caller which cabbie it has arranged to pick them up, along with estimated time to arrival.
Note: This is how I would do it - exactly how they intend to implement this, I am quite ignorant. The whole concept looks great to me - it puzzles me as to why anyone would object.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]