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."

Comments

Uber is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I use it all the time in DC. I probably use it more because of the fact the DC government doesn't like it.

Re:Uber is awesome

[TheRealMindChild]

Because the asshole that cuts you off within millimeters to make their fare happy is now worrying about how many fares they will miss if they aren't driving and fucking around on their cell phone

Re:Uber is awesome

[jcr]

DC cabs pay a shitload of money to local DC politicians to limit their competition. Uber is competition.

-jcr

Re:Uber is awesome

[hawguy]

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.
 

"while operating a taxicab"

[Culture20]

They can use it while they're parked waiting for a fare, but not while driving. Makes sense for safety.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[MichaelSmith]

No I think this is about who controls the allocation of taxis. Somebody has to pay for their call center. Can't have it replaced but a couple of thousand lines of code.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[stephanruby]

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.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[ShanghaiBill]

Somebody has to pay for their call center.

This makes no sense. The call center is a cost sink for the taxi company. They should be glad to be rid of it.

I think the real reason may have something to do with independent taxis competing on an equal footing with bigger fleets.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[gr8_phk]

This makes no sense. The call center is a cost sink for the taxi company. They should be glad to be rid of it.

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.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[Cylix]

....

And yes, I know I cheated. I knew I wasn't supposed to read the article, but I just couldn't help myself.

We tend to be fairly forgiving here so I'll let you off with a warning this time. Just be more cautious in the future and mistakes like this won't happen again.

*Hops back into the RTFM Patrol Car and speeds off down the information super highway.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[jamesh]

No I think this is about who controls the allocation of taxis. Somebody has to pay for their call center. Can't have it replaced but a couple of thousand lines of code.

I wonder how 'self drive' cars will change the taxi industry, once such cars are truly allowed full autonomy on the road... then drivers will be replaced by a couple of million lines of code. Until someone needs a hand with their luggage or needs help out of their wheelchair etc.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[jmauro]

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).

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[Loosifur]

Did they overlook the $1 mil for a cab medallion? Because, speaking from the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia, for non-natives), that was the first thing we picked up on. Apparently, NYC has so much money that only rich people can own cabs. Because you can get a smartphone for way less than an NYC cab medallion. I don't know what it's like up there, but, everywhere else, smartphones aren't limited to "rich people".

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[Entropius]

How the hell is this consistent at all with, to use a buzzword, American values?

Why shouldn't I be able to cruise around in my car and offer people rides for money without City Hall's permission?

Re:"while operating a taxicab"

[technik]

*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.

Some related info... as of April 2012 the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission decided to open up street hails and beginning in July issuing 6000 permits to existing vehicles. Eventually, 18000 such TLC permits will be extended to for hire vehicles.

It's currently tied up in a lawsuit, and permits are not being issued, but expect it to go into effect and some of the 40k+ for-hire vehicles will be able to legally take street hails.

can't use while operating...

[doug141]

might not mean can't use while pulled over. Ambiguous.

radio

[bob zee]

is the radio considered an electronic communication device? it is one-way communication for sure, but "communication" nonetheless.

Re:radio

[CohibaVancouver]

read the article

You must be new here.

Re:radio

[fm6]

As indicated by the fact that he's arguing with an AC, who probably will never see his response.

I wish we could just get rid of ACs. If you need to post anonymously, use a sockpuppet. I'm so tired of all those stupid posts by people who clearly have no interest in an actual conversation.

TLC

[clarkkent09]

Why is there a commission to decide whether I can drive you from A to B for a fee and whether you can call or text me on the phone to arrange it and to whom I have to pay a very substantial annual fee for the privilege of doing so? The answer: its a legalized racket, just like all business licensing.

Re:TLC

[clarkkent09]

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.

Re:TLC

[trout007]

I'd say it's more of a cartel. If it was just licensing than anyone could go to city hall fill out a form and become a taxi driver. But they keep a cap on how many taxis there are. Then they have price controls on the fares to prevent competition.

Re:TLC

[guises]

I'd say it's more of a cartel. If it was just licensing than anyone could go to city hall fill out a form and become a taxi driver. But they keep a cap on how many taxis there are. Then they have price controls on the fares to prevent competition.

You've got it backwards - the price controls are there to keep fares from rising too high, they prevent gouging. That's a danger whenever you limit competition by restricting who can perform a service. It's like how every country in the world (except the US) which allows drug companies to patent drugs also sets limits on how much the companies can charge for those drugs. It's there to prevent abuse of their monopoly.

If they removed the state granted monopoly on taxis, then they could also remove the price controls and the fare price would likely fall. The reason they don't do this is probably mostly because of the company lobbyists, but there's some good reason to believe that this scenario wouldn't work out as well as you'd hope. Just a few years ago pedicabs (bicycle taxis) were completely unregulated in New York. There were tons of them and it was rather difficult to make a living that way, particularly if you weren't a very good salesman: the largest pedicab company in the city was (still is) run by a turkish man who would bring in people from turkey on a three month visa with the promise that they would be able to pay their way, and pay their way back home, as pedicab drivers. Since their English wasn't very good in general they had a lot of trouble getting rides, they would fall deeper and deeper into debt since there was no other way (legal way) for them to make money here and no way to get back home, etc. Just a bad scenario.

Anyway, the point is that they limit the number of cabs in order to keep rates high enough that drivers can make a living wage, and they restrict what the cabs can charge in order to keep the drivers from gouging people. It's not ideal, but a simple solution based on ideals rather than facts is not going to improve the situation.

Re:TLC

[khallow]

And then when New York's streets are chocked cabs and congestion sucks

You probably just described New York City for the past two hundred years. While I admire someone who can actually find a problem and recognize it is a problem, who seriously believes that rigging the cab market so that it is deliberately overpriced and uncompetitive is in any way solving congestion?

Re:TLC

[arth1]

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.

Re:TLC

[yndrd1984]

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:

In 2010, 72.9 million American workers age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.8 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.5 million had wages below the minimum.2 Together, these 4.4 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 6.0 percent of all hourly-paid workers.

3.6% isn't even close to 60%.

Re:TLC

[Hazel Bergeron]

Because the people own the street so choose how their property is used, i.e. property rights. If the people want to restrict taxis on the street so not any rapist or conman can respond to a hail, that's up to them.

It takes a particularly stupid sort of libertarian (but I repeat myself) to go around blaming The Government for absolutely everything wrong in the world. So, for your sake, imagine that The Government is actually a private business - let's call it The Corporation. Imagine that The Corporation owns everything "public" and has an contractual interest in everything else in the country, allowing it to collect fees for certain operations.

There. That's the whole country, unchanged, but now libertarian.

Happy?

Lame

[girlintraining]

So if you can't use electronics, how do you dispatch them? Do they return to the depot after every pickup to receive little strips of paper? (-_-)

Another case of capitalism gone full retard -- "We forbid you to use anything that could make your job more efficient and convenient for your customers!"

Re:Lame

[alen]

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

Re:Lame

[BlueStrat]

Another case of government corruption & cronyism gone full retard

FTFY

These regulations have nothing whatsoever to do with capitalism, except that they contribute to distorting, corrupting, abusing, impeding, and destroying capitalism.

Strat

Re:Lame

[TubeSteak]

The medallions are owned by Regular people and very expensive so there are lots of interests in keeping the system as it is

The medallions are owned by Really Rich people and are extremely expensive so there are lots of interests in keeping the system as it is.
In 2012, the lowest winning bid for a medallion was $1.201 million
The Regular people who drive cabs have to lease from millionaires who can afford the medallion.

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.

Re:Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The 20% mandatory tip did it

[NJRoadfan]

So the real issue is that, as usual, the cabbies don't want to go to Brooklyn (cause that's where all the hipsters likely to use this app live).

I wonder if the conflict of interest is with "black" car livery service? They can't pick up hails (don't know if that changed, it was always reserved for medallion carrying "yellow" cabs), but this might enable them to if an app "requests" their services.

Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[TubeSteak]

Basically a cabbie in new york, according to regulations, HAS to stop for anybody that hails them.

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.

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.

If you don't understand why taxis are legally required to pick up anyone hailing them,
then I guess this doesn't make sense and you can shoehorn this into the traditional
"government regulations are stifling free enterprise" world view.

There's a reason that the police and Taxi & Limosine Commision conducts sting operations to make sure that drivers are following the law.
The main ones being: you can't charge handicapped passengers more, you can't kick someone out for wanting to go to a hospital,
you can't discriminate based on race, and you can't refuse service based on destination.

More often than not, regulations are there because "free enterprise" misbehaved,
not because the big bad government is out to stop free enterprises from making money.

Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[prisoner-of-enigma]

More often than not, regulations are there because "free enterprise" misbehaved,
not because the big bad government is out to stop free enterprises from making money.

More often than not, these well-meaning regulations are twisted to serve special interests once the regulations have outlived their useful purpose. Then the misbehaving party *becomes* the government. The difference is, with free enterprise, you can opt out of a corrupt or discriminatory business or even create your own competing one. There is no such option when government gets involved, which is why you should *always* be wary of government assuming such powers, no matter how trivial.

Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 'cause the absolute first thing I do when a capital intensive business pisses me off is to start my own competing business. You should see my empire now. I've got my own cell phone company, taxi and limo company, electric power utility, food distribution service, and of course health care system. Oh, wait, I can't just start those things up on my own, so my choices are to have a society with rules or just take whatever corporations and business owners think I deserve. Guess which one serves my interests better?

Libertarian types can be such dumbasses sometimes,

Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[TubeSteak]

More often than not, these well-meaning regulations are twisted to serve special interests once the regulations have outlived their useful purpose.

Are you claiming that the regulations requiring taxis to pick up all passengers has outlived its useful purpose?
I cannot deny that regulations can end up serving special interests instead of the general public.
My rebuttal is that we should have better regulation, not no regulation.

In this particular case, the regulations governing taxis generally serve the public and the regulations should remain that way.

The difference is, with free enterprise, you can opt out of a corrupt or discriminatory business or even create your own competing one.

The balance of power is not equal between someone who wants a service and someone who provides a service.
This is why we have regulations.

Without regulations, there are monopolies and oligopies, not competition and free markets.
This is what history shows us and ideology frequently strives to ignore or deny.

Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[reagan9000]

In this case, this regulation is in response to previous misbehavior. NYC cabs used to accept so-called 'radio calls', where one could call a cab's central office to schedule a pickup. Cabbies would flip the 'radio call' flag on when they didn't want to pick up a minority, go to a distant destination, or charge more during rush hour. Cab companies are jumping at this app, since it gives them the ability to again discriminate against undesirable customers and inconvenient destinations.

The free market provides plenty of opportunities for cabbies to choose their customers. There are private car services and 'gypsy cabs' that customers can call or, presumably, 'hail' via an app. These companies can charge what they want and in many cases the cost is comparable to a yellow cab; in fact, private car services typically charge a fixed price that sometimes works out to be cheaper than a similar trip in a yellow cab.

Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[noobermin]

But this is an example of where regulation is getting in the way. At least Bloomberg seems willing to get this resolved.

See, government is good in regulating at times as a neccessary evil (I can think of how the world collapsed after Glass-Steagal was repealed), but other times regulation just gets in the way. A way to discriminate is looking at motives: is this business trying to fuck over customers by the discriminations you mentioned? No, they are just trying to reach customers and be more convient. Were the big banks trying to set up an asymmetric ponzi scheme that isn't wise but will fuck over customers? Yes.

I agree with you bud, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water, but we do need to throw out the bath water :) In this case, the government is in the way and needs to get out of the way so a harmless business can prosper.

Re:Turf Wars ... limo vs cabs

[Kijori]

The problem here really is that people don't start capital-intensive businesses "all the time", and even if they did that isn't the real measure; the real question is whether people start successful and competitive capital-intensive businesses "all the time". Your example of airlines is particularly capital-intensive, and the pattern is entirely predictable: today's biggest airlines were largely formed from mergers of old airlines, rather than upstarts coming in; a few airlines carry a very high proportion of the total passengers; and if you go to (for example) JFK or Heathrow you'll struggle to find an unfamiliar airline. If you want to fly from Heathrow to Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin or Rome - all chosen because they are nearby and popular, so surely the most accessible to new entrants - you have in each case the choice of 2 well-established airlines. The same pattern is repeated across any number of industries where the costs of entry are high.

The barriers to entry for a taxi firm are clearly not on the scale of an airline. Here the barriers are tilted more towards the regulatory - licences are scarce and therefore expensive. There is clearly a degree of protectionism in this - a scarcity of licences does protect current drivers. On the other hand there are also valid concerns underlying the licencing model: taxi users are unusually vulnerable, either to price-inflation or physical attack. Regulation of taxi-drivers helps to make a taxi a safe way for women to get home at night as well as a safe way for tourists to travel without being taken advantage of. So does it achieve any of this?

Happily, to see a completely unregulated taxi system you don't have to go to Somalia; Russia and most of Eastern Europe operate on precisely this model, and do so in economies that are (mostly) capitalist and subject to the rule of law. A person wanting to take a taxi in Russia can simply position themselves on the edge of the road and beckon to the traffic. At some point someone will pull over - either a professional taxi driver or someone just accepting the occasional fare. It's best to negotiate the fare up-front, as this will limit the amount you will be overcharged. Tourists pay massively inflated fares and anyone is liable to be driven all around to justify a large and unexpected price increase. Other fairly common 'tricks' are simple crime (particularly against women) or driving way out of the city and extorting the passenger to drive them back.

Does this mean that regulation is always justified? Of course not. The point I am trying to make is simply that it is rather more nuanced than just "regulation is anti-competitive and therefore bad" or "regulation protects people so it's good". Regulating taxi-drivers brings social benefits in the shape of safety, reliability and a good reputation, for which we pay in decreased competition and therefore increased fares. Whether that trade-off is, on the whole, a good one or not is the question, but it is a rather more difficult one.

Re:The 20% mandatory tip did it

[alen]

Almost no chance of a fare back to manhattan means wasted time and money
I know a few a few cab drivers.

Rightfully so..

[thatskinnyguy]

They nixed it and rightfully so. Think of all the damage caused by hail. Their insurance premiums would go through the roof in no time!

Big Government

[websaber]

This is why people have trouble trusting the government, their only interest is to sell Medallions for their own profit.

Re:Big Government

[BlueStrat]

FTFY. Large companies own nearly all the medallions in NYC.

Yes, because government set it up that way intentionally with their medallion system.

Government doesn't want a bunch of independent operators and small companies. They're too hard to regulate/tax/control, and too difficult/time-consuming for government to obtain details of passengers' travels that they want to track, and they don't provide the kickbacks the medallion system generates.

Strat

Defnition of "Electronic Communication Device"?

[Taco Cowboy]

... A driver must not use any electronic communication device ...

I am not from New York, but I had been to New York (and NYC) many times, and have lost count of the times I took NYC cabs
 
I remember that in the NY cabs that I were in, even during pre-cellphone era, there was already an "electronic communication device" - a CB-radio
 
And the cabbies were using it to communicate with their HQ and to others, even while they were zig-zagging in and out of the city traffic!!
 
It's totally ridiculous to place a ban on the use of "electronic communication device" while they were already using "electronic communication devices" !
 
Unless of course, the CB radio they were using were not electronics - maybe they are still using vacuum tubes in their CeeBees
 

Re:Defnition of "Electronic Communication Device"?

[fm6]

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.

Re:Defnition of "Electronic Communication Device"?

[tsotha]

Maybe so, but you can use a radio without taking your eyes off traffic. How many of those cab-hailing apps are the same?

Re:Defnition of "Electronic Communication Device"?

[Maximus633]

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.

Re:Defnition of "Electronic Communication Device"?

[anubi]

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.

Re:Dear NYC:

[pla]

These laws exist to keep people safe from gypsy cabs that may extort or kidnap you.

Umm... Come again?

Forgive me for suspecting you as an NYC "Taxi and Limousine Commission" shill, but seriously? Kidnapping???


And seriously, as a resident of lower Manhattan, I can tell you that Boston and LA have nothing on NYC!

Yeah, no kidding! Apparently, they lack the same risk of kidnapping, that taxi companies can have a government-sponsored monopoly as a way to minimize the risk to people in need of a ride. Daaaamn, remind me never to visit NYC again!


I realize that in some parts of the world (Middle East, Africa, Central America) you may well end up kidnapped and ransomed. I've taken plenty of unregulated cabs in the US, however, and at worst, I've found they take a slightly longer route than optimal - Which still comes out way cheaper than the average NYC cab ride. Can you sense my lack of sympathy here?

Re:Dear NYC:

[JDG1980]

It's not a perfect system, but it's pretty fucking simple: You want to hail a cab, look for the medallion.

That would work much better if NYC didn't arbitrarily restrict the medallion supply. If medallions were available to anyone who met a basic set of requirements (legal residence, good driving record, regular inspection of vehicle) then that would be sensible regulation. Refusing to issue any new medallions since 1937 is not.

Subliminal Typo correction

[CuteSteveJobs]

> The commission says its current contractual obligations love of money forbid the use of such rival technology.

Fixed that for you.

> "The TLC is eager to pave the way for taxi riders to take advantage of the most up-to-date technology, including smartphone apps that may help passengers locate available taxicabs more quickly," said TLC chairman, "once we work out how to get a piece of the action".

Oh wham!

All over the world taxi licenses earn government ridiculous amounts of money. The poor bastards that drive the cabs see little of that, with the licences purchased by wealthy investors. Government workers (or quasi-government commissions) forget their mission is to ensure the public has access to taxis. Unfortunately whenever large sums of money are waved under a government workers nose they focus on getting some for themselves. Sure they can't legally pocket it themselves, but organizations bringing in cash get star treatment and some of that cash hangs around as benefits for government workers. https://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142301617/nyc-taxi-medallions-fetch-unbelievable-returns

Medallion?

[Compaqt]

By "medallion", is it meant a "virtual" medallion, like say, a medallion number, and all your info is on record with the city, and you can get a new certificate if you lose yours?

Or is it really a gold/copper/bronze/whatever chunk of metal, and you're supposed to hang this $1 million item off your rearview mirror so the police can easily verify you have it? That's pretty crazy, considering that it's only a, what, $50 piece of glass between a thief and $1 million?