Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry

McGruber writes Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu agree: there will a 15 round fight between Uber and the taxicab industry that currently enjoys regulatory capture, but after a long fight, Uber will win. Landrieu says: "It actually is going to be a 15 round fight. And it's going to take time to work out, hopefully sooner rather than later. But that debate will be held.....But it is a forceful fight, and our city council is full of people on Uber's side, people on the cabs' side, and it's a battle." Mayor Reed of Atlanta also expressed how politically powerful the taxi cartels can be: "I tell you, Uber's worth more than Sony, but cab drivers can take you out. So you've got to [weigh that]. Get in a cab and they say, 'Well that mayor, he is sorry.' You come to visit Atlanta, they say, 'Well that Mayor Reed is as sorry as the day is long. Let me tell you how sorry he is while I drive you to your hotel. And I want you to know that crime is up.' This guy might knock you out. I want you to know it can get really real. It's not as easy as it looks."

Comments

Good?

[Kenja]

Not really seeing a downside if the industry is this fragile. It's like claiming that lemonade stands will "knock out" the snapple industry.

Re:Good?

[Archangel Michael]

Any industry that can be replaced by technology, should be.

Hopefully we start evaluating laws that exist solely to prevent competition (Taxi cab franchise badges).

Re:Good?

[Archangel Michael]

Further, UBER is just a first shot across the bow. The next one will be automated "city cars" built by Google, that will pickup and drop off people at work and take them shopping and whatnot. The end of the taxi is coming.

Re:Good?

[Vellmont]

This isn't replacing the taxi industry with a technology, it's pitting a highly regulated industry (taxi cabs) with an unregulated variant. Taxicabs pay huge amounts of money to run a taxicab. If you want to loosen regulations on taxis, fine. But Ueber is an attempt to create an unlicensed, unregulated market where a licensed regulated one exists. It has about zero to do with technology.

Re:Good?

[TechyImmigrant]

Further, UBER is just a first shot across the bow. The next one will be automated "city cars" built by Google, that will pickup and drop off people at work and take them shopping and whatnot. The end of the taxi is coming.

It will be a subscription based 'private club' service to get around taxi regulations.
Wealthier and frequent flyers will all sign up and get whisked efficiently to where they are going, Taxi operators will go bust. Hapless families on their once-a-decade flight get left waiting for a bus.

This is the normal filtering effect of the travel service industry. It serves to physically separate the savvy and/or wealthier travelers from the great unwashed.

Re:Good?

[Anonymous Coward]

UBER is a dispatch & logistics company. They will be first in line to run fleets of automated vehicles...and not just for transporting people. Freight is a much bigger market. What UBER is doing now is not what they have in mind for the future. All they care about now is getting brand recognition. Picking fights with taxi companies and getting news articles is just cheap advertising.

Re:Good?

[Anonymous Coward]

That only shows how bad and harmful such regulations are, and the best way to get done with them is to put it in competition the regulated service with something non regulated and let people vote with their wallets about what they prefer.

Re:Good?

[geekoid]

No they won't. There will be services for one off; which is a lot of people.
IF not, well then create a service. You could take thousands of 'hapless families' to a major airport everyday. The last time I went to the airport I used a service that ONLY picked up seldom fliers. That had many cars and according to the owner, were doing very well. He then offered me a job.
SO, I suspect those people will be ale to get to the airport.
Seriously you're just making up problems.

Re:Good?

[iluvcapra]

The next one will be automated "city cars" built by Google, that will pickup and drop off people at work and take them shopping and whatnot.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, such a car has yet to be demonstrated. Google's demo vehicles are incapable of taking riders anywhere apart from a set track of stops, like a Disneyworld people-mover ride.

There's still probably a need in some cities for street-hail livery, which is what classic yellow cabs are -- in NY you can wait 5-10 minutes for the Uber or hail a cab in 30 seconds, and frankly the cabbie will be less of a pain -- my experience with Uber drivers in Manhattan has been a pretty mixed bag. As long as humans are doing the driving it might still be advisable for the drivers to get background checks and have commercial licensing and insurance, such things are prudent and won't kill the magic free market pixies that flutter about e-hailed car services.

As I understand it, city governments have a few simple problems with Uber-

1) Ubers can avoid poor neighborhoods at will, and there's really nothing the city can do about it. I live in LA, and if you live in, say, Watts, you must call a cab if you want a car, no Uber will find you there, because it's "the ghetto" and there's never an Uber within 20 minutes. Taxis can be and are required to pick up from all parts of the city, and their statistics are closely monitored by regulators to make sure they do.

2) Uber's trip pricing structure is very free-markety but it conflicts with most city's basic taxi regs, wherein a trip's price is a fixed formula of distance and time, no special charge for time of day or pickup/destination location. Uber can't provide this, because they use rate premiums to recruit drivers. Again the system is completely open to various kinds of discrimination, and the pricing process is completely private and not open to any sort of public accountability or scrutiny -- even they drivers, who are nominally the service providers ("Uber is not a transportation company"), can't control it.

3) These of course lead to the more philosophical dispute, namely, Uber handles the hailing, transaction processing, driver and rider ratings, and branding of the interaction, but whenever there's any sort of trouble, Uber can vehemently claim they have nothing to do with the driver or the ride, that it's none of their business, and governments and harmed parties must direct all their laws and lawsuits at little sole proprietors. This is a little too clever by half for some people and while following the letter of the law tends to skirt the equities a little too close.

All of this is totally fine as long as e-hail livery is a "premium" service, but some cities rely on taxis as a critical part of the transport infrastructure, and that's when price disparities and availability blackouts start to be problematic, politically.

Re:Good?

[Maxo-Texas]

While I tend to be pro-link and pro-uber, it's clear to me that taxi's are required to serve bad areas and less profitable areas while link and uber are not.

Part of the process of transitioning to link and uber may eventually require percentage of service of these types.

Otherwise, we'll end up with great competative service in the profitable areas and poor to no service elsewhere. Which will be a failure of the public transportation system.

Re:Good?

[whoever57]

it's pitting a highly regulated industry (taxi cabs) with an unregulated variant.

Unregulated versions have existed in many cities for a long time -- for example, private hire cars in the UK. In the US, the equivalent is not unregulated (limo services) but it is much less regulated than taxi services. People were prepared to pay more for the convenience of a taxi.

What Uber brings is the convenience of a taxi combined with the advantages of existing unregulated services. That's where technology comes in -- it provides the convenience.

Taxi services are now suffering because of a combination of historic greed and anti-competitive actions. By that, I mean the sale of medallions, which brought in revenue to cities (greed) and made it difficult or impossible for people to start a taxi business (anti-competitive). However, those medallions are a huge cost of running a taxi which is not incurred by services such as Uber.

Re:Good?

[Dr. Evil]

Taxis need regulation so that you don't have flocks of angry seagulls fighting over fares, or criminals picking up marks.

Given that the fighting still happens, and the conning still happens, I'd rather trust a website with a reputation based system, than a taxi driver.

Re:Good?

[taustin]

And it's only a matter of time before organized crime smells the opportunity to take over the entire taxi industry, without regulation.

Re:Good?

[ganjadude]

ok. heres a simple solution then.

Lets taxis keep running, and people like you who want the "security" of using the tried and true method can. but allow uber to exist, so other people can make a decision on their own, do i want to save money but potentially get in the car with a maniac? or go tried a true and still get in a car with a potential maniac, although the chances are slimmer with that option

win win solution for the people, only ones bitching are those who run taxis who now get slightly less profit.

Re:Good?

[PapayaSF]

I live in San Francisco and you won't be getting a ride from the cabbies who are hypothetically required to take you. Dispatch will accept the call, but no one will ever show up.

Very true. I once tried to get a cab from one part of downtown to another, in the middle of a workday. No cab ever showed up. I've heard they don't want to miss out on a more lucrative run to the airport.

Re:Threats?

[pspahn]

I am utterly confused about that whole statement. Uber is worth more than Sony? People getting knocked out? I'm not sure what we're talking about right now.

I sort of get what the article is about based on the summary, but it is not appealing enough to warrant clicking on something (I have no idea where that link has been) that would explain the confusing summary.

Taxi Medallions

[adisakp]

Uber, Lyft, Sidecar etc. all avoid the enormous cost of Taxi Medallions (which are hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some places pushing 7 figures) -- PER CAB !!!!

However, circumventing medallions is not necessarily a bad thing considering the downsides of medallions.

And good riddance!

[mi]

Taxis exist not to provide income to drivers or tax-revenue to medallion-issuing locales. We want them to get around. If a better way to do that arises, great. Have them disappear the way horse-drawn wagons got "knocked-out" by the automobiles.

Re:And good riddance!

[meta-monkey]

Sure, but I think things like Uber and AirBnB are sad. Middle class people didn't used to have to drive strangers around or rent out rooms in their homes to make ends meet. I see these as sad signs of the times, not as innovation.

I work IT in the taxi industry.

[Anonymous Coward]

If uber and lyft and the likes carried the same insurances and had the same background checks our drivers had then I welcome the competition but they don't. My company has multiple smartphone apps, GPS tracking, text to ride, and a fully staffed call center to handle bookings and complaints. We do have a logistical advantage that has made us the leader in our metro area. Lyft is here and not making a dent in our sales at all. The only complaint we have made is follow the laws that are in the books. Run meters and carry commercial passenger insurance.

Uber should be stopped

[wytcld]

Uber is abusing its drivers. It advertises "1 million dollars!" of insurance. But that insurance only covers your passengers and victims, and only if you're at fault. It doesn't cover you, or our vehicle, or anyone at all if you got struck by another vehicle, perhaps one without insurance. And your private insurance on your car will not cover a thing if you're driving the car for hire.

There are perfectly good reasons for regulating taxis. As well, there are good reasons for building solid mass transit options so taxis won't be so needed. Allowing Uber to operate puts the public, and its drivers, at risk for no reason beyond the desire to drive down pay below the already barely-subsistence rates that taxi drivers earn. If you don't have a commercial drivers license, and you're not driving a licensed commercial vehicle, and you don't have full commercial insurance, you shouldn't be taking fares. If you are, that's criminal in many places, as it should be. Uber's executives should be arrested for criminal conspiracy.

holy english language batman.

[nimbius]

This summary reads like a stroke victim. im willing to assume the mayor of new orleans is probably drunk, but are we sure the mayor quoted from Atlanta isnt from, say, Atlanta Nicaragua?

Re:Trust

[tibit]

When you step into a cab in the US, you have the assumption of not being ripped off, driven around the block, driven dangerously fast, robbed blind, etc.

This is the funniest shit I've read in a while. I hope you're not serious. So, how many cab rides a day do you take, and where exactly?

Re:I love getting into strangers' cars

[tipo159]

What's with this obsession with licensing?

The skills that one has to demonstrate to get a commercial drivers license is higher than to get a regular car drivers license. Same goes for a motorcycle license. Why shouldn't one need to demonstrate a higher level of skills in order to be allowed to get paid to drive other people around.

I don't trust Uber to verify that their drivers have the skills needs to drive me around safely. Uber's background check that somehow missed one of their drivers was a sex offender.

Re:I love getting into strangers' cars

[mi]

Why shouldn't one need to demonstrate a higher level of skills in order to be allowed to get paid to drive other people around.

Why must one be allowed to get paid in the first place? And why must "higher level of skills" be a requirement — even for the customers, who are perfectly satisfied with average level of skills?

Uber's background check that somehow missed one of their drivers was a sex offender.

So what? Plenty of locales allow (ex-)felons — including sex-offenders — to drive taxis today.

If you want to be driven by above-average drivers only, you can request a higher-rated driver from Uber (and pay more per mile) or — if Uber's vetting process seems insufficiently rigorous to you — go for a different company altogether. But don't try to impose it on the rest of us.