The confrontation between hailed car app services and the establishment taxi and cab industry continues to heat up. Taxi drivers are enlisting the support of local politicians to help restrain Uber and Lyft. I have not used Uber or Lyft yet, but generally I feel that they are the march of progress and am glad they provide options to traditional cabs and limousines. Frankly, given the odious reputation NYC taxis had (refusing to serve minority customers), I am not sympathetic; stiff competition for the riding public’s dollars is a new fact of life. And some of the proposed restrictions on ride hailing services seem heavy handed. Do you have any sympathy for the legacy taxi workers?
I posted this on another thread earlier today. I’m not sure how cab drivers compare on this issue but my understanding is cab drivers do have more and more thorough background checks historically.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/30/technology/uber-driver-sexual-assault/index.html
Uber/Lyft ride share services have also been criticized for not serving minorities or employing them or treating them fairly if hired.
A year or so ago Uber posted several ads on billboards and the like in New York City, depicting African-American Uber drivers who spoke glowingly about their experience. Of course it was an appeal with a bias (like all advertising) but nevertheless, Uber has significant support among some minority persons.
I don’t go to NYC often but I’ve had NYC cab drivers refuse to go to the airport at rush hour.
In Europe the cab drivers are really fighting Uber and Lyft. We saw a huge protest in Barcelona by cab drivers wanting to keep ride share services out. And I thought cab fare there was reasonable and the drivers spoke pretty good English (better than some in this country).
@LakeWashington. That’s hardly surprising since my cousin like many African Americans will tell you how cabs wouldn’t pick them up but they have no problem getting an a Uber.
There is another party involved in the taxi industry – the medallion (taxi license) owners. Because many places have artificially limited numbers of medallions, the value of such got to be very high, to the benefit of the incumbent owners, while excluding potential new entrants to the taxi market. It was very profitable for the medallion owners (who often rented them to the actual drivers), but the taxi shortage left an opening for rideshare services that hail by app rather than on the street.
Medallion market prices have fallen considerably. The taxi industry has also been forced to improve its product, introducing its own apps to hail actual taxis, and generally using nicer cars than the worn out police cars that they used to use before the rideshare services showed up.
A study on racial discrimination here:
http://www.nber.org/digest/jan17/w22776.html
http://www.nber.org/papers/22776
https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/31/study-uber-and-lyft-racial-discrimination/
suggests that racial discrimination is not completely absent among rideshare services.
Note that they compared UberX, Lyft, Flywheel (app to hail actual taxis) and hailing taxis on the street in Seattle.
I have tons of sympathy for cab drivers and medallion owners (many of whom are current or former drivers). Until five minutes ago, driving a cab was one of the basic paths by which immigrants got a toehold on the American dream. They were in a highly regulated industry that required a lot of investment in medallions, equipment, and training. And (surprise! surprise!) the regulation was inefficient and created artificially high prices, and in some respects degraded the quality of service. The people who played by the rules are getting slaughtered by the people who decided to ignore the rules and to write their own rulebook. But I take cabs whenever I can.
Discrimination isn’t absent but my cousin says he went from finding it almost impossible to get a cab to not having any issue. He has the advantage of a “white sounding name” ( it sounds Irish) and having the money to be an excellent tipper.
As the links @ucbalumnus posted show, with ride share apps drivers do discriminate but often the passengers aren’t even aware of it.
Seems that it is now easier to enter driving for hire, since getting into driving a real taxi is less expensive now (medallion purchase or rental was the biggest cost in some places, dwarfing the cost of the vehicle and other equipment), and rideshare driving is an alternative option for new immigrants. But the eventual ceiling is lower now.
With ridesharing, don’t you need your own, newer model vehicle? That sounds like a pretty big barrier to entry for many.
A suitable vehicle for either taxi or rideshare driving costs a lot less than the $1,000,000 that taxi medallions used to cost in some places.
Taxi’s where a government granted monopoly. Good riddance.
When my parents no longer drove, they sometimes had to rely on cabs. They had a heck-a-time getting a cab to take them from their part of town to a doctors office only a few city jammed miles away. The drivers wouldn’t show. The dispatcher finally suggested they always purport to need a ride to the airport - a lucrative run. Then the cabs would show and be angry and gruff when informed they only needed to go to the other end of town.
Had they continued to live in their home and need assistance I would have enrolled them in a ride share program.
Really, cabs did this to themselves.
In Chicago recently and used Uber to go to/from River North to UChicago and twice had an Uber driver get lost! I had to pull up Google Maps to give them directions…Found the Curb app and used a cab for the last trip and had a much quicker (although more expensive) drive.
@ucbalumnus But your average cab driver isn’t paying that to get a job as such.
No hired driver - rideshare or cab - should get lost in 2018 with the technology available.
@doschicos - right?! Both said that Uber has it’s own map system which is awful.
I hopped in a cab on a rainy night in NYC. Cost $10 in waiting time for the taxi to make a right turn within half a block due to car and pedestrian congestion.
I think competition is good for the public. If you have a good product, people will buy it.
I used both Uber and taxis many times in Chicago and NYC during the last year. Without exceptions, uber drivers were much more professional, courteous, social, had much cleaner cars and were much safer drivers. No one ever got lost. By contrast, taxi cabs were stinky, dirty, and I was seriously concerned for my safety due to their driving style. Several taxi drivers spoke on cell phones all the time. Others played annoyingly loud music (one guy had both news and music stations playing simultaneously) Taxi drivers typically did not know directions, and asked me to show them every turn. Many were visibly upset and grumpy because they did not like the destination.
Overall, uber always provided much better service, better value and much more pleasant experience, so I use it whenever I can. BTW, the vast majority of uber drivers I have encountered were immigrants, minorities and/or women. At least 3 of them were full time students.