| I mostly have experience of taxi apps from where I live (Stockholm) and basically when one operator had an app, then suddenly all the major companies had apps.
The difference is obviously that there are numerous taxi companies (There used to be one monopoly but at that time there were no smartphones) and the big ones are pretty big, like a 1000+ cars each. The apps obviously look almost the same and it wouldn't surprise me if they came from the same developer in many cases. Here are four of the largest for comparison: https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/sverigetaxi/id504540989?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/taxi-sthlm/id375988670?l=en&... https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/taxi-020/id503115316?l=en&mt... https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/taxi-kurir/id503098740?l=en&... You can see the last 3 just use a skinned standard taxi dispatch app! I appreciate the effort of creating the platform from scratch, but a taxi company shouldn't have to do that. They just license the app. These taxi companies each had dispatches with many dozens of operators, so they save a good amount of money on using an app and cutting back on people) No difference from other commerce. The main difference between Stockholm and Chicago is of course that the "taxi companies" are the large city or nationwide companies battling for market share. A taxi driver or group of drivers can also be a "company" but they just operate under the umbrella of the larger brand - who handles all dispatch, branding etc just like a city wide monopoly usually does. So while it's understandable that a company unlike a monopoly has more incentive to evolve, I don't see any reason why a city taxi monopoly such as Chicago couldn't just make their product more similar to Ubers (regulations aside). I mean - they must also be able to save a ton by getting rid of phone dispatch staff. And anyone with a medallion obviously has an interest in their services not becoming obsolete. |