[maerF0x0]

I cant speak directly for Paris, but in my home town, one reason we limit the number of taxi cabs is because we've decided (as a society regulating itself) that too many cabs is a social problem. It may sound funny, but imagine a case where there is a lineup of 200 cabs clogging the airport to get that one lucrative fare. Alternatively, outside of a office building to aim for CEOs. They take up a common good that is free (space and to some extent air quality) and therefore are a tragedy of the commons case.

[nknighthb]

Have you experienced "too many cabs"? How do you know the "social problems" aren't just imagined? How do you know they cannot be controlled in other ways?

You imagine "200 cabs clogging the airport" -- have you seen how cabs work in places where they are plentiful? There's no point in having 200 at an airport at once. They don't take passengers at random, they line up and wait their turn.

If there are a lot of cabs at an airport, the drivers will be better off going into the city and finding a fare there than waiting in a line of 200 cabs.

If there is actually such demand that 200 would "clog" the airport at once, they're obviously solving a problem that isn't being solved by alternative means, such as cheaper and more efficient busses and trains.

Why would drivers aim for CEOs? Cab fares are regulated, so that just leaves tips (something not even customary in many places). They'll get more in a couple hours driving around than waiting for the lottery in the form of an abnormally generous CEO.

[bunderbunder]

This is a good point. In most cities, cabs do not go to the airport unless they have to.

It just isn't a good use of their time - if you drive all the way out there with an empty cab, you've just sunk a whole lot of gas and time on a deadhead when you could have spent the same on picking up several fares downtown. And even when you have someone who wants a ride out to the airport, it's not necessarily something you want to do because then for a return fare you've got to go to the cab stand and take whoever you get wherever they want to go - which could be somewhere way out in the weeds so you still end up stuck with a dead head. That's the reason why in most cities there are actual laws on the books saying cab drivers aren't allowed to refuse to take you to the airport - without those laws, many of them would.

[maerF0x0]

Maybe the specifics of my town are different, it costs ~$60 to go from my house to the airport, thats really good money for 40 minutes / 25kms. Maybe 60 minutes of spent time? (20 minutes to get to me + 40 minutes to get to airport). Expenses on a car are < 50c a km. So $12.50 in auto expenses + $47.50 for 1 hr work.

[maerF0x0]

I never said it was the smartest answer to the solution, merely gave the "reason" behind the politics. W/o the regulation to line up, maybe they wouldnt?

You've made lots of statements about how things would work, which I doubt you could back up w/ evidence.

[nknighthb]

You want evidence, go visit Taipei. Where's your evidence?

[mcguire]

2001: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/local/archives/2001/03/12/00...

2005: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/11/26/2...

[nknighthb]

The 2005 article is irrelevant to any point I've been making, and the 2001 article is both ancient and matches not at all my actual experience living in Taipei this decade. Both are from a source with all the integrity of Fox News.

[avar]

I can't speak for Paris either, but when I was in Accra in Ghana around 10 years ago I found their approach to taxis fascinating. I don't know their regulations for them but they seem to be effectively unregulated.

In that city what seemed like every 10th car or so is a taxi, it'll take you no more than 30 seconds at almost any given point in the taxi to hail a cab. By social convention the cab will stop for you even if it already has passengers, if the passengers are going to a similar location they'll ad-hoc split the fee.

It was cheap enough due to the unregulated nature that you could take a cab for all your trips, and there was almost no incentive to have a car in the city. The number of cars overall was probably drastically reduced, and it was a much more efficient system than any similarly sized metro bus or tram system I've been to in a similarly sized city.

I don't know what the ideal system is, but consider the tragedy of the commons you might be imposing by artificially driving up the price of what might effectively become small ad-hoc point-to-point public transportation in lieu of personal vehicles for everyone, or a larger and less efficient public transportation system.

[john_b]

It seems like if anything resembling a normal, competitive market experienced the situation of "too many cabs" it would self correct quickly as the rates for individual drivers would plummet. Sitting in a line of 200 cabs for one paltry fare would not be a viable way to operate a cab.

[mattlutze]

Most of those 200 cabs would soon disappear, because a cabbie cannot keep cabbing if he/she doesn't get fares.

I wouldn't be surprised if some folks that own taxi companies in your city lobbied the council-people with that social good argument, as a means to maintain an artificial scarcity and keep cab prices up.

[bunderbunder]

I think a more likely explanation would be incumbents in the cab industry not wanting to see the value of their taxi medallions (for cab companies) or driver permits (for cab drivers) getting diluted. They both stand to maximize their profits if by limiting their competition. And at least for cab drivers, it's not too hard sympathize with them on that front.

But Uber does solve some real problems with traditional taxi service. In many cases it does a better job at solving the problems that might historically have been addressed by just having more cabs, such as it being difficult to get a ride at certain places/times. To that end it would be nice if more cities would allow regular taxi drivers and cab companies to get in on something like UberTAXI so that it can be a better solution for them as well.

[bpicolo]

200 taxis aren't going to line up for 1 person. That's not how capitalism will tell that tale.

[ithkuil]

I believe it's more likely that the reason is that scarce resources have a higher value/price.

The society regulating itself (read: taxi unions and politicians) recognizes that if the number of taxis weren't limited, the prices of the fare would go down, usually favouring people which are desperate enough to earn some money (read either young or immigrant). This would drastically reduce the wage of the non-immigrant french/american/italian citizen who has to provide for it's own family.

If the regulation would impose a minimum fare (in order to disallow competition among taxi drivers), there are still concerns that individual taxi drivers would have a bad time competing with taxi companies (with drivers that don't own the car or license).

[grimtrigger]

simple solutions: a gasoline tax or car tax. These are problems with cars, not just taxis/ubers.

[JonFish85]

I disagree--the problems mentioned were specifically cabs, not cars.