Comments on Graham converts to deregulation over 8-hour hearing - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by Richard Layman

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:10:05 EDT

s***, I wrote "servicing the city outside of the car" and I meant "core" not "car."

Comment by Richard Layman

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:09:11 EDT

making something information rich isn't a scalar change necessarily. Nothing (other than lack of innovative and creative spirits) prevents a DC-based cab service from transforming what they do, converting radio dispatch into mobile app dispatch seems easier and cheaper anyway. E.g., when I reserve a Red Top cab for a trip to National Airport, I don't talk to anyone, I just do it online.

MLD -- in the old days with the zone system, shared rides were legal, although the first rider could technically refuse to allow it. So at Union Station, you would do group rides. I don't remember what happened at National Airport.

David R -- I think those are definite service improvements, not necessarily transformative on the scale of containers, partly because ultimately, the market for taxi service is pretty minimal in the great scheme of things. But the point of common carrier service isn't necessarily to have variable rates, but to ensure that the market operates successfully.

As charlie says, the only reason that Uber makes any sense is that existing livery car drivers have excess capacity. It's fine to use it, sure, but it's likely to have marginal impact.

MLD -- the thing I meant about taxi collectif (Montreal) and jitneys is that they are likely to work better servicing the city outside of the car, when in normal circumstances, it's less profitable to provide taxi service there, because there is overall less demand. (For obvious reasons, taxis "collect" in the areas where their services are most likely to be used.)

Uber is a service focused on high margin trips generated in the core and won't address the problem of service access in the outer parts of the city.

Comment by MLD

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:22:43 EDT

I have little hope for the future of "shared ride" taxis, given that I can't ever seem to get anyone to voluntarily share a taxi late at night at Union Station or National Airport.

Comment by David R.

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:12:00 EDT

More concretely:

With radio dispatch, the driver needs a dispatch base and affiliation with a company. Prospective passengers know nothing about the driver who's been sent, and they're in no position to compare rates, not without working the phones. The dispatcher could help set up shared rides, if regulations allow, but that kind of gymnastics seems to be something that even the airport shuttles can't manage to do efficiently.

Add an app - not necessarily Uber, but apps as they might soon be - now there's a mechanism that lets any driver subscribe and pick up rides. Passengers can rate drivers; passengers can compare fare offers between drivers, and across services. Now there are software and communications tools that make it easier to plan shared rides, and some of that authority moves to the passenger rather than the dispatcher.

Comment by David R.

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:01:11 EDT

It's different in the way that online shopping is different from the venerable mail-order catalog: customers can get much more information, especially comparative information, with little friction. It's also easier for new entrants - with apps, there's no need for a radio base.

Compare the experience of buying an airline ticket in 1985, when only travel agents had access to fares, with what we have today, now that aggregators and search engines let anyone compare fares. I don't know that today's commercial aviation is an improvement, but it's certainly different, especially if you were a travel agent.

Uber's just a start, aiming for the high end. These tools could make it easier to combine rides.

Comment by charlie

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 09:53:43 EDT

@RichardLayman; clearly, the answer is planners need to have more cocktail parties!

Off the top of my head , some sort of app for the slug lines might work to speed them up a bit as well.

Uber only works in cities where the is excess capacity for livery cars.

Comment by Richard Layman

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 09:46:03 EDT

David R. -- how is an app based cab service any different from a radio dispatched one?

The real issue is that the radio dispatched system _in DC_ isn't reliable, which has created a "hole in the market" opportunity for another service to fill.

Although Uber adds higher quality vehicles and higher prices to the mix, and wants to include variable pricing. (Note that traditional taxicab regulations require that a certain number of vehicles be made available at all times to prevent variable pricing, as part of the general "public accommodations" requirements for "common carriers").

OTOH, top law and lobby firms have always used car services in DC to ferry their people around. Uber is a car service for the masses I guess.

Anyway, I don't see how Uber is comparable to the impact of containerization. Or at least, I have a humble request that you explain to me in a way that I can understand why it's so amazing.

Containerization I understand. They eliminated (for the most part) break bulk shipping, significantly reducing the number of people needed to get cargo onto and off ships. Speeding up the process of goods movement. Plus the containers eliminated the need for separate vehicles (well, not the cab, but the trailer) at the port to transfer the goods to their final destination. Plus you could fit a lot more cargo onto ships when it was nicely organized into containers, making shipping cheaper.

With Uber vs. cabs, you still have a vehicle, a driver, and the cab is used for a single rider/group trip.

Comment by David R.

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 09:29:38 EDT

As Uber and its kin start to navigate the regulatory oceans, the discussion's shifted toward how these services fit into the existing cab and livery car environment.

I'm still struck, though, that these network-based services have created a fundamental change in the way that people can get rides. Perhaps current structures can bend to contain them, or even crush them, but I think it's more likely that the cab environment of 2022 is going to be nothing like today's.

Think, for instance, of intermodal shipping containers. The first containerization experiments started in the 30s. Few shippers used them til about 1970, and then, in a few years, they reshaped the entire maritime industry.

The benefits of the container are clear: it's cut back on cargo-handling time and port labor costs. Goods are protected from the weather and from the grotesquely high rates of theft that plagued the docks. Nothing much changed, though, until rate structures, regulations, and labor agreements adapted to the technological pressures of containerization. Cargo handling remained the same for decade, and then the avalanche happened.

Now, the world of the shipping container wasn't a terribly pleasant one, if you were a dockworker now out of a job, or a resident of a factory town whose plants have moved overseas. Perhaps this reality wasn't inevitable. Still, the debates we're having right now sound like those desperate measures by longshoreman's unions, trying to stave off mechanization and attempting to force outmoded working rules.

Comment by Geoffrey Hatchard

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:43:58 EDT

if only completely separate fleets can make more money, there could be a trend toward the best drivers leaving the classic taxi market. There would then be fewer, and worse, cars available for street hails

kind of a non-sequitur here, but when I read this, I couldn't help but thinking about the parallels between DCPS and charter schools.

Comment by Richard Layman

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:54:14 EDT

One thing that totally sucks about this environment as laid out in your post is that so-to-speak reliable service is only made available to people who hail taxis with apps and agree to pay higher prices.

The whole point about public accommodations in transit is to make services available to all at a commonly agreed to price, not to separate off tiers of service.

The biggest problem with DC taxis is that if you "call" for service, they can't guarantee that a taxi will come pick you up generally, or at the time you request specifically.

If you live in the core, where is replete with taxis (people better at economics can explain why this is so, but it happens to be about demand, capacity utilization, profitmaking potential, etc.) this doesn't matter so much. E.g., even at 5am you can probably get a cab in Dupont Circle.

In much of the rest of the city this isn't the case.

This is why out-of-city taxi companies like Red Top succeed in getting DC customers to call them for Arlington destinations, especially the Airport, especially during the times when the subway system doesn't operate.

People wouldn't do that if they could rely on a DC taxi company to be reliable. E.g., I started doing it only after having a major problem getting a taxi at early hours to go to an airport.

Similarly, if we really need a cab in our area, it's easier to just go to Fort Totten Metro, where there is a taxi stand, than to expect a radio dispatched cab to actually come.

What is it about the current system, business model, etc., that prevents such a differentiation in terms of high quality customer service by one or more companies, without having to make it a car service?

WRT Charlie's point, yes, it would help A LOT if there were a transpo plan, and a taxi/car service element within it, being research infused on what the market is going to be like going forward, what other cities are doing in terms of ensuring that problems with under-serviced areas are addressed:

e.g., the new taxis for the outer boroughs in NYC, shared taxi-jitney services in cities like Montreal or even the post Rob Goodspeed did years ago about Johannesburg, http://goodspeedupdate.com/2007/2122

As far as Uber goes, I don't really care. I am too cheap to be willing to pay high prices for a car service. It seems like a waste of money to me and in any case, likely is only to serve a small portion of the market, maybe less than 10%, but yes, research on this would be really important.

What continues to bug the s*** out of me about DC Council is how a-planning and a-research it is. As someone said to me last night, "someone talks to a Councilmember at a cocktail party and all of a sudden they are writing and submitting legislation..."

As he said, "it must be really terrible to work as a planner in the city when planning is totally ignored."

... um, yep.

Comment by charlie

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:04:56 EDT

@MLD; yes. Phones. They also have an app, although I've never used it.

Does anyone have any data on HOW cabs in DC are actually used. My sense is there a lot of competiing uses which are somewhat exclusive. Not to awaken the Layman, but a better sense of what "21st century cab service" is going to be is helpful.

Comment by David Alpert

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:51:48 EDT

Fixed the which-with thing, thanks.

Comment by MLD

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:50:52 EDT

@charlie

Does that excellent on-call service extend to actually phone calls? Because with DC cabs that option might as well not exist. The problem I have is expanding cab service for people with smartphones at the expense of everyone else.

Comment by charlie

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:31:38 EDT

@MLD; that is basically what happens in Arlington. Excellent on-call service from local companies, but much harder to hail a cab in the street (less of them waiting around)

"It is. Many of the burdensome regulations are there to push higher quality, but Uber proved that higher quality can come from competition instead, at least when customers can voluntarily choose with taxi company to patronize."

I'm assuming that is "which", not with.

Higher quality from competition? Again, I think not. Going back to telecom, one of the reasons (and it is complex) AT&T agreed to give away the cell phone to the RBOC is engineers assumed nobody would want the piss-poor sound quality of cell phone. (And they are -- compared the landline standards of the 1960s, cell phones are a joke on voice quality)

But, as it turned out there are different levels of quality --- people valued mobility more than call quality. That is the problem with putting regulations into stone.

We've focued so much attention on car quality (color, credit card, etc) and maybe people just want convience. Or lack of pick-ups, which is fine too.

Really, the best thing is to allow Arlington companies to pick up DC residents. Rather like the freedoms of the air treaties.

Comment by goldfish

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:18:22 EDT

It seems to me that in the app (which I have never used) could provide a way to bid.

Person enters in app where s/he is, and where s/he wants to go. The app could very easily calculate the fare. Available drivers that see the fare could then accept the business, or not. If nobody answers in some set time, the price increases.

Since Uber already adjusts the fare based on demand, why not?

Comment by MLD

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:06:36 EDT

A couple issues:
1. If apps require you to provide a destination (or even if they offer it), doesn't that lead to the same problem as cab drivers rolling up with doors locked and demanding to know where you want to go before letting you in? This is illegal and should remain illegal - won't knowing your destination just lead to cabs ignoring certain requests?

2. If you allow any old cab to charge a higher rate by picking up app trips, won't that make it harder to hail a cab the traditional way? Uber works because the company offers a premium service at a large premium price and therefore has a big incentive to have clean cars, polite drivers, etc. If you allow TaxiMagic or Hailo to offer rates at a 20% premium (rather than the 100% markup of an Uber ride), that probably covers the convenience of the app for a lot of people AND means that drivers may choose to wait longer for an app fare rather than pick someone up off the street, especially during peak cab hours.

Taxis are part of our public transportation network and that's why we regulate them. We have made good strides in making the fare system more simple, and in getting the drivers to agree to smart meters, credit card payments, and GPS. Seems to me too much attention is being paid by the Council and the DCTC to Uber - do they really compete with regular cabs or are they something completely different?

Comment by ontarioroader

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:01:55 EDT

How is Graham in any way still involved in taxi regulation here when a member of his staff has been found guilty of bribery in connection with the taxi industry?

Comment by drumz

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:42:43 EDT

The council members should all remember that regulations should exist to benefit the consumer. If the regulations don't benefit the consumer or even actively harm them then that regulation is unnecessary. If the regulations just serve to protect taxi driver's bottom line that's rent seeking.

Comment by Jasper

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:39:00 EDT

What a mess.

Comment by charlie

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:27:49 EDT

Sounds like it will become harder to hail a cab on the street.