This video may be of some interest. Doug Shifter, a livery car driver committed suice outside the gates of New York City Hall. Founded in 1998, NYTWA is a taxi workers union which represents over 19,000 NYC taxicab drivers. The #nytwa logo which appears at 0:13 was designed by me. Considering it was essentially design by committee (socialism + democratic), it turned out well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWdW9iwwp54 —Venantius J Pinto On Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 11:16 PM, Roland Francis <[email protected]> wrote: > Something like the Netherlands happened in Toronto except that the experiment > here was successful and resulted in what was intended. > > Those who had Taxi licences rented them to drivers at $3,000 a month per day > shift. Night shift went for $1,500 giving the owner a cool 4.5Gs for just an > investment in a vehicle. Drivers struggled to make a living beyond what they > had to give to the owner. Owners sat doing nothing by merely applying and > getting a licence in a 10 year wait. The licences were worth $250,000 on the > open market. > > Drivers protested and the city came up with a parallel called the Ambassador > Taxi system where the city issued licences for a small amount but mandated > that the licensee must also be the actual driver. > > This increased the taxis on the road substantially but with the city growing, > business was there for all. > > And then came Uber with their bold dash into the market. The city on the > pressure from the taxi system refused to licence Uber but Uber just plied on > the roads and paid the fines when they were ticketed, until they went to > court who supported their right to operate. > > The taxis took a massive hit to their business but clever taxi drivers just > took the night shift and drove Uber during a few hours of the day, making > more money than they ever did with taxis. > > The old licence holders must have seen their 250k asset take a massive hit > but being investors rather than poor drivers, it probably didn’t critically > matter to them. > > Seeing Uber walk away with a large size of the cake, Lyft is pushing to enter. > > As far as passengers are concerned, most younger people take Uber, those for > whom money doesn’t matter, still take the orange cabs who are constantly > improving their service and their vehicles to Uber level but can’t compete in > price. > > No Goa-like situation here. > > Roland Francis > Toronto. > > >> On Jan 21, 2018, at 2:02 PM, Patrice Riemens <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> Ever since I have been in Goa, back in the 90s and early 00s, the local taxi >> situation has become a kind of exemplary case for me. And when in the >> Netherlands, the governemnt, bent on putting 'the magic of the market' to >> work, deregulated the taxi market, this resulted in Amsterdam in taxi wars, >> hundreds of taxi drivers losing their old age pension (their license, >> purchased for a lakh Guilders and intended for resale on retirement, became >> worthless overnight), a collapse of the quality of the service, as hundred >> inexperienced drivers hit the road with ramshackle vehicles, the >> transformation of the self-serving taxi unions into full-fledged mafias, and >> hardly anything has improved ever since, despite an unbelievable of ad-hoc, >> piecemeal remedial ordinances being enacted. >> >> The reason: unbridled competition, putting many more taxis on the road than >> needed, and fares not falling but rising, steeply, as cabbies try to milk >> out customers to the max when ever they get one. This is why I said that >> Amsterdam taxis were suffering from the 'Goa syndrome' ... >> >> In Firenze (Italy) where I live now, taxis are strictly regulated, fares set >> by the authorities (after negotiations with the taxi unions), taximeters >> mandatory and regularly checked, and the whole branch legally constituted as >> a public service, on par with the rest of municipal transit system. Of >> course, this does not prevent the profession hosting a number of 'cow-boys', >> but on the whole the service is correct - and affordable. >> >> Dunno is something like that is possible in Goa. >> >> Cheers, p+7D! >>
