What were the circumstance that the taxis refused to pick you up? Every city that I’ve been to has laws against refusing taxi trips within the city limits.
Yes it's technically illegal, no there is no one enforcing that.
Uber/Lyft come along and create an incentive structure where the driver can't discriminate even if they want to, and everybody wins.
There are real benefits to what ride-sharing companies have been able to accomplish.
I don't think I would I have moved to LA without Uber and Lyft.
I watch eagerly to see the complete demise of taxis in SF, I hate them with a passion.
The taxi dispatch system is perverse, because riders will take a street hail if one shows up before the dispatched taxi. Because of that, dispatched taxi will take any street hail they pass on the way to their intended pickup. So, riders call competing dispatchers, taking the first to arrive and guaranteeing at least one driver is wasting their time and gasoline. So, many drivers disobey the dispatcher, etc. Etc.
I tried this a few times. I had a cab scheduled to take me to the airport. They didn’t show. I called, they said I never scheduled anything but could have a car there within an hour. That would make me miss my flight. My wife drove me and was late to work. I tried calling the city and the cab company said “we have no record.” And that was the end. Even though I had a call record showing I called the cab company the day before. Nothing happened except about an hour of me on the phone, two letters and a lot of frustration.
Another time, a cab in NY ran over my foot and broke some bones. Despite a police report, the cab company denied that it was them and never paid. They self insure (per NY rules) with a law firm. Seriously, not an insurer, a law firm. They denied claim. NY taxi commission received my complaint and did nothing.
The reality is that the laws are pretty useless as they aren’t / can’t be enforced.
I also tried reporting when thit driver was different than the license shown. Nothing happened.
I have a bunch of these stories over the decades of using taxis.
Uber is much better because they log everything and actually care about their customer. That’s why if I must trade, I’d rather take the extremely small chance of being raped or harasssed and the driver definitely being caught and convicted than a taxi.
Uber can ferry passengers around for cheap because some VC is pumping money into the company through a firehose. Take out the VC money, lets see how many Uber drivers will drive 80% below minimum wage to provide services.
Its easy to blame the regular taxi drivers. How many people here on this forum would take huge salary cuts to add profits to somebody else's wallet?
But it's easy to blame the regular taxi drivers because they are completely at fault. They could have increased the number of taxis, but they thought having a monopoly would make them richer. They could have provided better service, but they didn't want to. Now they have true competition, and their way of life is being erased because they don't want to admit that they are at fault.
I'm glad that ridesharing, be it Lyft or Uber or whoever else comes up, has destroyed the taxi industry. It's a great example of how fragile a monopoly is and how terrible service gets perpetuated by monopolies and lazy people.
And that will increase the supply of taxis and dilute wages. We are in a time, when even doctors control the supply of their kind so that they can have profitable careers.
>>Now they have true competition, and their way of life is being erased because they don't want to admit that they are at fault.
They have no competition. Unless Uber finds another set VCs to raise another $10 billion or so. And then VCs should be ok to not see a dollar of profit in return. Or Uber will have to raise its rates higher than regular taxis, and of course severely restrict the supply(You can't raise rates, with a oversupply of vehicles). Either option creating a system worse than taxi medallions.
In India that was never true, ever. The regular taxis existed, and Auto Rickshaws eat their lunch big time. Of course if you are ready to pay good money there will always be a service for you.
>>The most significant factor is not the price, it's the service.
And service comes with price. And price matters because for anything to scale the price has to be agreeable to a mass audience.
>>Taxi's do not come anywhere close to the simplicity, reliability, and comfort that Uber/ride-sharing apps deliver.
Sure. Very soon they have to turn in profits. We will see how much of that they can provide for a profit margin of something like 10-25 rupees per ride.