Taxis and ride-sharing in Toronto

[muller877]

Most of these UberX guys probably don't file taxes for this income.

CRA has the right to request all the information from Uber. CRA (if they want to) will be able to know exactly the income of every Uber driver and the details of the driver/car. By looking at the information (plus the drivers license) they can identify every single Uber driver. They can electronically request and assess every driver who does not report their appropriate HST and income tax.

This is a lot easier then what they can do for taxi drivers...a lot of the stuff would be manual.

 

[flonicky]

I'm not certain what your definition of 'crowdsourced' is in this parable.

The usual definition? Not sure what you mean. Google "uber crowdsourcing". Uber is often used as an example.

 

[WislaHD]

My take is that no marketplace innovation or revolution has come consumer or market-perfect. Society always must find a way to adapt and regulate the new innovation.

Uber is a massive improvement on the taxi model, and it is obvious why it is winning out and choking the industry. However, Uber needs to be subject to regulations (especially surrounding insurance) and we need legislative updates for the sharing economy.

 

[TrickyRicky]

I think one aspect of the model that fascinates me is that I don't think that Uber is even a technology company. It's business model really makes it a marketing company with a political specialty. Tech experts can help me on this but is there even anything proprietary about their technology that anyone couldn't just replicate at little cost? Companies have been using big data for decades and variable costing has also been used for decades. A good example would be the Easy brand of companies out of the Netherlands that had been using this model of variable pricing etc. for internet cafes, vehicles, flights etc. when I was there in 2002.

As I mentioned I also find how political the company is very interesting. It's like a company starting a parallel health-care system in Canada and leveraging it's satisfied customer base to apply sufficient political pressure to undermine the existing healthcare system to the point where the healthcare system is privatized and crafted to suit the new business model.

The hate-on people have for the taxi industry is also interesting. If people really hate taxis so much Uber is smart to tackle this industry. I personally don't take taxis very often but I admit I don't get it. Since moving to Toronto in 1998 I have never had a problem with a taxi or taxi driver as a passenger. As a driver of my own vehicle, yes I have definitely had a problem with taxi drivers but that is not really the issue we are discussing now. I sense a veiled racism in the commentary people are making against cab drivers and I feel this is one of the reasons the taxi industry is losing the PR war. It's easier to kill a protected industry full of brown and dark skinned people that people have low opinion of than say the healthcare system in my previous analogy.

Finally, in the PR war the taxi monopoly (again Uber winning the PR war by promoting this description) is after all a government creation. The government created and maintains the regulatory environment. If you hate this monopoly why is all the hatred being directed at the brown skinned drivers at the bottom of the pyramid rather than the white politicians that created and maintain the system and who now refuse to allow them to innovate in the face of a 70 billion dollar foreign multi-national who is trying to create a taxi monopoly? Let's say the taxi industry wanted to introduce variable pricing. The fact is they can't. Fares are regulated by the government for social reasons. These social reasons escape me but you can ask the socially progressive politicians who are putting thousands of low-income visible minorities out of work what purpose they serve.

 

[Napoleon]

I think one aspect of the model that fascinates me is that I don't think that Uber is even a technology company. It's business model really makes it a marketing company with a political specialty. Tech experts can help me on this but is there even anything proprietary about their technology that anyone couldn't just replicate at little cost? Companies have been using big data for decades and variable costing has also been used for decades. A good example would be the Easy brand of companies out of the Netherlands that had been using this model of variable pricing etc. for internet cafes, vehicles, flights etc. when I was there in 2002.

The fact that you don't notice it's a tech company means that they've done a really great job of designing the user experience and interface. All the nuts and bolts are in the backside. To be honest, there's probably not really any revolutionary tech going on behind the scenes. I'm sure they do some very basic machine learning to predict multipliers. There's probably also an NP-hard, traveling-salesmen like problem for UberPool, but again it's not that demanding. Probably the most demanding part of the system is on the server side so that queries for rides and drivers are very rapidly handled.

 

[picard102]

Let's say the taxi industry wanted to introduce variable pricing. The fact is they can't. Fares are regulated by the government for social reasons.

Variable pricing isn't why the Taxi industry is withering, it's customer service. This is something the cab industry could easily compete with if they so chose. Instead they would rather have the government shut Uber down.

 

[kEiThZ]

Let's be honest. There's two components to Uber's success:

1) Price

2) Customer experience.


And both pillars need to be challenged differently for the taxi industry to survive.

Price. There's more than a few people taking Uber because it's cheaper (particularly UberX). The only way to address this pillar is to reduce costs for drivers so that prices can go down. And the only way to do that is to completely eliminate the plate/medallion system and maybe ease up on other requirements like accessiblity/wav requirements and clean energy (hybrid or electric vehicle fleet) requirements for taxi companies.


Customer experience. This is actually not that hard to crack. Taxi companies could work with Metrolinx could create an Uber like app for all of the GTA/GGH. They could build in Presto and credit card payments to remove the cash handling requirements. The taxi companies themselves could implement higher standards for drivers and vehicles. And the city could simply increase the number of cabs, make it much easier to hail a cab on the street.


The problem is, I don't see any willingness in the industry to change. Plate owners do not want to see their monopoly and investments tanked. Nor are they and the taxi companies willing to take a cut in returns by either cutting fees or making more investments in their products. They simply want the government to crack down on Uber, in large part, to maintain the status quo. And of course, that's not going to fly with the public.

 

[PinkLucy]

Let's be honest. There's two components to Uber's success:

1) Price

2) Customer experience.


And both pillars need to be challenged differently for the taxi industry to survive.

Price. There's more than a few people taking Uber because it's cheaper (particularly UberX). The only way to address this pillar is to reduce costs for drivers so that prices can go down. And the only way to do that is to completely eliminate the plate/medallion system and maybe ease up on other requirements like accessiblity/wav requirements and clean energy (hybrid or electric vehicle fleet) requirements for taxi companies.


Customer experience. This is actually not that hard to crack. Taxi companies could work with Metrolinx could create an Uber like app for all of the GTA/GGH. They could build in Presto and credit card payments to remove the cash handling requirements. The taxi companies themselves could implement higher standards for drivers and vehicles. And the city could simply increase the number of cabs, make it much easier to hail a cab on the street.


The problem is, I don't see any willingness in the industry to change. Plate owners do not want to see their monopoly and investments tanked. Nor are they and the taxi companies willing to take a cut in returns by either cutting fees or making more investments in their products. They simply want the government to crack down on Uber, in large part, to maintain the status quo. And of course, that's not going to fly with the public.

You've missed a large part of the customer experience, namely the ability to rate drivers and choose the vehicle/driver you want, which results in a better experience. That, and the fact that the vehicles are much better maintained.

 

[kEiThZ]

@TrickyRicky

I really don't get the complaint that Uber will get a monopoly. It's nonsense. If Uber gets too expensive, somebody else will undercut them. In fact, simple street-hailing taxis could undercut them.

As for variable pricing, that can't work without an app. It's because of visibility. With Uber, you see the price you'll pay in advance. And you can decide whether or not to use the service. You can't employ such a model for street-hailing because there's information asymmetry. Are you willing to flag down several cabs until you get the price you want?

If taxis want to compete with Uber and particularly UberX, they'll have to agree to ditch rent-seeking plate owners. And allow many more plates. This will increase the convenience of flagging down taxis on the street. And no plate fees means prices could drop at least 20%.

 

[kEiThZ]

You've missed a large part of the customer experience, namely the ability to rate drivers and choose the vehicle/driver you want, which results in a better experience. That, and the fact that the vehicles are much better maintained.

I've said before that this could be built into the Metrolinx app for taxis. And then the taxi companies could decide what standard to use to retain drivers.

 

[doady]

From now on, whenever I see a taxi, I will give the driver the finger. That's all that these fucking assholes deserve.

 

[kEiThZ]

From now on, whenever I see a taxi, I will give the driver the finger. That's all that these fucking assholes deserve.

Did a taxi run over your dog?

I don't get this kind of anger against cabbies. I personally don't want to support the ripoff plate owners. But I don't get the anger against these average hard-working cabbies.

 

[WislaHD]

You guys are missing one big (and important) difference between Uber and Taxi services, taxis are unwilling to take on and discriminate against short trips, while Uber doesn't.

 

[rbt]

The fact that you don't notice it's a tech company means that they've done a really great job of designing the user experience and interface. All the nuts and bolts are in the backside. To be honest, there's probably not really any revolutionary tech going on behind the scenes. I'm sure they do some very basic machine learning to predict multipliers. There's probably also an NP-hard, traveling-salesmen like problem for UberPool, but again it's not that demanding. Probably the most demanding part of the system is on the server side so that queries for rides and drivers are very rapidly handled.

In this sense Uber is a tech company in the same way that FedEx is a tech company. It uses tech to keep ahead of competition and keep costs to scale low (capital intense), but tech isn't their core business.

Amazon was similar in the beginning (standard mail-order business but used tech in a capital-heavy and operations-low business practices to scale efficiently; i.e. expensive software, cheap warehouse staff), though Amazon morphed into a full blown tech company when they started selling pieces of their back-office for others to use.

 

[salsa]

Did a taxi run over your dog?

I don't get this kind of anger against cabbies.

Oh yeah what about all their rampant endangering of cyclists?