See the following chapters in our Online TDM Encyclopedia:

Taxi Transport: http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm78.htm
Transportation Regulation Reform: http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm53.htm
Shuttle Services: http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm39.htm


Best wishes,
-Todd Litman


At 03:03 PM 12/23/2002 +0100, Eric Britton wrote:

>-----Original Message-----
>From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Monday, December 23, 2002 1:55 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Taxis
>
>
>
>My name is Robert. I own a taxi in Canberra Australia. Our local
>government is trying to convince our taxi company that deregulation is
>good. We have yet to be persuaded. Do you have any information on
>deregulation with regards the Spanish experience especially in Madrid and
>Barcelona. I'm also interested in the shortcomings or good points relating
>to the taxi radio system and how it can be improved. Perhaps you could
>email me at your convenience? If I have contacted you by mistake and you
>cannot help me, could you possibly pass my request on to the relevant
>person with a CC to me? Thanks Robert
>
>
>
>
>
>Paris, Monday, December 23, 2002
>
>
>
>Dear Robert,
>
>
>
>The best I can do for you today is to forward your request for help to
>several groups with background in these matters.  Which I am doing with
>this note.
>
>
>
>Less usefully perhaps, I can also offer you the following brief comments
>based on some years of studying and working with taxi issues, always in a
>broader overall transport and community context.  And often with an eye to
>what we can do with better information and communications technology.
>
>
>    * When you hear the word deregulation, you do well to reach for your
> evolver (sorry).  Not least because enough of the experience with
> deregulating transport over the last decade-plus has been extremely
> disappointing, for a variety of reasons.
>
>    * As much as anything else, I would say that the problem resides in
> the fact that all too often the approach taken is simplistic,
> mechanistic, rhetoric-driven, and rushed. The results have largely born
> this out.
>
>    * I have looked in taxi operations in a couple of dozen places over
> the years and on just about all of the continents, and I have to say that
> upon reflection one of the words that comes not at the top of my list is:
> flexibility.  Not that the taxis themselves are not flexible and indeed
> this should be included in one of the underlying targets of anything we
> do to change their guiding framework, i.e., more and not less flexibility
> --; rather that the structures of ordinances and laws within which they
> perform their functions tend to be stodgy and unnecessarily constraining.
>
>    * So, the goal has to be not to deregulate, but to improve, to create
> (and how I hate the expression) win-win situations in which the owners,
> drivers, their clients and the community all come out with big
> gains.  And indeed it is possible (though that has to be the topic of
> something a bit more substantial than this off the cuff reply).
>
>    * The key to successful transportation policy is, has to be, deep
> analysis and dialogue.  Moreover, in the case of a public service
> function such as taxis, the entire process of dialogue needs to be
> inclusive, broad and probably slowish.  This can prove irritating for
> go-getting politicians and administrators looking to hold up the bull s
> ears and tail, but hey we are looking at one of the older professions and
> in many cases the ordinances governing them stretch back a couple of
> centuries, including, ironically, in cities that have themselves not been
> around that long (as a result of copycat regulation in the first place).
>
>    * You gotta know what you want as the bottom line.  To me it seems
> pretty simple: more taxis, more people in them, better wages for drivers,
> increased earnings for the industry, greater accessibility for all,
> higher priority in the traffic stream, better driver safety and working
> conditions, more versatility, greater flexibility, and a greater
> contribution to the community as a whole.
>
>    * One real enemy to avoid is that of sub-optimization on any
> score.  This has been the bane of transport policy and practice in the
> past, sector by sector, and has almost invariably led to a situation of
> feeding further decline and future problems, usually at enhanced scale
> and impact.
>
>    * One barrier we find in many places is that it is next too impossible
> to organist demonstration or pilot projects to test out and prove new
> approaches and principles.  SO, if one of the handmaidens of so-called
> deregulation is that the new context will permit more and better trial
> projects, then someone is starting to do something right.
>
>    * Finally, let me share an opinion with you as to what is quite
> possibly one of the worst ways of setting a new policy in this area:  And
> this is to hand the job over to some consultants (hey! I am a consultant)
> who then work with vigor, timeliness and gratifyingly under the whip of
> their public sector and political masters to come up with the answer
> package.  Oops.
>To conclude: You have to know what you want.  And process is all.
>
>
>Hope that helps.
>
>
>
>Eric Britton
>
>
>
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Sincerely,
Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.vtpi.org



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