(ii) For using a non-approved mechanism for metering the ride
The C&D at issue here covers (ii). At its heart, the complaint is that Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers, and Uber has replaced that standard with GPS. Presumably, cab drivers in Boston could not simply choose to replace their meters with GPS monitors, and thus, says Cambridge, neither should Uber.
(I might be wrong, that's just my read of the complaint).
I'm torn. Uber is pretty neat. Some (maybe most) of cab regulation is rent seeking. But not all of it is. Municipalities should find a way to make Uber lawful, but I'm not sure Uber should be able to make that happen by fiat.
I'm torn too, but the meter thing is a very sensible point. Taxi meters in NYC (the only market I have experience with) are basically entirely locked boxes- the drivers can't do anything beyond poke the buttons on the front. This is, of course, very sensible- otherwise there's a danger of unscrupulous drivers modifying their meters to charge passengers more. This is only the case for yellow cabs in NYC, though- I'm surprised that Boston expands the principle to private car services.
A lot of government regulation is bad, but not all of it is. AirBnB and hotel regulation is another example of this.
I agree that the metering complaint is valid - I suspect it may be possible to create a nefarious drop-in replacement Uber Driver app which reports longer rides. The only location / metering source Uber has the iOS app and there's no additional hardware or software protection on the driver's Uber iPhone beyond the standard OS protections, which are easily circumvented by a jailbreak.
In contrast, real taxi meters provide no software access beyond a few defined interactions and limited and intentionally obvious physical access (start/stop meter) only, and the hardware is built to be relatively secure from tampering.
Uber could use the rider's app as a verification of distance, but as there's currently no incentive for users to keep the Uber app open while they ride, I suspect this method wouldn't work right now.
I like the idea of Uber, but, like Square, I think it's only a matter of time before a nefarious party exploits the easy availability and comparative insecurity of smartphone hardware to scam someone and disrupt a new smartphone-based industry.
> The only location / metering source Uber has the iOS app and there's no additional hardware or software protection on the driver's Uber iPhone beyond the standard OS protections, which are easily circumvented by a jailbreak.
It would be hardly difficult to verify metered distance via Google Maps or one of many other mapping type apps on the iPhone. There's about a million of them.
It shouldn't be our burden to be verify the accuracy or integrity of cab meters, gas pumps, or deli scales. When's the last time you brought your own jug or scale? Common consumer protections like these are what the government should be doing on our behalf. I think there's a clear case for why cabs should be subject to such inspections, and gives us the confidence to jump into any cab. Given the nature of Uber, whether or not Uber needs to fall under the same rules is less clear.
you get a map of your ride with your receipt. one time i submitted feedback when the driver went the long way, which it clearly showed on my map, and uber refunded me for the entire ride. it is an excellent service. i use it all the time in sf.
Although Uber would probably prefer that someone rides with them again and tells their friends/family about their pleasant experience, rather than squeeze a rider for a few more pennies. Their helpful community managers and system for doing a fare review certainly give the impression that they are looking at building a long term business. As a pre-IPO startup facing regulatory issues in a number of cities, they really don't have the luxury of offering a bad customer experience. The alternative is also simple, if someone has a bad experience, they don't have to use the service anymore.
There is zero guarantee that the route you took is the route Google Maps would give you, though. And the time estimates are way off in many major cities.
I got an email showing the route superimposed on a map. The picture I saw was almost an exactly straight line from pickup to dropoff.
If the driver was cheating, then the email would show the wrong route and it would be obvious to me: "hey, I wasn't picked up there" or "that's an inefficient route". I suppose the driver could cheat by small amounts with the duration, but that would be a pretty dangerous game to play because it's so easy to be caught (the exact pickup and duration are also reported) and relatively hard to do (if you hack your phone, it's kind of hard to just say you made a mistake).
If uber was cheating, perhaps it would be more subtle, but it's still verifiable. They'd have to show you a 5 mile route and then say it was 7 miles or something. The danger of being caught for that is way too high to be worth it.
I am more concerned with taxis, honestly. They can take you for a long ride and it's hard for you to tell them otherwise. If you do they can claim "oh, there was construction over there" or "oh, I thought you said XYZ lane not XYZ street". Or, if you ask to be taken to a train station, they can pressure you to take the taxi to your final destination rather than the train (which can be quite intimidating in some circumstances).
"I suspect it may be possible to create a nefarious drop-in replacement Uber Driver app which reports longer rides."
If you take an uber ride, you receive an email receipt (which you can see on the website too). It shows you exact pickup time, exact duration, total charged, and the route superimposed on a map.
If you think something is awry, they offer a button to request a "fare review".
It's hard for me to imagine how either the driver or uber could cheat the system without a high risk of being caught (way too high to be worth it).
I am more concerned about various bad practices by taxis than uber.
About taxi meters: from my experience, the mileage may be fixed, but it always seems that the cab driver is able to press something/manipulate the box somehow when they need to add additional fees (in Boston, specifically, in fact).
For instance, when I get picked up at many airports the cab driver adds some additional fee (usually between $3 and $8). For all I know, they're just making this number up - how would I know what the toll at the airport exit costs?
Also, many cabs have a list of flat rates for common routes (from Hotel X to airport - $35, etc.) It seems that in these cases it would be independent of whatever the meter says.
I guess these things make it seem questionable to me how much regulations on metering can actually matter. Is it just a matter of "if we catch you doing this (ie. someone reports questionable activity), we're going to revoke your license"?
Cabs are generally required to have fare schedules including fees clearly visible to the rider, to prevent just this sort of scam.
Even if the user doesn't know the actual airport fare and the cabbie manages to scam a few riders unfamiliar with the true fare schedule, a tampered-with giant human-readable fare schedule is pretty easy for an inspector or frequent rider to detect and report.
Plus, as the user pays the cab driver on the way out, there's an opportunity for the user to review the charge and reject payment if the driver is scamming them.
With Uber, the payment takes place later and an e-mail receipt is sent, and the fares are seemingly intentionally obfuscated (see: the controversy about displaying peak v. off-peak pricing as a multiplier rather than a dollar amount). Hence, a driver using a malicious Uber Driver app to report a few more blocks travelled on each trip is much less likely to be detected than a cabbie physically and obviously entering additional fees. I suspect Uber would find it difficult to prove that the driver's (fake) extra mileage wasn't actually rider-requested or an attempt to circumvent traffic - and I also suspect most riders won't notice.
Regular cabbies try the obvious, physical "take the long way" scam often enough that I suspect a hard-to-track digital form of the same idea isn't far off.
> With Uber, the payment takes place later and an e-mail receipt is sent, and the fares are seemingly intentionally obfuscated (see: the controversy about displaying peak v. off-peak pricing as a multiplier rather than a dollar amount). Hence, a driver using a malicious Uber Driver app to report a few more blocks travelled on each trip is much less likely to be detected than a cabbie physically and obviously entering additional fees. I suspect Uber would find it difficult to prove that the driver's (fake) extra mileage wasn't actually rider-requested or an attempt to circumvent traffic - and I also suspect most riders won't notice.
Au contraire, Uber provides you a much easier way to audit your ride, a detailed email receipt seconds after you leave the cab with a map, origin and destination addresses, breakdown of your fare, how it was paid, and a customer service email address. On your phone, you also get a couple survey questions about the ride (how was the car, driver, etc.) too.
I haven't had to deal with them (Miami doesn't have Uber yet :( ) but I suspect that their customer service is more interested in customer happiness than pinching pennies. Since it's paid with a credit card, even if their customer support process breaks down, you still have a powerful recourse.
I'm unlikely to be able to identify a discrepancy on a map in an unfamiliar place - but the map-in-email feature does bring Uber much closer to a regulated cab meter, especially since it can be reviewed by a more knowledgeable person later.
It still doesn't match the "system audited by a supposedly independent government inspector" aspect of a regulated cab meter (i.e. to prevent Uber from using fake distance calculations), but Uber being dishonest is a lot less likely than a shady cab company, so I guess that's less of a concern.
I personally never used the map as my only Uber trips have been flat-rate (SFO to Palo Alto, where Uber is actually cheaper than a cab in some circumstances).
> I'm unlikely to be able to identify a discrepancy on a map in an unfamiliar place - but the map-in-email feature does bring Uber much closer to a regulated cab meter, especially since it can be reviewed by a more knowledgeable person later.
I suspect that the routing features in "Google Maps" would be useful.
I emailed their customer service about a minor issue (more of a feature request really), and got back a response within hours which included a credit to my account. I hadn't asked for- or felt I deserved- a penny, but apparently their customer service people did.
Slightly off topic, but worth noting: In Boston, the fees coming from the airport are insanely regulated...to be very expensive. But always the same amount of expensive. There's no funny business there (I think).
The fees look like they come out of nowhere because no cabbie ever explains them...but they don't explain them in large part because they're simply unavoidable. Making it more confusing is the fact that this fee (on the order of $8) is only levied on taxis going out of the airport, not into the airport. Finally, these fees are new, only from within the past few years - so if you've been traveling to Boston recently, you might have noticed a sudden fare increase without knowing why.
Why all of this nonsense with crazy high, one way airport fees? To pay for the Big Dig, of course. (Which, incidentally, made my taxi rides home shorter to the point that my fares dropped more than the price of the fee.)
At least in Boston, there is a strict rule about having a fixed cost for rides from/to the airport. Cabs aren't allowed to deviate from the posted rates for those.
It's not that surprising to regulate a private company like that. When you go to the grocery store or the gas station, the scale or pump has a green sticker on it saying that it was verified by the Department of Weights and Measures, along with a number to call if the device didn't start at zero.
That said, regulating a company is very different from issuing a cease-and-desist (which in fact does nothing but ensure that you cannot regulate them!)
No. If you were operating a gas station with pumps lacking those calibration stickers, you'd get a cease-and-desist. That's the very mechanism implementing regulation of companies.
Had to look up "rent seeking", I'm sure I'm not the only one
In economics, rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth, for example, spending money on political lobbying in order to be given a share of wealth that has already been created. A famous example of rent-seeking is the limiting of access to lucrative occupations, as by medieval guilds or modern state certifications and licensures. People accused of rent seeking typically argue that they are indeed creating new wealth (or preventing the reduction of old wealth) by improving quality controls, guaranteeing that charlatans do not prey on a gullible public, and preventing bubbles.
You might also be interested in the concept of regulatory capture, which is kind of rent-seeking's opposite (IANAE). Say you have a company that provides web-security audits and you help press for a law requiring websites to have current security audits. Boom, guaranteed business.
The most ridiculous example of this that I've seen is that some states require a license for the practice of interior design. Louisiana comes to mind but I believe there are others. It's really an example of the phenomenon that a small group of dedicated individuals with a vested interest in an outcome are often able to overcome a much larger group that has a small, diffuse, or unknown interest in the opposite outcome. In the interior design case, if you're a person who hires an interior designer, you're probably not going to notice the extra $50-$100 it costs you (made up numbers) because of the licensing requirements - in fact you might not even know that the licensing requirement exists. But the people collecting that money certainly notice it when you multiply by the total number of customers. It's a legal way to do the Office Space trick of stealing a small amount from a large number of people.
This was in the NYTimes a few weeks ago: "So you think you can be a hair braider?" Not without two years of cosmetology school, which should set you back $16,000.
Nobody's arguing that people who perform a service shouldn't have an awareness of basic hygiene, and that could definitely be regulated... but requiring $16K up front is just rent-seeking.
Not to mention, these sorts of jobs have often been the first step that young people and immigrants take in their careers, and the whole reason is that it doesn't take any capital investment, although it needs a lot of labor and a reputation for skill. When someone adds an arbitrary financial hurdle to clear, it feels particularly unfair to me.
And in the age of Yelp / Google Places, there's a much better way to make sure the florist or what have you is good at their job, rather than taking a state-issued test.
The purpose of the education and testing requirement for cosmetologists and barbers is not an arbitrary financial hurdle; it is a legitimate safety function of the government.
These people will be using very sharp tools on your head. Tools which may draw blood, or worse. The education and testing requirement ensures that such people know how to safely use those tools across a wide variety of situations (i.e., requests), and can demonstrate that they are actually able to use those tools safely in such situations.
Should the schooling cost that much? No, and it usually doesn't unless you go with a private school. Smaller cosmetology schools cost in the neighborhood of a few hundred. Alternatively, if you feel strongly enough about this, you could open your own school. The primary expense is facilities (including equipment and supplies), since this type of education is experiential--you learn by doing, not by watching it or reading about it.
Nicely argued, but you are responding to a straw man position (that government has no role in regulating cosmetic services) nor did you read the article (which points out that licenses are cheaper in neighboring states, but not Utah.)
I'd categorize regulatory-capture more as a sibling to rent-seeking (rather than its opposite). Twisting regulatory processes to benefit larger incumbents is often the mechanism that is used to extract rents.
Regulatory capture is when you make it more difficult to work in your industry on purpose through regulation, in order to discourage competition.
For example, McDonald's could push for a law that would require anyone who wants to run a chain restaurant to post a $100 million bond. Sure, they have to put up the bond too, but they have plenty of money to do so. The burden would probably stop many new chains from ever getting started.
I think that pretty much sums it up correctly. The City of Boston placed a sting operation on one of the Uber drivers in the issuance of ticket (i), where once they saw the driver had used an unauthorized meter, they made him pull over where a police officer was already waiting.
It's unfortunate that Boston has issued a cease and desist on the service though. I live in Boston, and Uber is great as it's almost impossible to find a cab at 4:00 in the morning after you work late, not to mention the fact that waiting around for one in sketchy neighborhoods is dangerous.
As always in situations like this, my thoughts are simultaneously on how awesome Uber is, and how not awesome every other service/scam that takes advantage of this flexibility might be.
It is very important that cities be able to provide visitors with a reliable way to get a ride from point A (usually: the airport) to point B (usually: the convention center hotel) at a predictable price.
Obviously, Uber doesn't prevent visitors from getting to the convention center directly; Uber isn't taking up spots at the cab stand at LGA. But if the "Uber way of doing business" effectively drives regulated cabs out of business, that's a problem.
Obviously, Uber doesn't prevent visitors from getting to the convention center directly; Uber isn't taking up spots at the cab stand at LGA. But if the "Uber way of doing business" effectively drives regulated cabs out of business, that's a problem.
I'm not clear on the "why" of your final sentence. Is it that no regulated cab companies could stay in business serving the airports? Or that Uber would eventually take over the airport traffic? Or that regulated cabs would be replaced by unregulated cabs at the airport?
As it stands, Uber seems to be supplying a market poorly served by extant firms.
It's not that Uber itself would muscle out regulated cabs, it's that other firms operating under the same rules Uber secured for itself could. Like most people I find Uber itself to be benign.
I'm not sure this statement says anything; it's a rhetorical NOP. You'd want to accompany it with the reason why municipalities could be assured that visitors would have a reliable way to get a ride from point A to point B in the absence of regulation.
You'd want to accompany it with the reason why municipalities could be assured that visitors would have a reliable way to get a ride from point A to point B in the absence of regulation.
How is it a proper role of municipal government to "(assure) that visitors would have a reliable way to get a ride from point A to point B"??? I reject the fundamental premise this is based on.
I mean, you have to consider the unintended consequences of (nominally well meaning) government regulation, like artificially limiting the supply of cabs, while simultaneously interfering with the ability of cab drivers to earn a decent wage. And one should ponder the possibility that there are other ways to protect consumers, outside of government regulation. Why can't there be a voluntary certification system for cabs, which a given cab company could choose to accept or reject... and, correspondingly, consumers could choose to either only take rides with "certified" cabs, or they could go all "caveat emptor" and take rides with non-sanctioned cabs.
The fact that people are already going outside "the system" is evidence that "the system" is not fulfilling the needs of the consumers.
The system clearly isn't fulfilling the needs of San Francisco consumers. But that doesn't logically imply that the only answer is to toss the regulations; instead, it could just mean that San Francisco needs to issue several hundred new medallions.
I'm not sure how simply certifying cabs overcomes information asymmetry here. The signal that competes with the certificate is "advertised price", but the whole point of cab regulations is ensuring that customers receive a predictable price and a safe, complete, timely carriage to their destination. Permission to solicit uncertified cab business seems like a license to prey on naive riders. It's clearly not in the state's interest for the market for transportation in the city to devolve that way.
>How is it a proper role of municipal government to "(assure) that visitors would have a reliable way to get a ride from point A to point B"??? I reject the fundamental premise this is based on.
It's a natural monopoly and a utility; just like water or electricity, it is both proper and better for the end user for it to be run by the government.
While Uber may be changing things, most of the literature that I am aware of in this area suggests that regulation of taxi services is necessary to get near a social optimum. It's also interesting to note that not all kinds of regulation are equally good -- e.g. some argue that controlling the number of medallions is less effective than controlling fares. This paper provides a good overview, I think:
But if the "Uber way of doing business" effectively drives regulated cabs out of business, that's a problem.
A problem for whom?
Yes, it's a competitive problem for regulated cabs and their owners and operators. It's certainly not a problem for the customer who benefits from a greater number of options.
One could hope the regulated cab business would respond in a competitive manner - e.g. with greater accountability, ability to call a cab via app, GPS tracking, and other competitive innovations that Uber has introduced.
They already knew he had an "unauthorized meter". The sting was wholly unnecessary to learn anything.
It was purely the legal justification to slap on the C&D; they needed evidence in the court-admissible sense. But the idea that they "noticed" anything in the process is silly. It was all scripted from minute 1.
"Massachusetts law does not sanction unapproved devices for use in commercial transactions."
Does that mean what I think it means? If I use an iPhone app to calculate the tax, and it's not approved, then I broke the law? Does this apply to Square, too? I thought that there was an English common law principle that "Everything which is not forbidden is allowed".
Most states have weights and measures departments that certify all of the tools used in commerce (scales, gas pumps, taxi meters, etc). These tools are very highly regulated -- often the internals are inspected by state officials, the devices are sealed, and operators are required to bring them back in for periodic re-testing. This may seem obstructionist, but it's based on a long history of dishonest merchants tampering with this type of equipment to defraud customers.
Sure. Massachusetts forbids you from operating a commercial service that charges based on the readings of measuring equipment that does not meet the standards of the Department of Weights and Measures. Taxi meters do. Standard car odometers don't. You can calculate with an abacus or an Apple, but your market fruit scale has a seal indicating that it was inspected and passed.
Your gasoline is measured by pumps similarly inspected. The pump at the dairy that fills gallon jugs is inspected. You can pay with barter, coins or large stones, as long as the negotiation is acceptable to both parties -- and when you pay for eight pounds of foie gras, you'd better be getting it weighed from an inspected scale.
OK, but how does MA decide which equipment is considered a measuring device used for trade? Are grocer's scales and gas pump meters a special case that's explicitly regulated, or is anything that (a) takes a measurement while (b) in the path of a transaction regulated?
My supermarket sells cheddar for $8/pound. When they take some cheese and price it, the scale that decides it's 8 oz of cheese is a regulated scale.
But my co-worker's friend sells D&D dice for $5/cupful. Is that cup a measuring device that would technically need to be certified by DWM for trade use?
And if not, what is the bright-line test for whether the Uber app is a cup or a scale?
I think there's some interesting sociology / anthropology tied up in this.
Reading through the MA regs, it looks like they primarily regulate:
-- Scales of all kinds
-- Volumetric measurements for petroleum products and dairy products
-- Taxi meters
-- other commerce tools (grocery store scanners, change machines, bottle/can refund machines, etc)
It's a truism that weight is a much more accurate way to specify products than volume, which is why even liquids like self-serve soup at the grocery store are sold by mass, not volume.
However, we are historically used to buying gasoline, milk and ice cream by the gallon or liter, not the pound or kilo. It's also interesting that milk and ice cream are the fluids mentioned besides petroleum products in the state code -- we give dairy products a very special place in our culture. In Massachusetts, a 1967 law actually makes it illegal for stores to give away free milk!
The dice are possibly outside the purview of the MA Board of Commercial Tariffs and Sales, or whatever the heck it's called, which likely has a long list of all the products it cares about and the correct way for a merchant to measure them. If you were selling the dice by weight, you may in fact need to buy an approved scale and have it inspected periodically to comply with the law.
Verizon sells me internet access with different prices for different speeds. I would like to know how those speeds are measured and with what kind of device: theoretical max? average for one minute? average for 5 minutes?
It seems they're referring specifically to measurement systems, as in a taxi service. The preceding sentence in the ruling is:
"The major problem at this time is the fact that there are no established measurement standards for its current application and use in determining transportation costs similar to that of approved measurement systems for taximeters and odometers."
Except Uber isn't a cab, it's a private car service, which is generally less regulated. Rates for private car services are generally negotiated between the driver and passenger, and if both parties agree to use Uber's GPS-based software, I don't see what Massachusetts's problem is.
The argument they are making is that both parties are agreeing to traveling a certain distance for a certain price. But the tool which measures the distance must be an approved measurement device in order to prevent fraud.
I can agree to pay my super market a dollar for a pound of apples, but the dept. of weights and measures still validates the scale. That's the consumer protection that the state is arguing for.
Note the whole is it a cab or isn't it argument isn't actually germaine to this complaint (they actually dropped the unlicensed livery service complaint) its wholly based on the legitimacy of the measuring device
If Uber were using flat rates, this problem wouldn't exist. But Uber is actually selling miles-in-a-cab, and the government is rightfully pointing out that due to a very extensive history of businesses manipulating weights and measures to increase profits, the measuring device used to measure miles-in-a-cab ought to be one that has been inspected by the government.
By that definition, no cab companies are cabs, since that is exactly what the cab companies do--arrange trips between independently contracted cab drivers and potential customers.
Under the legal definition of cab services in many municipalities, Uber is a cab service rather than a livery service. In other municipalities, Uber is merely a livery service. In the U.S., each municipality gets to define what a cab service and a livery service are (because that is a local power under the federal system of government).
Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers
But more than a dozen other cities allow Uber to use their own way and the world hasn't ended.
Why should passengers care about what the city of Boston has "standardized" on? Why not just let passengers vote with their wallets? If Uber is too expensive or the drivers gain a reputation for ripping off customers, they'll just choose another cab. But the real problem is that Uber is actually too much better than the competition, which is why you see this kind of harassment occurring.
Regulation of this kind is about as corrupt an example of rent-seeking and resistance to technological innovation as you are likely to find in a lab. It's not a close call.
The small parts of the regulation that weren't rent-seeking -- a legitimate interest insuring a certain level of safety and responsibility, back when it was hard to hold bad-actors accountable -- have been made obsolete by mobile/reputation/marketplace technology.
Now, bad or inconsistent service can be made widely known almost instantly -- not just through Uber's own mechanisms, but also other review/complaint platforms.
The whole legacy regulatory architecture now can and should be discarded, replaced with a minimal kernel of regulations about clearly identifying a service provider and its terms, to enable the new market-oriented feedback mechanisms to work.
> The small parts of the regulation that weren't rent-seeking -- a legitimate interest insuring a certain level of safety and responsibility, back when it was hard to hold bad-actors accountable -- have been made obsolete by mobile/reputation/marketplace technology.
What? No they haven't. And it's still hard to hold bad actors accountable. Especially if you don't have the foresight to identify them perfectly.
> Now, bad or inconsistent service can be made widely known almost instantly -- not just through Uber's own mechanisms, but also other review/complaint platforms.
And there is moral hazard in every single company providing business reviews as its principle service.
> The whole legacy regulatory architecture now can and should be discarded, replaced with a minimal kernel of regulations about clearly identifying a service provider and its terms, to enable the new market-oriented feedback mechanisms to work.
Yeah, sure. The blind marketplace god will solve all our problems. OR powerful actors will rise up, quash competition and make things awful.
And it's still hard to hold bad actors accountable. Especially if you don't have the foresight to identify them perfectly.
In any system like Uber where dispatching, metering, and payment are all handled by devices, no foresight is required, and it is trivial to hold bad actors accountable. An untrackable actor can't even pick someone up, much less be paid.
There were informational problems which hindered market mechanisms from working, but those problems are now solved. The musty regulations, and the fears that drove them, are anarchronistic curiosities of a bygone era.
An untrackable actor can't pick someone up or be paid, but how hard is it for the actor to lie to the system? How hard is it for them to change their identity to the system? How hard is it for the counterparty to cause problems and how hard is it for him to change his identity?
And what if there are competitors to Uber? What if these competitors, as part of their attempt to get a wider car network refuse to rate those actors? Why would anyone want to be on the Uber network if they can get jobs on the other one? This isn't a static problem. There are a lot of dynamic variables in play and you're hoping that random action will lead to a steady state that is optimum for all the system participants.
But not all game systems work like that.
I'm not saying that Uber ought to be shut down outright. I just think it's ridiculous to assert that all regulation can be torn up just because certain metrics can be tracked.
It's harder for an actor to masquerade under an Uber-style system than traditional regulation. Every move is tracked, and customers could even get photographs of registered drivers via their own trusted channel -- as opposed to the easily-faked licensing documents carried by traditional cabs. (Big cities sometimes have 'gypsy cabs' whose markings and meters can be hard for even local police to distinguish from licensed cabs.)
And what if there are competitors? As long as all of them are branded, and can be reviewed on third-party sites, customers can decide whether they like the power of driver reviews, or some other mechanism for checking abuses.
You're right, it is dynamic. Who moves faster, an Uber-like enterprise or a decades-old insider-controlled city regulatory bureau? Which tends towards satisfying riders faster? There was a decade of complaints about how awful SF taxis were before Uber arrived... but the last-century regulatory assumptions protected incumbents from the pressure for change.
There were once upon a time conditions A, B, C that made it hard for customers to assess cab rates, routes, and reliability. Those specific factors led to regulations X, Y, Z.
But now for users of technology, conditions A, B, and C are gone. Anonymous pick-ups are precluded by design. Wild-goose routing to plump up fares or misleading riders about prevailing rates are both much harder... and even if you manage such a scam a little, there's no more disappearing into the night afterwards with your ill-gotten gains: there's an indelible reputational and transactional trail allowing redress. All the X, Y, Z regulations specifically created because of the 20th-century limitations are obsolete and should be nullified as soon as possible. You don't need to be brainstorming new 'what if' rationales for them, in advance of any extant problems.
I just think it's insane to say that there is one best meta-solution for all problems. I don't think regulation is the perfect response to every issue just as I don't think that the market is the perfect response.
It's harder for an actor to masquerade under an Uber-style system than traditional regulation. Every move is tracked, and customers could even get photographs of registered drivers via their own trusted channel -- as opposed to the easily-faked licensing documents carried by traditional cabs. (Big cities sometimes have 'gypsy cabs' whose markings and meters can be hard for even local police to distinguish from licensed cabs.)
Uh, no. I don't know what podunk city you live in, but in my city, cabs must have GPS devices, driver's licenses, and a medallion, in addition to specially marked cars. All of these are inspected at least yearly, compared to Uber's one-and-done verification system.
And what if there are competitors? As long as all of them are branded, and can be reviewed on third-party sites, customers can decide whether they like the power of driver reviews, or some other mechanism for checking abuses.
I'm sure some drunk guy will have to presence of mind to review multiple car services at 3am in the morning. Cab services are regulated because the passenger has no or limited choice in their selection or their ability to review the available cars.
But now for users of technology, conditions A, B, and C are gone. Anonymous pick-ups are precluded by design.
Uh, no. See drunk guy at a bar at 3am, above. Uber does not solve this. Technology is not the magical solution to everything. Regulation exists to solve problems in this area which technology cannot, and especially in Uber's case, does not solve.
Indeed, if anything, Uber simply makes the fraud problem worse. Because there's very little to stop someone from scamming Uber, and there's a lot of financial incentive for Uber to downplay or even hide fraud.
Boston has standardized on a way of metering taxis.
Taxis get a government-sponsored monopoly - a limited-quantity medallion - which allows them the right to pick up a passenger anywhere in a given territory (e.g. Boston, but not Cambridge). In exchange, they are required to pick up ANY passenger when on duty (they cannot legally decline to drive you somewhere), and they are required to charge you pre-determined rates as measured by a pre-determined meter.
Livery, or "black sedan" services, are not permitted to pick up arbitrary passengers who are hailing a cab. However, they are also not required (or allowed) to have a medallion, and they are not bound by any metering or pricing regulations at all.
I believe the theoretical distinction is that when hailing a cab, you are in a position of no negotiating power - you are limited to whatever cabs happen to drive by. "Being able to hail a cab" is a public utility. So the city has pre-negotiated a generally acceptable contract.
In contrast, you (pre-2012) are negotiating a contract with a livery company. You can choose any livery service you want from a phone book or directory, you can ask about their rates, pick a specific time, perhaps choose the type of car, etc. There's no "certified" locked meter, because the price is something you negotiate, and you have a choice of vendors.
Here's where Uber flips the industry on its head. Medallion owners tolerated livery companies, because without the medallion, livery services were restricted to pre-arranged rides, and most livery services couldn't offer a large enough fleet to provide low dispatch times without advance notice.
Uber forms a communications network linking ANY interested livery driver with ANY interested passenger. You pre-arrange the ride, but you pre-arrange it minutes before pickup. And Uber provides an Internet-era dispatch system; they've replaced grumpy dispatchers, two-way radios, and kickback systems with two iPhones (yours and the driver's) with built-in GPS. They can route your "call" directly to the closest in-network driver. Uber isn't a florist; they're FTD.
As far as I can tell, Massachusetts doesn't have any statewide regulation of livery services; each town has its own rules. Worcester apparently had a "12-hour rule" that defined what qualifies as a "pre-arranged ride", but that's been suspended or something.
So IANAL, but here's the situation as I see it:
- Uber isn't operating a livery service, period. They provide a dispatching network that's used by licensed livery drivers.
- Livery drivers don't have to use any kind of meter. They charge a negotiated price. With an Uber driver, you have negotiated a price based on "mileage as the iPhone GPS records it".
Which gets back to "which measurement devices used in trade are regulated in Massachusetts"? See my cup-of-dice comment elsewhere.
So with #1, that's the Boston's right. But it's not what the C&D is about, so we should set that aside. This is about #2.
With regards to #2, it's clearly reaching. You can make an argument that they're "measuring the distance with the iPhone", but clearly they're measuring it with GPS. The iPhone is not a measuring device. If they used the accelerometer in the iPhone to measure distance, it might be a fair point.
If they don't want GPS used in commercial transactions it's within the city's power to ban it. But that's what they're doing: banning the use of GPS in commercial transactions. Not banning Uber's iPhone app.
I don't think the city is willing to do that, since this is really about screwing with Uber using whatever regulation they can find and not about fairly enforcing the rules.
Yes and no; the location accuracy of a GPS receiver is strongly dependent on the accuracy of its timing source. The Dept of Weights & Measures generally certifies the accuracy of each physical device. In theory, the drivers could get their phones certified for measuring location and have one of those green stickers on the back that one of the other commenters mentioned.
In practice, any driver that tries will probably find it basically impossible to do, as I believe your analysis of the city's motive is correct.
(i) For operating an unlicensed livery service
(ii) For using a non-approved mechanism for metering the ride
The C&D at issue here covers (ii). At its heart, the complaint is that Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers, and Uber has replaced that standard with GPS. Presumably, cab drivers in Boston could not simply choose to replace their meters with GPS monitors, and thus, says Cambridge, neither should Uber.
(I might be wrong, that's just my read of the complaint).
I'm torn. Uber is pretty neat. Some (maybe most) of cab regulation is rent seeking. But not all of it is. Municipalities should find a way to make Uber lawful, but I'm not sure Uber should be able to make that happen by fiat.