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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday November 19 2015, @11:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the call-the-wah-mbulance dept.

Owners of New York City's taxi "medallions" filed a lawsuit (PDF) against city regulators today, saying their business has been devastated by the decision to allow companies like Uber to compete using "E-hail" services.

A medallion is required to operate a New York City yellow taxicab, the only type of vehicle allowed to accept passengers who hail cabs on the street. Until recently, those medallions could sell for over $1 million. Companies like White & Blue Group, one of the plaintiffs in the case, managed fleets of licensed taxicabs by leasing out the medallions.

According to the suit, White & Blue Group, which manages the largest fleet of leased taxicabs in New York, "has seen its monthly leasing income drop as much as 50% in the past year," and has been forced to idle as much as 20 percent of its fleet each day. The complaint was filed today and reported earlier by Reuters.

Extortionists crying about losing money is about the saddest sight in the world.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Friday November 20 2015, @02:16AM

    by frojack (1554) on Friday November 20 2015, @02:16AM (#265614) Journal

    So all the city need do is tell the cab companies to go ahead and use an app for dispatching. Problem solved?
    The Technology of medallions was set up to build trust in the taxi system, which NYC desperately needs.
    The new technology puts more control in the hands of the customer.
    The new technology isn't fully proven yet.
    So let the cab companies use BOTH technologies for a while.

    Their complaint is valid because NYC sold them a limited license, took the money, then allows others to do the same job
    without restrictions and without licenses.

    Yes, they had a monopoly (and still do to some extent). and Yes the promises made by the City are not being met.
    You can argue that those promises, and those medallions should have never been issued.
    And you can argue that the taxi industry was a willing participant in this monopoly scheme.
    You can berate them for their insistence on antiquated dispatching methods, their regulated rates, and all the other things they do to prevent actual competition from taking place.

    They had a good run. But its all crashing down. And its hard to blame ONLY the City or ONLY the medallion holders.

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  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday November 20 2015, @02:47AM

    by captain normal (2205) on Friday November 20 2015, @02:47AM (#265624)

    Not quite the same. The "medallions" allowed the taxi fleets to cruise the streets and pick up people hailing a cab. All fine if you were in an area where a taxi could be found. If you called for a cab you could wait up to an hour before one showed.
    Uber can't pick up random people off the streets. But if you use the app, you should have a ride within 15 min.
    So not quite the same job. Still I would think big city cab companies likely rank only slightly behind the cable companies in customer dissatisfaction.

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    • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Friday November 20 2015, @03:28AM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday November 20 2015, @03:28AM (#265634) Journal

      So not quite the same job.

      Well, what I meant was..
      Originally the medallions were to protect the public from robbers posing as taxi drivrs.
      Secondary feature was to limit competition, but that came later once the cabbies captured the regulators.

      Uber apps with driver ratings have the same purpose, to give some level of knowledge to the customer so they could avoid assholes.

      Lately, the protection function of the medallion has become secondary to the competition limiting function.

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      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2015, @04:49AM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday November 20 2015, @04:49AM (#265659)

        I don't think the "protection from robbers" ever was much of a factor, if you can procure a big yellow car - how hard would it be to forge a medallion? And, robbers in NYC have many many other ways to get at people besides tricking them into a cab.

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        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday November 20 2015, @05:15AM

          by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Friday November 20 2015, @05:15AM (#265672) Homepage Journal

          To be fair: Taxis have to have the medallion physically present on the hood, have their cab numbers visibly mounted on the roof and doors, *and* require special Taxi license plates. You might be able to forge all of the above, but all it takes is one NYPD officer checking the plate to get busted. Airports also log in cab drivers and out to prevent fakes from getting in queue.

          While I think the medallion system is rigged by preventing competition, it does prevent you from getting hijacked by fake cabs or those who would abuse the meter and such (a common practice I've seen and/or experienced in other cities and countries).

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          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @01:20PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @01:20PM (#265783)

            Throughout a trip in India, I just tracked the route with GPS and maps before and as we were driving (none of the meters were off). I'm not sure how much people have to worry about meter abuse these days, especially in the US.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2015, @04:47AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday November 20 2015, @04:47AM (#265654)

    Medallions were set up to prevent overcrowding of the roads - and in the process they created a market of scarcity, which is what drove the value so high.

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