The Netherlands tried the experiment to, from one day to another, just remove almost all requirements to operate a taxi. Basically, the only requirements were that you had to have a vehicle that passes inspection, a valid drivers license, and register with the city government that you operate a taxi.
In Amsterdam, the result was absolute chaos. Ignoring for the moment the unhappy existing taxi drivers and companies (that was complete mess, way beyond what the police were able to control), many new entrants behaved less than professional. I.e., competing aggressively for the lucrative rides, being poorly equipped to actually deliver a taxi services.
The situation got so bad, that the old taxi company that everybody hated, was now suddenly was the most reliable taxi service.
The question then becomes how you view the taxi market. Is it a market where anything goes. Where sometimes, in the middle of the night, there is just no taxi that wants to take you (home) for a price you can afford. Where taxi drivers claim that tourists agreed to pay an insane amount of money per person for a short ride from the airport to a nearby hotel.
Or do you want something that is mostly predictable. Maybe not very efficient, certainly not nice. But with reasonable expectation that if you order a taxi, one will show up and take you where you need to go?
So what was the problem? No price transparency for the customers at the airport, no vetting of the drivers, and no reputation market for the drivers.
All of these are/could be/would have been solved by mandating the use of an app. The City of Amsterdam should have made an app, drivers register, that keeps track of their fares and manages supply-demand surges.
Economically it's a race to the bottom unless there's a constrained supply. Especially when [not if] self driving cars start operating as taxis.
If Amsterdam wants to treat taxis as a public good (to get reliable night transport for example), then it can regulate it as such, pay some money for drivers (or otherwise compensate them) to be available at night if natural demand is (or would be) too low.
Just out of curiosity, what were the requirements that got lifted?
The problem is that the Dutch government bought the whole 'free market will solves every problem' ideology. So obviously, a city government was not allowed to mandate anything in this context.
Public transport is the public good that the government pays (in part) for. I doubt that you can randomly pay taxis to be available at night. Then you have to figure out a scheme who gets paid and who doesn't. Otherwise, you may find lots of people who want to get paid for doing nothing at night.
I don't know the details of the old taxi system. There were a limited number of licenses. There was a limit on how much a taxi could charge. But probably there were lots of other requirements as well.
Economically no problem with that race, of course it eventually means cutting out the human driver and usually people who can only drive are not really ready to get a different job. They have no other skills that are "in demand".
Would you describe the present environment as chaotic? Rideshare companies have solved the problems you describe.
You can debate whether it’s fair that they’ve profited by breaking the rules. But they’ve made a very compelling case that the rules aren’t needed anymore.
In Amsterdam, the result was absolute chaos. Ignoring for the moment the unhappy existing taxi drivers and companies (that was complete mess, way beyond what the police were able to control), many new entrants behaved less than professional. I.e., competing aggressively for the lucrative rides, being poorly equipped to actually deliver a taxi services.
The situation got so bad, that the old taxi company that everybody hated, was now suddenly was the most reliable taxi service.
The question then becomes how you view the taxi market. Is it a market where anything goes. Where sometimes, in the middle of the night, there is just no taxi that wants to take you (home) for a price you can afford. Where taxi drivers claim that tourists agreed to pay an insane amount of money per person for a short ride from the airport to a nearby hotel.
Or do you want something that is mostly predictable. Maybe not very efficient, certainly not nice. But with reasonable expectation that if you order a taxi, one will show up and take you where you need to go?