permaculture

[Bob Howard <rmhoward@omninet.net.au>]

What if a group of people who ride bikes (or walked) got together and
bought a taxi. The driver gets 50% and/or a fixed hire fee and is free
to hire to anyone in the collective. The mobile phone essentially does
away with all the overheads of running a taxi business (apart from
paying the phone bill and text messages can minimize that cost).

The driver(s) has an incentive to find work - since s/he is paid by the
fare charged. S/he is essentially a piece worker S/he will set the fare
to what the market (the people in the collective) can bear.  But the
collective owns the taxi and hence won't rip itself off because and
hence will be restrained from ripping off the driver.

I'm not sure of the best way to structure this - my main point is though
- that taxi's represent an important half way house to a car free
society and, in places like Oz the industry is heavily over regulated
because of the previously high overheads associated with radio
controlled networks and the cartels that were created.

About 10 years ago in Albany (pop 25,000), where I live, there was one
cab company with about 12 cars. But in good old Albany tradition it
schismed into 3 parts (we like a bit of disagreement now and then)
Albany has 3 cab companies now 2 with 5 plates each and one guy who
operates by himself. This last guy has a de facto collective going - he
had built up a clientele of his own through his undoubted taxi driving
skills and he took them with him and bought a mobile phone - nowadays
his quite comfortable, he has surfed the mobile phone revolution to
business success.

I'd be interested if any body knows of any studies on the economics of
the taxi industry in particular as it applies to poorer parts of the
world.

Bob Howard