Customers love Uber and Lyft, and as a frequent Uber/Lyft passenger myself, I understand why! Increasingly, however, cities are having major issues with Uber and Lyft. A new report aims to highlight how top cities around the world are regulating Uber and Lyft effectively, and we’ll cover this report and more in this week’s podcast episode.
If you’d like to read a transcript of this podcast, please click here.
Intro
- Today I’ll be chatting with Meera Joshi, a visiting scholar at the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation
- She’s also the co-author of the report E-Hail Regulations in Global Cities
- She has a background in ride hailing, law, and more
- Fascinating episode you won’t want to miss!
Intro to Meera Joshi
- Outgoing Commissioner of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC)
- Under her tenure, NYC became the first city in the nation to mandate granular trip data from large app operators (like Uber and Lyft)
- Preferred mode of transit: walking!
- Spent most of her career in criminal justice and investigations
Regulating Uber and Lyft
- Companies bottom line is to make money
- Doesn’t always work together with regulation – usually in conflict
- Report came about to see how other markets are handling Uber and Lyft
- E-Hail Regulation in Global Cities (see link below in Show Notes)
Using Data to Improve Safety
- Using data to determine how to improve safety
- Focus on ‘professional drivers’ on the road
- Trip records can show who is driving and when – if drivers are running red lights, this is something that could affect their ability to drive for Uber/Lyft
Revenue Collection
- The only reason these companies exist is because cities provide the roads
- Municipalities want to recoup the cost somehow
- The fee is on the company, but the company puts the fee on each trip (which hurts drivers)
- This increases passenger angst, too
Cities Creating a Safety Net for Drivers
- Starting to see a trend among cities trying to offer drivers some form of safety net for independent contractors
- These protections cost money
- Don’t want to see the fees going to what companies think drivers need but rather what drivers actually need
- Cities need to prioritize data collection – hard to say right now what the conditions are out there
Outro
- Thanks to Meera for coming on the podcast! In the coming months, I think we’ll see more cities engage in more regulation
- I think this will be something we’ll see a lot more of in the next year or two as well
- Want me to interview someone on this topic? Let me know!
