Uber and Co. make life difficult for taxi drivers. Now the taxi industry is reacting and introducing an important innovation in a German city.
A legal innovation makes it possible: passengers in Munich have been able to since September 1, 2023 before the taxi ride Fixed price negotiate. Gone are the days when you could only calculate taxi costs roughly in advance. However, only if the taxi was previously ordered by telephone, app, email or SMS. If you hail a taxi in the classic way, you will still have to make do with the taximeter. The innovation is intended to ensure fair competition. In contrast to low-cost providers like Uber, which operates with rental cars, taxis must adhere to set tariffs determined by municipalities.
Similar to Uber in a city, there are also cheaper variants of Deutsche Bahn and Co. such as Flixbus:
Taxi industry against low-cost providers
This creates an imbalance: While the taxi industry is regulated, Uber and Co. can offer cheap prices. But only because the conditions here are exploitative: Drivers who work for driving services such as Uber and Bolt often do so illegally and/or without a license. Herwig Kollar, President of the Federal Taxi and Rental Car Association, said to the FAZ: “This is made possible by the responsible regulatory authorities turning a blind eye, who are simply afraid of legal attacks from the American platform operators.” In order to avoid wage dumping and tax evasion from now on, he is calling for minimum prices for rental car traffic.
How does the fixed price for a taxi work?
The fact that taxis in Munich can now operate with fixed prices is a first step towards regulation. The city’s district administration department explains that there is a corridor for the prices of taxi rides will give. This is created taking into account the basic price and kilometer price of the current taxi tariff. The agreed fixed price with customers can be 20 percent above or 5 percent below this corridor. In addition, the prices are monitored by the authorities.
Not just a question of price
But not just the prices, that too service offering from Uber, FreeNow and Bolt, young people in particular are encouraged to access their services: you can order a car using the app, see a picture of the driver and the car and see how far away the car is in the live stream and when it arrives. Such a modern booking behavior It is also needed for taxis, said a spokeswoman for the city of Berlin, where they are considering imitating Munich. There are also initial considerations in this direction in Leipzig and Hamburg.
Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) hopes to see soon whether the new concept will be successful: He expects that the new offer will be used diligently at the upcoming IAA mobility trade fair and Oktoberfest. So can first findings be obtained.
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