THREAD: Let me tell a little story from my trip to Sydney about taxis and why they're getting destroyed by ride-sharing services. It was my mum's 70th birthday, and we were all going out to dinner to celebrate.
Thee were five of us who needed transport from my parents' home, and we responsibly decided to use a taxi because we were *possibly* going to drink a little more than NSW's .05 blood alcohol limit would allow us to.
I should note here that my parents are both in their 70s and don't Uber (and Lyft doesn't run in Sydney yet). So we use a traditional taxi service, because that's what they know.
We have 5 people, so we need to arrange a "maxi-taxi" with enough seats. Foolishly, I believe that you just call the normal number and tell them you have five people for pick up and they'll organise things. No, you have to call a wholly separate number, hidden on their website.
So dad calls the number and gets the pick up time set, but they tell him THAT THEY CAN'T GUARANTEE A MAXI-TAXI and we might get two normal taxis instead. Which is more profitable for them (two separate fares to the city versus the 1.5x rate for one maxi-taxi).
Pick up time rolls around, and sure enough, we get a single normal taxi with only four seats. Dad talks to the driver, who calls dispatch. We're told a maxi-taxi is five minutes away, so this driver leaves.
Five minutes later... another four seat taxi arrives. After an animated discussion, my parents take this cab and the rest of us have to await the arrival of another. There aren't any maxi-taxis in the area after all.
We wait for at least 15 minutes for our taxi to arrive. Once on our way, the driver gets so horrendously lost in downtown Sydney that he has to stop the meter. (To be fair, the light rail construction on George St does makes things difficult).
When we arrive, the driver has no change for our paper money, so we have to pay by card. This despite all the signs in the taxi imploring you to pay by cash and imposing a 5% surcharge on any other payment method. (Our driver waived this, to his credit).
Finally at he party, we tell our tale to my parents, who tell us that their driver is apparently a don in the taxi mafia. "You want a maxi-taxi home? Call me, not the cab company. I'll get you one."
Sure enough, when we leave, dad calls his new friend and a maxi-taxi magically appears a few short minutes later to whisk us home.
Compare all that ridiculous palaver with the ease of using a ride-sharing app, and I think you can see why the world is a-changing.
