The ‘App’eal of Technology:

Opportunities and Threats

James M Cooper, Taxi Research Partners, Edinburgh Napier UniversityRichard Darbéra, Director of the IVM (Cities on the Move) Taxi Research program

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OUTLINE

•Yesterday and tomorrow

•Technologies

•Taxi apps

•Market for apps

•Market response to apps

•Market opportunity of apps

•Regulatory response

•Operator response

•Whither apps?

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TWO QUESTIONS AND A DREAM (or nightmare?)

•Why do taxis have a rooftop light?

•Why do taxis have a taximeter?

•Standing on a sidewalk in Google City

•…

•No rooftop light, no taximeter.

•No regulation?

3

NO REGULATION?

•Is the taxi app business a natural monopoly?

•The rogue driver

•The lost tourist

•The airport mess

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TECHNOLOGIES

•The App as a ‘disruptive’ technology

•The emergence of “Apps” has followed, and grown

exponentially from the smartphone

•Graphic user interface of immense potential and

opportunity

•Sophisticated device with significant sensor

capabilities; compass, GPS location, mapping software

and accelerometer

•Move from a cult to a mainstream market

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TAXI APPS•Split by function:

•Apps that provide Directory functionality

•Apps that make bookings with dispatch

companies

•Apps that make bookings directly with a driver

•This is not the end of the development! Smarter

phones, increased lateral thinking, support and

mainstream functions

•Herein lie challenges, opportunities and threats! There

are as many bad apps as good ones, probably more. Are

apps going ‘rogue’?!

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MARKET FOR APPS•App with a directory listing; simple, relatively

uncontroversial

•Apps with additional functionality begin to question

long standing assumptions

•Issue of existing market segments

•Hail or pre-booking function

•App in reassuring passenger by measuring time

and distance?

•App as a meter replacement by measuring time

and distance?

•Calibration and accuracy of device; Irish analysis:

App error = 1.6%; tolerance granted meters 4%.

•Payment tool

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MARKET RESPONSE TO APPS

•Confused and opposing reactions - a ‘normal’ response

•Travelling public appear relatively positive

•Taxi driver communities less opposed that at first

appearance, with caution over certain elements

including “rate my driver”

•Regulator and industry operator, more opposition,

especially where app changes the fundamental market

dynamics.

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MARKET OPPORTUNITY OF APPS

•As technologies develop, so do opportunities

•Current smartphone standards;

•Interactive voice control

•Mapped locations, routing and times

•Quality scoring, whether welcomed or not

•Live time and departure boards

•Technologies serve the market, if they do not, they will

not survive.

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REGULATORY RESPONSE

•Apps offer source of information on market operation

•Apps offer opportunity to enhance passenger

experience; BUT

•Changes in market need be considered with the long

term view in mind

•Moves to reject or outlaw “rogue” apps a short term

solution

•Support and protecting the consumer a prime

responsibility of the regulator

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OPERATOR RESPONSE

•The app represents a very mixed blessing

•Apps that do more than list companies need not

accommodate traditional booking processes

•Apps to dispatch maintain and support the status quo,

including those that are given an agency booking function

•Apps to driver sidestep traditional booking processes, but

may deliver cheaper solutions that can include the dispatch

company

•Apps that don’t “understand” the taxi market, a significant

challenge, but market will remain consumer led, regardless.

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WHITHER APPS?•Yes, the regulator has a responsibility to ensure the safety

of the public,

•Yes, the regulator must ensure apps are not illegal,

•Yes, the operating company need remain involved in the

market, but

•No, public interest is not always best served by a knee-

jerk reaction,

•Nor does it require market protectionism or regulatory

capture that is emerging, however understandable that

reaction is.

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