Tan Kin Lian - Perspectives Regulate private hire like taxis
I make this observation about the private car platform like Uber, Grab and others.

When platform X enters into the market, it offers attractive fares for customers and incentives for drivers to build up the market. They incur large losses, i.e. burn their capital, to build up the market and drive out their competitors.

X becomes a virtually monopoly. They may even buy over their competitors. It is now time for them to make profits and recover the past losses.

Later, another platform Y comes into the market and adopts the same strategy, i.e. burn capital to build up a market. X is not able to recover its past losses. It has to fight against Y.

This cycle continues from one platform to the next. It is not sustainable. It does not benefit the investors, the drivers, nor the customers. It is not possible to build up a reliable private transport system.

In nearly all countries, taxis have to be regulated. The same approach applies to private hire cars. They also have to be regulated.

In my view, a proper approach is to require the private hire vehicles to be regulated like taxis and to modify the regulations to allow the taxi operators to use the booking apps. (I think that this is already the case). The regulations should also apply to the fares, i.e. no surge pricing.

There is no advantage in having two separate systems for taxis and private hire cars. They should come under a common regulated framework.

Tan Kin Lian

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