Over the last half-century, multiple US cities experimented with taxicab deregulation. Unfortunately, in most instances this resulted in an oversupply of cabs, leading to a deterioration of vehicle and driver quality, and most cities that were deregulated at one time or another abandoned deregulation. The entry barriers and start-up costs for app-based transportation services are significantly lower than for traditional taxi services. Will the influx of app-based service lead to a glut of cars on the road providing transportation for hire? Does that result align with desired goals to reduce transportation emissions?
This is a significant concern because of the difference in the types of cars used for taxis and those being used for app-based transportation services. Across the country, more and more taxi fleets are converting to “clean” vehicles (hybrids or compressed natural gas vehicles). This movement began in San Francisco, which passed the Clean Air Taxi Act in 2008. The purpose of the legislation was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the San Francisco taxi fleet by twenty percent from 1990 levels by 2012. By 2012, San Francisco’s taxis had far exceeded this goal, reducing the average per-vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by forty-nine percent, all while nearly doubling the size of the city’s taxicab fleet. In July 2013, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation announced that ninety-seven percent of San Francisco’s taxis are “clean” vehicles, up from approximately fifteen percent in 2008. (Full conversion to “clean” vehicles is difficult due to the lack of alternative fuel wheelchair accessible vans.)
In addition to their environmental benefits, the shift to alternative fuel taxis has also been a hit with drivers, who appreciate the fuel savings and quieter ride. There are also times when hybrids are more in demand, such as after Hurricane Sandy, when taxi drivers were desperately trying to get a hold of hybrids to avoid the long lines caused by gas shortages in the Northeast. Other cities have followed San Francisco’s lead, either through regulation, government incentives or market forces. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago have also seen a significant increase in the percentage of alternative fuel vehicles in their taxicab fleets. Indeed, if you have gotten into a taxi in any urban area in the US lately, there is good chance that it was an alternative fuel vehicle.
Although exact figures on the percentage of hybrid vehicles in the app-based transportation fleets are unavailable, there is little doubt that that it is nowhere close to San Francisco’s ninety-seven percent. While Uber recently debuted its hybrid-based UberX service, it does not appear to have achieved the popularity of its more traditional town cars and SUVs. And current regulations do not require TNCs to use alternative fuel vehicles.
