scanner wrote:
Again in the 1980's cities across America such as Seattle, Phoenix, San Diego and Atlanta began a programme of de-regulation of the taxi industry. In an article published in the Transportation Law Journal 2000, Professor Paul Dempsey states that since 1983 some 21 American cities had deregulated the taxi industry and concludes that de-regulation failed to provide the anticipated consumer pricing and service benefits and that as a consequence most communities involved in de-regulation have since re-regulated their taxi industry. Professor Roger Teal, who has conducted several studies into taxi de-regulation in the USA, reached similar conclusions.
Professor Paul Dempsey's study uses as an analogy an exhaustable resource to which everyone has acccess - in his case a bit of common grazing land - if unfettered access is allowed then the area will be overgrazed and eventually the grazing land will simply be no more.
He claims the taxi trade is like this, but it isn't - fishing might be a better comparison - if uncontrolled fishing is allowed then eventually the fish will be wiped out.
But the taxi trade simply isn't like this - however many drivers there are there will still be more customers tomorrow.
Professor Dempsey has got it wrong - anyway he's talking about deregulation, not de-limitation.
Dusty