I think the idea was more: "too many" taxis hit the streets, and while they make a living wage, traffic doesn't move. In fact, as a taxi driver, with a time-based meter, traffic congestion may not decrease wages at all. Given the density of Manhattan, it wouldn't surprise me if there was more demand for taxis than the road system could support (I'm not saying that's true, I don't have the data, just that it's a third factor besides supply and demand).
> as a taxi driver, with a time-based meter, traffic congestion may not decrease wages at all.
Um, no. The initial value on the meter is set in such a way that cabbies make more money from picking up lots of fares that from picking up one and getting it hopelessly stuck in traffic.
Incidentally, private jitneys (where legal or tolerated) evolved a different rate system that's even better for consumers - the "rate card". Instead of a big, expensive, complicated piece of machinery, there's a map of the city divided into "zones" and a flat rate to travel within one "zone" or to cross X number of zones. The map might be printed on a sticker on the door (so you see it before you enter the cab) or on a playing card or business card the driver displays or hands you.
As a passenger, you then know the cabbie has no incentive at all to waste time in traffic and you know what the fare will be at the time you get in.
Regulators don't like that system because they can't reliably tax unmetered trips.
May I suggest adding more flexible options? I often find myself wanting to plan a vacation but not knowing where or when I want to go - on traditional travel sites, this is a problem, because everything has to be run through an algorithm, but as a crowdsourcer, you might be able to get away with saying 'two week trip, sometime between August and November', and just give me good options.
Hm, to do this though, you'd need to have a lot more qualifying questions. I have been a travel agent for 10 years, and it is difficult to find the "right" holiday for someone without a lot of information (ie budget, what they like to do, where they have been/stayed before and what they liked/didn't like, etc).
That said, and even as a competitor, it is a really cool idea!
Mmm, that's true. Even if it was just a list of countries, though, I don't think the flight info has to be more detailed than that; you're generally going to be flying into a city anyways, so it's not like knowing that someone likes hiking will help too much. I'd be happy to have someone find me a cheap flight to somewhere-in-south-america-really-I-don't-care-where-or-when.
