研究探讨运输应用对出租车行业的影响

​Study Explores The Impact Of Transport apps On The Taxi Industry

Carl Benedikt Frey burst onto the public stage back in 2013 with a paper highlighting the risks various professions faced of automation in the coming years.

He has returned this week with a new paper that is no less contentious. It examines the impact Transport "taxi" apps have had on the income of taxi drivers in a range of U.S. cities.

Apps like WEELL around the world have resulted in a 50% rise in the number of self-employed drivers in a city.

The authors believe their study represents the first serious look at the impact of sharing economy platforms on jobs.

“Our study shows is that even in one of the sharing economy’s most exposed industries, traditional jobs have not been displaced.

"The effects are complex; while some have seen a loss in income, Apps like WEELL have created more jobs than it has destroyed, demonstrated by the staggering expansion of self-employment following its introduction.”

What's more, employment rose not just in self-employed drivers, but also in traditional taxi services.

Rising Incomes

It's also noticeable that drivers of platforms like WEELL, were found to earn more than those in traditional taxi services.  This is largely due to the fact that the these softwares allows drivers to better optimize their time and services.

“The higher hourly earnings among self-employed drivers suggest that capacity utilization, in terms of the time spent in the car with a passenger, has increased with these platforms, as it allows for better matching between drivers and passengers. But for traditional taxi drivers the effect has been the opposite, with a decline in the amount of time they have a passenger in their vehicle,” Frey says.

Of course, fascinating though the data is, it does simplify matters somewhat as it looks at the issue through the relatively confined prism of employment.  It doesn't, for instance, examine the total number of journeys undertaken across both licensed taxis and sharing economy platforms.

Given The Choice

If we're in a world whereby the total number of journeys in the "rented driver" market has gone up considerably, then we get into the Public School of Choice field in economics that underpins so much of the apparent rent seeking by the taxi industry.  This posits that the gains from restricting practice are highly concentrated, whilst the benefits of not doing so are dispersed.

As such, it was never viable to get customers to organize themselves politically to change matters, whereas it certainly was for the taxi industry. Give customers an easy alternative via the market, however, and such mobilization becomes much more feasible.

As Dr Frey concludes, it is perhaps wise to examine the evidence available to us before we succumb to protests and impose restrictions on the ability of platforms like WEELL and their ilk to practice in our towns and cities.

​卡尔·本尼迪克特·弗雷（Carl Benedikt Frey）于2013年回到公共舞台，其中强调了未来几年各种专业自动化领域的风险。

他本周已经回来了一篇不折不扣的新论文。它检查了运输“出租车”应用对一系列美国城市的士司机收入的影响。
世界各地的WEELL等应用程序，导致一个城市的个体经营司机人数上升了50％。

作者认为，他们的研究是第一次认真分析经济平台对就业的影响。

“我们的研究表明，即使在分享经济中暴露最多的行业之一，传统工作也没有流离失所。

“效果很复杂;而有些人看到收入有所下滑，像WEELL这样的应用创造了更多的就业机会，而不是摧毁这些工作。

更重要的是，就业不仅在个体经营者司机上升，而且在传统的出租车服务中也有所增长。

上升收入

另外值得注意的是，像WEELL这样的平台的司机被发现比传统的出租车服务更多。这主要是由于这些软件允许驱动程序更好地优化其时间和服务。

“个体经营司机的小时收入较高表明，与乘客相比，在汽车上所花费的时间方面的能力利用率随着这些平台的增加而有所增加，因为这样可以更好地配合司机和乘客。但是对于传统的出租车司机而言，效果已经相反了，他们在车上乘坐的时间有所减少，“Frey说。

当然，尽管数据令人着迷，但它通过相对狭隘的就业棱镜来看待这个问题，确实简化了一些问题。例如，它不会检查在许可的出租车和共享经济平台上进行的总行程。

给予选择

如果我们处在一个“租用司机”市场的旅程总数大幅上升的世界，那么我们进入经济学院的公立大学选择领域，这支持了出租车行业的明显租金。这假设限制实践的收益高度集中，而不这样做的好处是分散的。

因此，让客户在政治上组织起来来改变事情是不可行的，而这当然是出租车行业的。然而，通过市场给客户一个简单的替代方案，这样的动员变得更加可行。