Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics, grade: 1,7, University of Cologne (Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences), language: English, abstract: How should ride-sharing platforms be regulated? The main aim of this master thesis is to provide a framework for regulators, that helps to create an appropriate regulation for ride-sharing platforms in countries like Germany where ride-sharing platforms are currently banned. To achieve that, the main differences between the conventional taxi industry and its new sharing economy entrants are outlined, and a questionnaire is used to empirically identify advantages as well as disadvantages of ride-sharing platforms. Based on these results and on the related literature, new regulatory approaches are developed. With the rise of the internet came the rise of the sharing economy. This sharing economy is characterized by platforms which enable peers to share products and services with other peers. Hereby, these platforms are criticised to disrupt traditional industries. One famous example is the ride-sharing platform Uber which entered the taxi market and competes with conventional taxi organisations. Uber was founded in 2009 and experienced an enormous growth since then. Uber is available in 65 countries, is used by 75 million riders and 3 million drivers, and completes 15 million rides per day. However, Uber is heavily criticised by taxi drivers because they argue that Uber bypasses local licensing and safety laws and amounts to unfair competition. There are many protests by taxi drivers against Uber all over the world. In addition, Uber is criticized for being not safe. For example, the public awareness campaign `Who ́s driving you?` promotes for-hire vehicle safety and provides a list of safety incidents highlighting the risks of Uber and Lyft. Nevertheless, ride-sharing platforms like Uber offer several advantages to the public, for example user-friendly ride-hailing, cheaper trans

This book examines how regulators and policymakers from nine different countries have dealt with Uber, and initiates a legal dialogue between different jurisdictions that could potentially pave the way to a harmonized approach in regulating Uber. The case studies, conducted in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the US reveal the case law and regulatory responses that have been adopted in various areas of law. Legal issues relevant to Uber include market regulation, labor law, civil liability, consumer protection, unfair competition and antitrust law. The book thus compares and contrasts the regulatory policy implications of the disruptive innovation created by Uber in the area of transport services. The book starts with a conceptual overview of the legal challenges posed by Uber and concludes with comparative findings based on the individual case studies. In addition to introducing academics and legal practitioners to the theoretical and practical legal problems they may encounter in connection with Uber, the book will especially appeal to policymakers, who can benefit from and compare the experiences of other jurisdictions.

It used to take years or even decades for disruptive innovations to dethrone dominant products and services. But now any business can be devastated virtually overnight by something better and cheaper. How can executives protect themselves and harness the power of Big Bang Disruption? Just a few years ago, drivers happily spent more than $200 for a GPS unit. But as smartphones exploded in popularity, free navigation apps exceeded the performance of stand-alone devices. Eighteen months after the debut of the navigation apps, leading GPS manufacturers had lost 85 percent of their market value. Consumer electronics and computer makers have long struggled in a world of exponential technology improvements and short product life spans. But until recently, hotels, taxi services, doctors, and energy companies had little to fear from the information revolution. Those days are gone forever. Software-based products are replacing physical goods. And every service provider must compete with cloud-based tools that offer customers a better way to interact. Today, start-ups with minimal experience and no capital can unravel your strategy before you even begin to grasp what’s happening. Never mind the “innovator’s dilemma”—this is the innovator’s disaster. And it’s happening in nearly every industry. Worse, Big Bang Disruptors may not even see you as competition. They don’t share your approach to customer service, and they’re not sizing up your product line to offer better prices. You may simply be collateral damage in their efforts to win completely different markets. The good news is that any business can master the strategy of the start-ups. Larry Downes and Paul Nunes analyze the origins, economics, and anatomy of Big Bang Disruption. They identify four key stages of the new innovation life cycle, helping you spot potential disruptors in time. And they offer twelve rules for defending your markets, launching disruptors of your own, and getting out while there’s still time. Based on extensive research by the Accenture Institute for High Performance and in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs, investors, and executives from more than thirty industries, Big Bang Disruption will arm you with strategies and insights to thrive in this brave new world.

This book contains a collection of latest research developments on the urban transportation systems. It describes rail transit systems, subways, bus rapid transit (BRT) systems, taxicabs, automobiles, etc. This book also studies the technical parameters and provides a comprehensive overview of the significant characteristics for urban transportation systems, including energy management systems, wireless communication systems, operations and maintenance systems, transport serviceability, environmental problems and solutions, simulation, modelling, analysis, design, safety and risk, standards, traffic congestion, ride quality, air quality, noise and vibration, financial and economic aspects, pricing strategies, etc. This professional book as a credible source can be very applicable and useful for all professors, researchers, students, experienced technical professionals, practitioners and others interested in urban transportation systems.

Turning on an app, finding a driver nearby with the help of GPS, and quickly catching a ride to your desired destination is now a daily activity for many people around the world. This arrangement, known as “ridesharing” or “ridehailing,” has especially transformed the way many American and Chinese citizens travel. In the United States, ridesharing is roughly an $18 billion industry, and in China it is an incredible $30 billion. And while ridesharing for many Americans might be synonymous with Uber and Lyft, in China the leading ridesharing company is Didi-Chuxing, which facilitates more rides each day in China than Uber does across the entire world. The so-called “sharing economy,” of which ridesharing and similar services like homesharing are a part, has unlocked the excess capacity in cars, homes, and schedules, leading to lower prices for consumers, higher incomes for suppliers, and the reduction of wasted resources. Despite these benefits and advances, however, the sharing economy has created an array of problems for communities of all sizes -- from tax evasion and pollution to price gouging, deplorable worker protections, and consumer safety. The impact of these problems is exacerbated because sharing economy platforms shape-shift, move fast, and fight to avoid or find loopholes within current regulatory frameworks. As a result, the world has witnessed a barrage of lawsuits, strikes, bans, and rules in opposition to this zeitgeist. With many differing approaches to regulating the sharing economy, some jurisdictions have more effectively mitigated the novel economy's negative externalities than others. Thus, it is helpful to look at legal experiments occurring across the globe to identify and understand best practices as they emerge. This Article does just that by examining China's ridesharing regulations. China's approach provides a useful point of comparison to the U.S.'s, because of its national recognition of ridesharing platforms, its two-tiered regulatory structure, and forward-thinking plans to incorporate many of the sharing economy's benefits into the country's strategic planning. Furthermore, this Article contributes to our overall understanding of the Chinese economy and its legal system, which too often goes unexamined in U.S. legal scholarship, despite the fact that the Chinese economy is second only to the U.S.'s.This Article advances a two-pronged thesis. First, it argues that China's approach to ridesharing regulation -- while not flawless -- nevertheless addresses certain policy concerns in a more rational and effective manner than have U.S. laws. Chinese law appears to balance the country's goal of encouraging the positive attributes of ridesharing with other practical social goals such as consumer protection and fair competition. Second, this Article argues that U.S. regulators can selectively borrow from China's approach to ridesharing regulation for the benefit of the relevant stakeholders in the U.S. In this way, U.S. law could absorb and encourage the beneficial innovations of sharing economy platforms generally and better address the policy concerns they provoke. To build these arguments, this Article proceeds as follows. Part I provides the context for understanding the broad similarities and differences between the U.S. and Chinese sharing economies, especially with regard to their incorporation into national economic and political goals. Part II provides a brief overview of ridesharing in both the U.S. and China. Part III evaluates the utility of comparative legal analysis and argues that the functionalist method of comparison is best suited for our purposes. Part IV provides a functional analysis of the two countries' regulatory approaches vis-à-vis their respective systemic and substantive dimensions of interest. Finally, Part V provides key insights for regulators considering a national approach to ridesharing regulation in their own country.

Technological innovations are quickly re-shaping our world and even changing the way we travel from place to place. Although the concept of “ride-sharing” only just emerged in 2010, it has rapidly gained popularity and expanded across the globe, offering a new way to get around major cities via a mobile application that instantly links drivers and passengers through the phone's GPS system. At the forefront of this movement is Uber -- the multibillion-dollar company and pioneer of ride-sharing that has experienced unprecedented growth and success in its short existence. However, Uber's expansion into most major cities across the United States has not been free of controversy or difficulties. For example, Uber has received major pushback from the taxi industry, which was once virtually free of competition, but is now quickly losing its grasp as a popular mode of transportation in the markets Uber has expanded into. In addition, city and state regulators in highly-regulated markets such as Miami, Florida have created significant legal hurdles for companies like Uber to enter into new markets based primarily on the regulators' inability to fit these innovative companies into existing regulations for taxis, resulting in a legal gray area. This article will examine the development of the immensely popular and controversial ride-sharing industry. Specifically, this article will focus on the unprecedented growth of the ride-sharing industry's pioneer, Uber, and the legal hurdles Uber has encountered while expanding into highly-regulated markets, which have resisted this new collaborative form of transportation that has now become synonymous with “taking an Uber.”

Controversy shrouds sharing economy platforms. It stems partially from the platforms’ economic impact, which is felt most acutely in certain sectors: Uber drivers compete with taxi drivers; Airbnb hosts compete with hotels. Other consequences lie elsewhere: Uber is associated with a trend toward low-paying, precarious work, whereas Airbnb is accused of exacerbating real estate speculation and raising the cost of long-term rental housing. While governments in some jurisdictions have attempted to rein in the platforms, technology has enabled such companies to bypass conventional regulatory categories, generating accusations of “unfair competition” as well as debates about the merits of existing regulatory regimes. Indeed, the platforms blur a number of familiar distinctions, including personal versus commercial activity; infrastructure versus content; contractual autonomy versus hierarchical control. These ambiguities can stymie legal regimes that rely on these distinctions as organizing principles, including those relating to labour, competition, tax, insurance, information, the prohibition of discrimination, as well as specialized sectoral regulation. This book is organized around five themes: technologies of regulation; regulating technology; the sites of regulation (local to global); regulating markets; and regulating labour. Together, the chapters offer a rich variety of insights on the regulation of the sharing economy, both in terms of the traditional areas of law they bring to bear, and the theoretical perspectives that inform their analysis. Published in English.