The Impact on Taxi Industry of Taxi-Calling Mobile Apps in Shanghai

This paper presents how taxi-calling mobile apps work and influence the taxi industry in Shanghai. The phenomena of taxi boycott and unlicensed cars in China is due to the problems of regulatory and operational mode. Taxi-calling mobile apps mode can balance the supply and demanded information, increase efficiency and lower social cost. A model of cost of transaction and regulation is built and a case of Shanghai is analyzed. The result shows that the cost of all stakeholders and the total cost decreased by the application of taxi-calling mobile apps. The three traditional operational modes (hail, rank and dispatching center) may be replaced by the application of taxi-calling mobile apps in the future. The government will apply the information platform composed of taxi-calling mobile apps to regulate the taxi industry directly in the future. The survey indicates that most stakeholders support the promotion of taxi-calling mobile apps. The government's centralized management of taxi-calling mobile apps will be accomplished in the future. Big data can be achieved and used under the complete coverage of taxi-calling mobile apps in the future.