International Practices for Russian Taxi Market Regulation

Abstract

The analysis of international experience in regulating taxi markets allows to identify potential risks of regulatory interference in the passenger transportation markets in Russia. Section 1 examines the international experience of tariff regulation and taxi market deregulation measures, taking into account empirical studies of the tariff restrictions effectiveness. Section 2 contains examples of quotas, restricted the number of passenger taxis or licenses. Since regulatory practice is not limited to these methods, section 3 provides cases of establishing additional requirements for the carrier's activities. The conclusion contains all cases summary and a list of potential risks of implementing the tariff regulation policy in taxi market in Russian Federation. It is concluded that markets with dynamic pricing may react ambiguously to the straightening or weakening of tariff and quotas regulation.The research is based on the theory of institutional change, including developments on the problems of institutional design and regulatory impact assessment.The choice of cases is determined by the information availability about the results of the introduced regime of taxi services regulation. This makes it possible to analyze the qualitative characteristics of relevant market dynamics without diving into quantitative calculations and collecting statistics.