Quantity De-Restriction in the Taxi Market. Results from English Case Studies

This paper presents the results of ten case studies conducted in England following the quantity de-regulation in the taxi market that has been widely applied since 2003. The case studies were carried out for a report commissioned by the Office for Fair Trading and gathered data on the number of taxis, the trend in waiting times for both taxi drivers and taxi customers as well as taxi users' perceptions of changes in quality. Our results suggest that de-restriction is appropriate for those authorities that fail to regulate the market properly, but also that quantity restrictions may be a characteristic of a well managed taxi market