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Payments Outside the (Regulated) Norm

Taxi fuel surcharge tacked to the visor of this Seattle taxi - adding a $1 to the price of every journey.

The authority that regulates taxi fares; the speed at which that authority can adjust prices, and the likelihood of the need to adjust prices; the cultural and contextual differences in price volatility; the medium through which the fare adjustment is communicated to the passenger, including the authority by which those changes are made.

And in a world of truly ubiquitous personal communication devices, the ability of both passenger and driver to draw on real time price information. The ways in which forced price transparency of fuel and other raw materials encourages and discourages use of a service. Advantages and disadvantages of say, the cost of a taxi fare priced at oil prices at the start of the journey, or when the petrol tank was last filled. And to flip it: how to identify customers in real time that are willing to pay more.

Writing from Seattle | March 14, 2008 | Permalink