Editorial: Taken for a ride
Ride-sharing services continue to decimate the taxi industry. Less known, however, is how outfits such as Uber and Lyft are impacting rental-car companies.
A USA Today story on Thursday noted that business travelers continue to flock to Uber, Lyft and others at the expense of cabs. When they needed transport, corporate travelers chose taxis 37 percent of the time in 2014. That number has plummeted to 14 percent so far in 2016, according to a report compiled by Certify.
But business travelers have also taken 10 percent fewer trips in rental cars this year than they did during the first three months of 2015.
“If a business traveler is in a city [he’s] not familiar with … to let someone else do the driving while you work in the back seat is a much more efficient use of time,” Certify’s CEO Bob Neveu told USA Today.
We hear a lot about economic “disruption” these days. It appears that Uber and its competitors, having rolled the entrenched taxi cartel, may not be finished disrupting yet.
