Disruptive Innovation and Sunset Clauses: The Case of Uber and Other on Demand Transportation Networks

Uber and other on-demand transportation network companies, such as Lyft and Cabify, have brought significant change in the transportation industry within cities. Calling a taxi was never so simple and easy, while the payment transaction was never so fast and convenient. However, such ride sharing platforms brought significant disruption within the taxi business. Nowadays, ride-sharing platforms operate in the vast majorities of the big cities; in some cities like New York, cars affiliated with on-demand ridesharing platforms have not only outnumbered taxis but also and more importantly have taken away millions of rides from taxi drivers.

Due to the noticeable drop in passengers, the value of taxi licences has drastically reduced. According to anecdotal references, in 2013, a taxi licence in New York was worth as much as $1.3 million, however, nowadays the price has dropped down to as low as $200,000. As a result, such disruption in the taxi business has brought protests from taxi drivers around the world, and has created challenges to policy makers on how to resolve the conflicting interests and resolve the tension. Such challenges are expected to rise with the spread of the autonomous cars in the future.

This chapter aims to examine the utility of sunset clauses in order to resolve this issue. It will use the progressive abolition of roaming changes as a pilot case, which took place with a number of laws subject to sunset clauses, in order to show how such clauses may with temporary regulations to deregulate the taxi industry by creating a predictable business environment for all parties involved.