See all amusing road scenes.
Yes! You read right! Economics and Amusing Road Scenes!
The situation pictured below happens regularly in Maseru. The traffic lights are green to go but the taxi (mini-bus) in front does not move. Or moves at much slower-than-walking pace (which takes some effort) and blocks all cars behind. Great. But why do they do it?
Competition for passengers (who all wait at the bus stop) is fierce. If a taxi is clearly next in line, they will get all the passengers for their destination. But, of course, they want as many passengers as possible. Any taxi that is (almost) guaranteed to get their first has an interest in maximizing the amount of time they take to get there. That way they will have more passengers.
Beautiful. But with negative externalities for everyone stuck behind the taxi and also for general road safety as people (admittedly, me included) get frustrated and try to sneak around the taxi.
In the UK when the local bus transport market was liberalized, Stagecoach used to park around the corner from a bus stop and wait for a rival company. They would then get there just before and take all the passengers! (In addition, they charged less and paid drivers more, driving other companies out of business and gaining a local monopoly.)
0 comments:
Post a Comment