It’s no longer hip to hail a taxi, but the cab industry continues to play an integral role in the everyday grind of the great Las Vegas casino machine.
Not many years ago, gaming and political officials commonly considered cab drivers something akin to behind-the-wheel greeters. They were often the first interaction tourists arriving at McCarran Airport had with a Las Vegan, and such impressions are lasting.
Those were happier times for the industry, to be sure, years in which its collective political clout was rarely challenged at the local and state levels. With company owners such as Herb Tobman, Milton Schwartz, and many others working the halls of the Legislature personally and cutting important checks come election time, the companies had it good and that collegiality was reflected in the relatively friendly approach of state regulators.
And if several companies downplayed the presence of long-hauling by some drivers while other licensees appeared deaf to customer complaints, the fact is when it came to getting curbside transportation in the resort corridor the cab companies had the game essentially to themselves.
The arrival of Internet-driven ride-sharing outfits Uber and Lyft have rattled the cab industry and dented its bottom line and ridership numbers. And the way the new-age companies maneuvered the legalization issue during the 2015 session of the Legislature, turning around supposed taxi industry allies in the process, must have sent shivers through some cab company owners.
The taxi titans continue to pay the price in a rapidly changing market. In March, total trips were down over the same time the previous year 3.69 percent for the 16 companies charted by the Nevada Taxicab Authority.
That figure tells only a piece of the story. Some longtime industry leaders, were down substantially over 2016. Checker’s ridership was off 9.3 percent, and Vegas-Western was down 8.44 percent. Those are substantial hits.
It’s also important to appreciate the scale of the industry in Las Vegas, where companies logged more than 2.11 million trips in a single month. The ride-sharing freelancers are grabbing ever-larger pieces of the business, and there’s no shortage of discussion in political circles about future road and rail projects, but the reality is that the cab industry remains an essential part of the transportation picture in the tourist corridor.
With flat revenues, the industry saw double-digit ridership decreases in January and February. Through March ridership was down 671,245 trips in 2017 (an 11 percent decrease) with much of that attributable to increased competition.
The bottom line is clear: Cab companies are taking a beating. According to NTA figures, reported revenues have dropped from $97.7 million to $86.8 million for the year to date. That’s an 11.2 percent dive — enough of a pothole to knock the tires off some operators.
So what, you say? That’s capitalism. Times change. One industry rises from the ashes of another.
Sure. But the taxi trade also employs thousands of people. and it adheres to far stricter standards when it come to licensing drivers and inspecting vehicles than the new-generation companies. And that’s a question of fairness that the NTA, the companies, and the Legislature need to consider.
The cab companies may be stuck in the unhip, slow lane as operators work to improve their ability to book rides online — an increasingly popular method favored by more than techie and 20-somethings — appear to be reassessing their business strategies. The industry should be regulated, but fairness is also a factor in an era in which ride-sharing outfits are increasingly popular.
Sooner or later, it’s all bound to land before the NTA, which is funded by the industry it has the challenging duty of monitoring.
Change is never easy, but change is in the air.
John L. Smith is a longtime Las Vegas journalist and author. Contact him at jlnevadasmith@gmail.com. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.
