Rotary dial telephone
The arrival of taxi apps such as Uber and ViaVan has changed ordering taxis forever, at least in the big cities. Today's students look back with a rotary-dial-telephone feeling at a time that is not even ten years behind us. A time when, after a night out, you simply walked to the first taxi at the rank on the Dam or the Leidseplein, when rides could be too short, when you never knew the price of a ride in advance and when you could often only pay cash. In return, though, you were usually sitting in a Mercedes rather than a Prius. Yes, there was that.
Traditional market
The taxi market has always been rather traditional, and Amsterdam was no exception. Taxi licences were simply sold between drivers, and because nobody could get in between until the end of the 1990s, the market kept itself going. The downside was that a lack of competition could lead to higher prices and poor service. Whether that was also the case in Amsterdam is for the passengers of the time to judge.
War in Taxiland
A situation with just one taxi operator per city is something you really cannot imagine any more. But you can probably imagine that sparks will fly when a monopoly of more than 50 years comes to an end. In 1998 Taxidirekt started up in Amsterdam to take on the former monopolist TCA. The latter did not just let that happen, and a taxi war broke out in which violence was not shunned. Vandalised cars, the occupation of an office building and various threats back and forth were the order of the day for a long time.
Uber
The arrival of Uber in the capital in December 2012 put a definitive end to the traditional taxi market. Taxis come to pick you up on demand and the app shows you straight away what you will have to pay. Just like the revolution of 1998, this introduction certainly did not go without a struggle. Uber's head office on the Vijzelstraat was regularly besieged. In 2015 the row was complete when Uber introduced a new service: UberPOP. With it, literally anyone could play at being a taxi, without having the right papers. That service was quickly withdrawn from the market.
