Reading Matthew Yglesias’s recent piece in Slate on ride sharing made me think of Queensland’s own highly regulated transport system and the issues we have with poor service from taxis despite large amounts of regulation (see Taxi refusals just not fare). While the previous Government held a review of the taxi industry (as discussed in this previous post of mine), it obviously didn’t amount to much.

Hence there is a need for the Government’s new Office of Best Practice Regulation (the Queensland Government’s mini-Productivity Commission) to review regulations affecting the industry, particularly those that might inhibit the adoption of new approaches that use the web to connect passengers with regular drivers. What we really need in Queensland is something like the muscular Fels review that was held in Victoria (discussed in this AFR editorial), even though it probably didn’t go far enough in my opinion.