Jens Wohltorf, founder of the limousine service, Blacklane, shares his views on why Europe’s regulators don’t understand what it means to play fair

‘Cowboys’, ‘unregulated’, ‘unfair’ were some of the milder words used to describe travel tech startups like Uber, Blacklane and Hailo as the taxi wars raged across Europe this year. Europeans have woken up to a new era of travel choice and the fight back from taxi lobbies has been belligerent.

Still, we’ve certainly come a long way since 2012 when the head of the German Taxi Association responded to the threat posed by Blacklane’s limousine services app by telling the German magazine Der Spiegel: “Limousines don’t compete with us. They service a customer sector which is extremely small for taxis. What they’re doing up there doesn’t harm us.”

Now I’m hearing everything from ‘Blacklane is illegal’ to ‘Blacklane are a bunch of cowboys who are destroying the market’. To say that’s a change of tune would be an understatement.

Sure, there has been a lot of resentment from established industry players, but let’s get a few things straight on the legal front. At Blacklane, before even writing one line of code, we did a thorough assessment of relevant law — come on, we’re German, we play by the rules (efficiently, of course!).

There wasn’t one single legal dispute about the business model when we set up. The thinking was simple: compliance with relevant laws from day one will put us on the right path to sustainable innovation.

When Blacklane introduced the ‘smart class’ in Berlin, made up of Mercedes smart cars, we successfully challenged a 30-year-old law in Germany which stated that taxis and limousines must have two doors on the right-hand side so that passengers can easily exit the car even from a back seat. The ‘smart class’ only had one door; but also no back seats. We convinced the Berlin authorities that the security precautions behind this law simply didn’t apply to smart cars, and subsequently obtained a special permit to operate our new class of vehicle.

This episode demonstrated that innovation and transport law can go hand in hand – it’s up to the founders and innovators to give it their all to change the status quo. The issue in Europe is that if anything smells of competition, it’s instantly attacked by a vocal minority. Whether it’s illegal or legal doesn’t make a difference for some of the incumbents bent on keeping things as they are.

Fair competition involves striking a balance between breaking up protectionist structures and maintaining the rights and safety of the consumer

Jens Wohltorf, Founder, Blacklane

The taxis demand fair competition. So do Blacklane, Uber, GetTaxi and other transport apps. The question is: what is fair competition?

Fair competition involves striking a balance between breaking up protectionist structures and maintaining the rights and safety of the consumer. There are a few examples of protectionism that is threatening further progress in transport innovation.

For example, it seems bizarre and archaic that after one booked ride, limousines have to go back to the base garage empty instead of going to the next job nearby. From an environmental perspective, it makes no sense.

Also, limousines and other taxis are not allowed to use bus lanes or the lanes reserved for taxis at airports that take customers to arrival and departure points. However, the majority of Blacklane customers, for example, use the service to travel from and to airports. It’s baffling how the law has not caught up to reflect this yet.

Lastly, it simply doesn’t make sense that Blacklane and other transport app customers should pay 12% more tax than taxi customers for rides in Germany.

We are determined to repair and revive the market and are making headway already. For example, the German taxi association has already launched a course on premium taxis in response to the success Blacklane has seen in Germany already.

The new era of transport choice is being impeded by heavy-handed protectionism to the detriment of the consumer. Options for getting from A to B are diversifying at pace with a broad variety of apps for taxis, chauffeured transportation, car-sharing, long-distance coaches and trains.

Each sub-segment is developing its own market and the success of one doesn’t preclude the success of another. As an industry, we should focus on breaking down protectionist barriers, protecting consumers and standing together for fair competition.

Guest contributor, Jens Wohltorf is the founder of the limousine service Blacklane. His views are his own