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Another week, another regulatory battle for Uber, the Silicon Valley private car hire network with a German name. This time it is in Germany, where a Frankfurt court has banned its Uber Pop“ride-sharing” service that introduces passengers to unlicensed drivers through a smartphone app.
又一起监管争斗，焦点是Uber这个起了德语名的硅谷私营拼车网络。法兰克福一家法庭禁止了其Uber Pop“拼车”服务——该服务通过一款智能手机应用，为没有出租车牌照的车主招揽乘客。
In a narrow sense, the court is right. Not only is Uber breaking German law but the country is correct to demand that a company that operates what is blatantly a private hire business is appropriately licensed and regulated. Pretending that Uber Pop is part of the “sharing economy” and should be allowed to skirt the rules is neither fair to taxi-drivers nor sound policy.
从狭义角度看，法庭是正确的。不但Uber违反了德国法律，而且德国要求一家经营私人租车业务的公司通过正当途径获得执照并接受监管，是正确的。以Uber Pop是“分享经济”的一部分为由绕过规则，不仅对出租车司机不公平，也不是稳妥的政策。
In the broad sense, however, Uber is right. If what the state of California now calls a Transportation Network Company – a technology platform such as Uber and Lyft that expands the market for minicabs and private hire – is prevented from operating on a commercial basis, it is bad for consumers. The potential benefits of innovation are lost.
然而，从广义角度看，Uber又是正确的。如果加利福尼亚州目前所称的交通网络公司(Transportation Network Company)——如Uber和Lyft这样的扩大了电话预约出租车和私车出租市场的技术平台——被禁止商业运营，那对消费者是不利的。创新的潜在收益会被浪费掉。
Germany is a good test of the skirmishes in which Uber is engaged around the US and Europe. Its regulations – although they involve some very long words, such as Personenbeförderungsschein, the licence for taxi drivers – have served consumers fairly well. Most cities have plenty of Mercedes taxis, which are both comfier and cheaper than London cabs.
德国是Uber在美欧各地卷入的遭遇战的一块良好试金石。德国的法规——尽管有些使用了Personenbeförderungsschein这样特别长的名字——迄今为消费者起到了相当好的作用。大多数城市拥有足量的梅赛德斯(Mercedes)出租车，与伦敦出租车相比，不但更舒适，而且更便宜。
It is also a world leader in actual, as opposed to rhetorical, ride-sharing. There are lots of carpooling agencies, including Carpooling.com, that co-ordinate travel as a mutual service. Drivers share the fuel costs with passengers on long-distance rides, without profiting.
德国也是事实上的——并非口头上的——拼车市场世界领袖。德国拥有Carpooling.com等大量拼车机构，可以协调出行，提供一种共享服务。车主与远程搭载乘客共担燃料费用，并非为了盈利。
As in many other countries, however, the city regulations are tilted in favour of the co-operatives that operate the bulk of taxi services. German private hire operators have little freedom of manoeuvre – they face restrictions including having to operate from registered offices to which all the cars must return between rides – and most people use taxis.
不过，就像其他许多国家一样，城市法规仍向运营大部分出租车服务的联营机构倾斜。德国私车出租运营商基本没有回旋空间——他们受到各种限制，包括必须通过注册办公室运营，所有车辆在结束一次服务后，必须返回经营地点，才能启动下一次服务——大多数人都使用出租车。
Uber obeys the private hire rules for its Uber Black limousine service – both drivers and cars are licensed and commercially insured – while defying them for Uber Pop, its basic service. Uber Pop drivers use their own vehicles and are not officially licensed, although the company carries out criminal record checks and says they are fully insured.
Uber旗下的Uber Black豪华轿车服务遵守私车出租规则，司机和车辆都已取得执照并已参加商业保险，而其基本服务Uber Pop没有遵守规则。Uber Pop司机使用的是私车，也没有获得商业执照，尽管该公司进行犯罪记录核查，并称司机们有完善的保险。
The company has adopted its usual approach in awkward markets – if it comes up against a regulatory barrier, it ignores it and hopes to gain popular backing for a change in the rules. In London, transport authorities have allowed Uber to operate despite protests from taxi drivers that its app is an illegal taximeter.
Uber在难缠的市场采取了其惯常手法——如果遭遇监管障碍，就不予理会，寄望获得公众支持以改变规则。在伦敦，交通当局已放行Uber展开运营，尽管出租车司机抗议称，Uber的应用是一种非法计程表。
The company, which raised $1.2bn in funding from backers including Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins at a $17bn valuation in June, is in a hurry to establish its network before Lyft and other rivals. Treating legal challenges as a cost of doing business is characteristic of its aggression – it is also poaching drivers from Lyft in the US.
今年6月，Uber从Google Ventures和Kleiner Perkins等资金后台筹得12亿美元，使其估值达到170亿美元。Uber急于抢在Lyft等竞争对手之前建立自己的网络。把法律挑战视为一种经营成本，是Uber咄咄逼人特点的体现；它在美国正试图吸引Lyft的司机跳槽。
Taxi Deutschland, the consortium of taxi operators that brought the Frankfurt case, accuses Uber of “[wrapping] itself in a start-up look and selling itself as a new economy saviour” while hurting the public good. It is not alone in being sceptical – Berlin’s DIW research institute argued recently that the taxi market should not be subjected to “full deregulation”.
出租车运营商联盟Taxi Deutschland在法兰克福法庭对Uber提起了诉讼，指责Uber“把自己‘装扮成’一家初创企业，以新经济救世主的身份进行自我推销”，同时损害了公共利益。不仅该联盟产生怀疑，柏林的德国经济研究所(DIW)不久前也声称，出租车市场不应“完全放开管制”。
Regulation of taxis clearly has benefits – people climb into taxis and private hire cars without knowing who the driver is or how safe the vehicle is, and they need some safeguards. They also benefit from official taxis being required to take a passenger to any destination, based on a clear fare structure.
对出租车实施监管显然有很多好处——人们钻进出租车和私租汽车时，不知司机是谁，也不知车辆是否安全，他们需要一些安全保障。官方许可的出租车必须按乘客要求前往任何地点，收费结构清清楚楚，乘客从中受益。
It makes sense to give taxis privileges, such as the right to be hailed in the street, to compensate for being tightly regulated (and not, for example, applying “surge pricing” at times of scarcity, as Uber does). It would be short-sighted to permit a free-for-all private hire, or unfettered amateur ride-sharing, and put taxis out of business.
对出租车给予特权是合情合理的（比如有权在街头接纳招手打车的乘客），这些特权是对受到严密监管的补偿（比如说，他们不能像Uber那样，在供应紧缺时段实行“峰时价格”）。放行所有私车出租，或任由业余司机提供拼车服务，从而把出租车赶出市场，将是短视做法。
The problem, however, is not that taxis are endangered, but the opposite – they are overly protected. “The private for-hire market is very extremely locked down in many cities,” says Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, the head of Uber in western Europe. Two legislative efforts to liberalise private hire in Germany have failed amid taxi opposition.
但问题不是出租车被置于危险之中，而是相反，它们受到了过度保护。Uber西欧业务主管皮埃尔-迪米特里•戈尔-柯提(Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty)表示，“在很多城市，私车出租市场非常受限。”在德国，由于出租车行业的反对，两次放开私车出租市场的立法努力以失败告终。
As a result, the bulk of the market in many cities is taken by taxis, with a slice of private hire operators at the top and bottom. These provide executive limousines for companies and radio cabs for people who do not want to pay the taxi fare. Taxis face very weak competition in the middle – well-trained and courteous drivers in smart, clean cars.
其结果是，许多城市的大部分市场份额由出租车占据，私车出租运营商仅在顶层和底层市场占据很小份额。后者向企业提供高管豪车，向不想付打车费的人提供电话预约的出租车。在中层市场，受过良好培训、彬彬有礼的司机开着整洁的出租车，他们面临的竞争非常弱。
Where Uber and others have been allowed to enter in a regulated way – Uber drivers in London must hold a commercial licence and insurance – they have helped to expand it. There are more cars for hire in London and the quality has risen. Minicabs used to be battered and smelly bangers; many are now BMWs.
在Uber等公司获准以受监管方式进入的地方——Uber司机在伦敦必须持有商业牌照和保险——这些公司帮助扩大了市场。伦敦有了更多轿车可供出租，服务质量也得到了提升。过去的电话预约出租车是破旧不堪、味道难闻的老爷车；如今许多都换成了宝马(BMW)。
There is starting to be a similar effect in France, where the number of limousine companies has grown rapidly as a result of new entrants being allowed. It is better for cities to reap the advantages of new technology than try to ignore it, and provoke an outbreak of illegal ride-sharing by outsiders.
法国也开始出现类似效果，由于新公司获准进入，豪车出租公司的数量大幅增加。城市最好利用新科技的优势，而不是努力忽视它，导致不受监管的非法拼车现象大量涌现。
As Germany has found, Uber is not only willing to become a ride-sharing outlaw, but the resulting publicity serves it well. Infuriating, aggressive and American it may be; it is still worth learning from.
正如德国所发现的，Uber不但愿意在拼车领域打法律的擦边球，而且随之而来的宣传效果对它很有利。尽管Uber可能令人抓狂、咄咄逼人且具有美国人的做派，但它仍有值得借鉴的地方。
