Car expert clueless about taxis - or why the taxi industry’s return-to-base requirement isn’t yesterday’s news.

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) upheld the regulation anchored in the Passenger Transport Act (PBefG) in early June. Taxis that are brokered through platforms such as Uber must, after a dispatch, generally return to their base of operations, unless a new ride order already exists. For car expert Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management (CAM), this is a step in the wrong direction. In an interview with ntv, he described the return obligation as economically and ecologically questionable. Germany, according to his thesis, is hindering innovative mobility services with the Passenger Transport Act. Bratzel goes even further: If autonomous robotaxis were to be deployed in the future, one would have to ask whether they should also return empty to the base of operations after every trip.

Between innovation and order

Questioning an existing regulation is, in principle, legitimate. Brazzels' justification for why the return obligation must be abolished, however, falls far short. The discussion is conducted as if on one side there were innovative platform companies and on the other side a business that clings to traditional structures. The reality is more complicated. The ruling from Karlsruhe is not about innovation. It is about competition and the question of whether different rules may apply to different market participants.

The concrete case over which the BGH had to decide appeared at first glance unremarkable. A rental car mediated via Uber X had, after a passenger alighted at Cologne Central Station, not driven to its operating base, but remained on site. A new order was accepted and subsequently canceled again. A Cologne taxi cooperative saw in this a violation of the return obligation — and prevailed in all instances.

The Karlsruhe judges made it clear why. Whoever operates as a rental-car company can freely set prices, is not subject to any tariff obligation and does not have to fulfill any passenger-transport obligation. In return, they must not keep themselves on standby in public space like a taxi. It is precisely this delimitation that the return obligation is meant to guarantee.

Public service provision vs. 'cherry-picking'

The taxi industry has been pointing to this connection for years. Taxis are part of municipal public service provision. They must also take on trips that are economically unattractive. They operate at night, on holidays, or in rural regions where demand and yield often do not align. At the same time, fixed tariffs apply that are approved by the municipalities.

If the return-to-base obligation were scrapped without replacement, platform providers could take over the most lucrative trips without having to bear the same obligations. For many taxi operators, that would not be a question of digitalization, but of competitive neutrality.

Nevertheless, a closer look at Bratzel's argument is worthwhile. In fact, every empty trip generates traffic. In reality, many rental cars owned by the platform operators currently circumvent the return-to-base obligation to their base of operations and circle through the city's lucrative districts at peak times until they receive a dispatch—or generate one (illegally) on the roadside. The kilometers travelled on these empty trips, however, do not appear in any statistics.