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Federal Association of Passenger Transport (BVBP) - The New Platform Association?
The Nuremberg-based entrepreneur Miran Ali has founded the "Bundesverband der Personenbeförderung" (BVPB). According to his own statements, the new association is intended to represent the interests of modern mobility providers and to fundamentally reform the passenger transport law. From the perspective of many taxi operators, however, that sounds less like modernization and more like a frontal assault on the existing taxi system.
From the association's website: "The BVPB wants to bring this debate to the point: It's not about a conflict between taxi and rental car. It's about the question of how Germany enables affordable, available and modern mobility."
Affordable, available and modern mobility may be a lofty goal of the association. However, adopting the platform operators Uber & Co.'s arguments verbatim should be viewed skeptically.
From parcel logistics provider to passenger logistics provider
Ali is not a classic industry representative. His Mars Holding GmbH originally comes from parcel logistics and has been working for years as an Amazon partner. According to his own statements, the company handles around three million shipments per month. At the same time, the firm has massively expanded into the field of passenger transport in recent years. Already at the beginning of 2024, Nürnberger Nachrichten reported about Ali's plans to massively enter the ride-service market with platform providers such as Bolt. At that time, according to the report, around 30 vehicles were already in operation; in the long term Ali spoke of up to 300 vehicles. His drivers sometimes worked in parallel for Amazon and for platform intermediaries in passenger transport.
Meanwhile the company has grown considerably. According to the company’s own statements, Mars Holding employs more than 1,000 employees. Monthly, via the Bolt platform, around 50,000 to 60,000 passengers are transported. In addition, there are non-emergency medical transports and traditional taxi holdings. In an interview with WirtschaftsWoche, Ali also explained that they had already acquired several taxi companies and were being offered “almost daily” further acquisitions for purchase.
Aus dem Interview mit der WirtschaftsWoche mit Miran Ali: „Sind die Preise flexibel, habe ich den Ansporn, die Fahrten möglichst effizient abzuwickeln, um sie möglichst günstig anbieten zu können. Das macht die Nutzung für viele Kunden erschwinglich, die sich heute kein Taxi leisten können, es vergrößert also den Markt. Das wäre im Sinne der Kunden und der Unternehmen. Stattdessen sorgen die festgelegten, hohen Taxipreise dafür, dass es weniger Kunden gibt. Das erhöht den Druck auf die traditionellen Taxis und führt dazu, dass viele an der Steuer vorbei ihr Geschäft machen…Sie geben viele Umsätze nicht an. Wenn ich die Taxiunternehmen ansehe, die mir zum Kauf angeboten werden, sehe ich oft Umsätze, die so gering sind, dass sie nicht stimmen können. Diese schwarzen Schafe schaden allen und müssen aus dem Markt verschwinden.“
Es ist bemerkenswert, wie Ali die Realität verkennt. Es mag sicherlich auch im Taxi-Gewerbe „schwarze Schafe” geben. Dass die Plattformökonomie jedoch größtenteils auf der Ausbeutung der Fahrer, dem Sozialdumping und der Ausnutzung der Allgemeinheit basiert – quasi eine ganze schwarze Schafherde ist –, übersieht Ali hier.
Counterproposal to BVTM, TMV and Co.
That is precisely where the anxiety of many taxi operators begins. For the new association explicitly does not see itself as an addition to the existing industry associations, but as a counterproposal. Ali describes the traditional taxi associations as representatives “of a taxi world from the sixties.” These are based on “completely outdated laws and regulations.” At the center of his criticism is above all the return-to-base requirement for rental cars. It obliges rental car companies to return to their operating base after every assignment, if there is no new assignment. For the taxi industry, this rule remains to this day the central distinction between taxi and rental car traffic.
Ali, on the other hand, describes the regulation as bureaucratic madness. In Berlin alone, this would generate daily “around 200,000 kilometers of unnecessary empty trips.” The costs for this would be “in the six-figure range.” Therefore, the BVPB wants to push for a fundamental reform of the Passenger Transport Act.
Drive like a taxi – but without obligations?
Exactly this demand is likely to further sharpen the conflicts with the taxi associations. For the return-to-base requirement is not an administrative detail, but one of the last remaining protective instruments against a fully deregulated market. Without it, rental cars would effectively operate like taxis – but without tariff binding, a transport obligation, or an operating obligation.
Ali also takes positions on taxi tariffs that are likely to meet massive resistance in the trade. He fundamentally rejects the taxi tariffs set by municipalities. “Nothing at all,” he replied in WirtschaftsWoche to the question of what he thought of fixed taxi prices. Prices would have to be flexibly adjustable to offer rides as cheaply as possible.
Against fair competition
For many taxi operators, this is precisely the core of the problem. Because platform providers work with dynamic prices that are algorithmically oriented to demand and supply. In off-peak times, trips can thus be significantly cheaper than taxi rides, while in high demand they can even rise above taxi fare levels. From the taxi industry's perspective, this creates a competition that is structurally hardly fair to conduct. Taxi companies must be available around the clock, adhere to fixed tariffs, and fulfill statutory transportation obligations. Platform-mediated rental cars can, by contrast, operate more flexibly and focus on economically attractive times and regions.
In addition, there is another point that is considered particularly critical in the trade: the increasing market concentration. Companies like the Mars Holding are increasingly growing into a market characterized by industrial structures, into a market that has traditionally been shaped by small and medium-sized businesses. Many taxi operators fear that passenger transport will increasingly shift from locally rooted businesses to centrally controlled fleet models.
Ali buys up taxi companies
What is remarkable is that Ali at the same time takes over taxi companies himself. Thus the boundaries between the traditional taxi trade and the platform economy are increasingly blurring. The new association explicitly aims to represent both taxi and rental-car companies. But there are significant doubts about that in the industry. Many taxi operators see the BVPB primarily as a political representation of large platform fleets. That Ali stated that they were "not welcome" in existing taxi associations because of our large Bolt business is likely to amplify this skepticism.
Platform operators seek to extend their influence even further
Indeed, the founding of the association comes at a politically sensitive moment. The Passenger Transport Act is currently being evaluated. By August 2026, the government's evaluation report is due. Platform providers and large rental-car companies are therefore clearly trying to expand their influence on the political debate.
From the interview with WirtschaftsWoche with Miran Ali: "There is now a chance to adapt the law to the real situation. Time is indeed running short. While in other countries driverless vehicles are already a normal feature in the street scene and the business is being scaled up, we are dealing with the question of the return-to-base obligation for rental cars or what color taxis may be allowed to have."
The BVPB sees itself as the voice of a digitized mobility economy. Ali argues that Germany is still debating return-to-base obligations and vehicle colors, while robotaxis are already on the roads in other countries. For many taxi operators, however, that sounds like a familiar pattern: deregulation in the name of innovation—coupled with an attempt to dismantle protection mechanisms that have developed in the trade over decades.
Thus the real debate in the mobility industry centers on the fundamental question of how passenger transport should be organized in the future: as a regulated public mobility service that also operates at off-peak times, at night, and in rural areas. Or as a largely liberalized platform market under the motto "We free everything – the market will decide, the financially strongest will prevail."
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