All over the world, despite the many taxis in circulation, many people still find it difficult to get a taxi, in particular during peak hours, and the cost is still too high most of the time. One reason for the persistence of this problem could be inefficient utilization of taxi capacities and a possible solution could be taxi-sharing, that is an innovative and improved way of using taxis. Taxi-sharing is introduced in an attempt to decrease congestion during peak hours or during particular events and to promote certain bars and leisure activities downtown. The main advantages are: efficiency and safety, complementarity with public transport, reduced waiting time and costs for users, increased income per ride for taxi drivers, reduction of congestion downtown and reduction of polluting emissions. Nevertheless, there are still many barriers to the spread of taxi-sharing services: uncertainty of fare, high costs (due to the fact that sharing is not guaranteed), interaction between taxi drivers’ technological platforms and sharing platforms, reservation costs. At the moment, most available apps are not able to share rides in real-time, but require reservations 24-48 hours before travelling. Moreover in many of the case studies the service is available only on fixed routes. Wetaxi fosters the use of taxis by making it possible to share the ride, thereby making fares more competitive (reduced cost per passenger) and the service more transparent (quote showed before the beginning of the trip).
In Turin (a city in the north-west of Italy) alone, there are more than 6 million daily transfers, 10.000 of which are made by taxi, corresponding to a market of 140 million euros per year. In the rest of Italy, the available market is 4 billion euros and in Europe it goes up to 40 billion euros, more or less 50% of the market worldwide. It is evident that the taxi market available globally is huge and could, potentially, grow: global taxi usage can be estimated at roughly 100 billion euros per year.
