Ride-hailing platforms drive shake-up of Poland's taxi market - report
Nearly 1,200 taxi firms were removed from Poland's business register in the first half of the year as ride-hailing platforms such as Uber and Bolt continue to gain ground at the expense of traditional taxi firms, the daily Rzeczpospolita reported on Friday.
The vast majority of the companies removed from the register were sole proprietorships, although entire taxi corporations also disappeared from the market by either closing down or being taken over by digital platforms linking passengers with drivers, the newspaper wrote.
According to official figures cited by Rzeczpospolita, around 7,000 taxi companies, or approximately 13 percent of the sector, have disappeared since 2019, as traditional self-employed drivers working for taxi corporations have increasingly been replaced by ride-hailing platforms such as Uber, Bolt and FreeNow.
The newspaper added that the biggest beneficiaries of the transformation are intermediary companies supplying drivers to the major platforms. Firms such as Natviol, Fobest, Avalon and Eternis have become key players in the market by employing drivers under the so-called gig economy model based on flexible working hours and short-term contracts. (PAP)
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