NEW YORK, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Sharing economy and relevant platforms should come under regulation in order to function well, said an expert on transport and justice.

"It's really a matter of regulation and daring to regulate, and understanding that a good, well-functioning market is, in the end, a well regulated market," said Karel Martens, professor of urban and regional planning at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion).

Speaking in a recent interview with Xinhua, Martens said the bike sharing or scooter sharing is quite okay generally as it provides opportunities for people to move around the city in a friendly way, but ride-hailing operators such as Uber and vacation rental online marketplaces such as Airbnb could be highly problematic.

If Airbnb is not regulated, basically tourists are taking over buildings through investors and taking them from local residents who want to live in a building, but they pay less per week or per day, said Martens.

"If you don't regulate it well, the nice idea of Airbnb, you share your apartment when you're away, will actually be a commercial business. You buy a building and you rent it out. And so we turn a place into a tourist place. We push out local residents. So that's the Airbnb problem. You can regulate it, and then the problem can be solved. And we can actually have the benefits of Airbnb outweigh the drawbacks," Martens said.

Martens said ride-hailing operators are much more problematic because it's much more difficult to regulate them.

"Israel didn't allow Uber or Lyft to enter the markets. So the regular taxes are functioning," said Martens.

"You do have the platform economy also there because you have an intermediate layer between the taxi business and the customer through an APP. And so these Apps are also kind of taking the profits in an easy way," said Martens. But it's less problematic because at least the taxi market is regulated, added Martens.

Start-up companies in the sharing economy should adopt social responsibility rules and ethical codes and some venture capitalists should maybe also have ethical codes like bankers, according to Martens.

The business of sharing bikes and scooters is here to stay as more and more cities are investing in sustainable mobility and are building bicycle lanes, said Martens.

Still, the business of sharing bikes and scooters will have a relatively niche market and it's not sure much profits can be made from it, according to Martens.

The concept of co-working space provider WeWork will work and maybe there is a need for small WeWork facilities in the neighborhood as people work much more from home in the pandemic, according to Martens.

Sharing economy is actually a great idea if profits are flowing back to the workers, users and broader community, rather than all the money going to the shareholders or venture capitalists, Martens noted. Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)