Another week, another regulatory battle for Uber, the Silicon Valley private car hire network with a German name. This time it is in Germany, where a Frankfurt court has banned its Uber Pop“ride-sharing” service that introduces passengers to unlicensed drivers through a smartphone app.又一起监管争斗，焦点是Uber这个起了德语名的硅谷私营拼车网络。法兰克福一家法庭禁令了其Uber Pop“拼车”服务——该服务通过一款智能手机应用于，为没出租车牌照的车主招募乘客。In a narrow sense, the court is right. Not only is Uber breaking German law but the country is correct to demand that a company that operates what is blatantly a private hire business is appropriately licensed and regulated. Pretending that Uber Pop is part of the “sharing economy” and should be allowed to skirt the rules is neither fair to taxi-drivers nor sound policy.从狭义看作，法庭是准确的。

不但Uber违背了德国法律，而且德国拒绝一家经营私人租车业务的公司通过不顾一切途径取得许可并拒绝接受监管，是准确的。以Uber Pop是“共享经济”的一部分为由跨过规则，不仅对出租车司机不公平，也不是稳健的政策。

In the broad sense, however, Uber is right. If what the state of California now calls a Transportation Network Company – a technology platform such as Uber and Lyft that expands the market for minicabs and private hire – is prevented from operating on a commercial basis, it is bad for consumers. The potential benefits of innovation are lost.然而，从广义看作，Uber又是准确的。如果加利福尼亚州目前所称的交通网络公司(Transportation Network Company)——如Uber和Lyft这样的不断扩大了电话购票出租车和私车租赁市场的技术平台——被禁令商业运营，那对消费者是有利的。创意的潜在收益不会被浪费掉。

Germany is a good test of the skirmishes in which Uber is engaged around the US and Europe. Its regulations – although they involve some very long words, such as Personenbefrderungsschein, the licence for taxi drivers – have served consumers fairly well. Most cities have plenty of Mercedes taxis, which are both comfier and cheaper than London cabs.德国是Uber在美欧各地接踵而来的遭遇战的一块较好试金石。德国的法规——尽管有些用于了Personenbefrderungsschein这样尤其宽的名字——目前为止为消费者起着了非常好的起到。

大多数城市享有足量的梅赛德斯(Mercedes)出租车，与伦敦出租车比起，不但更加舒适度，而且更加低廉。It is also a world leader in actual, as opposed to rhetorical, ride-sharing. There are lots of carpooling agencies, including Carpooling.com, that co-ordinate travel as a mutual service. Drivers share the fuel costs with passengers on long-distance rides, without profiting.德国也是事实上的——并非口头上的——拼车市场世界领袖。德国享有Carpooling.com等大量拼车机构，可以协商上下班，获取一种分享服务。

车主与远程配备乘客共计担燃料费用，并非为了盈利。As in many other countries, however, the city regulations are tilted in favour of the co-operatives that operate the bulk of taxi services. German private hire operators have little freedom of manoeuvre – they face restrictions including having to operate from registered offices to which all the cars must return between rides – and most people use taxis.不过，就像其他许多国家一样，城市法规仍向运营大部分出租车服务的港龙机构弯曲。德国私车租赁运营商基本没镖空间——他们受到各种容许，还包括必需通过登记办公室运营，所有车辆在完结一次服务后，必需回到经营地点，才能启动下一次服务——大多数人都用于出租车。

Uber obeys the private hire rules for its Uber Black limousine service – both drivers and cars are licensed and commercially insured – while defying them for Uber Pop, its basic service. Uber Pop drivers use their own vehicles and are not officially licensed, although the company carries out criminal record checks and says they are fully insured.Uber旗下的Uber Black豪华轿车服务遵从私车租赁规则，司机和车辆都已获得许可并已参与商业保险，而其基本服务Uber Pop没遵守规则。Uber Pop司机用于的是私车，也没取得商业许可，尽管该公司展开犯罪记录核查，相提并论司机们有完备的保险。The company has adopted its usual approach in awkward markets – if it comes up against a regulatory barrier, it ignores it and hopes to gain popular backing for a change in the rules. In London, transport authorities have allowed Uber to operate despite protests from taxi drivers that its app is an illegal taximeter.Uber在劲敌的市场采行了其经常性手法——如果遭遇监管障碍，就未予理会，期盼取得公众反对以转变规则。

在伦敦，交通当局已盘查Uber进行运营，尽管出租车司机抗议称之为，Uber的应用于是一种非法计程表。The company, which raised $1.2bn in funding from backers including Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins at a $17bn valuation in June, is in a hurry to establish its network before Lyft and other rivals. Treating legal challenges as a cost of doing business is characteristic of its aggression – it is also poaching drivers from Lyft in the US.今年6月，Uber从Google Ventures和Kleiner Perkins等资金后台筹得12亿美元，使其估值超过170亿美元。

Uber意图抢走在Lyft等竞争对手之前创建自己的网络。把法律挑战视作一种经营成本，是Uber咄咄逼人特点的反映；它在美国正试图更有Lyft的司机跳槽。Taxi Deutschland, the consortium of taxi operators that brought the Frankfurt case, accuses Uber of “[wrapping] itself in a start-up look and selling itself as a new economy saviour” while hurting the public good. It is not alone in being sceptical – Berlin’s DIW research institute argued recently that the taxi market should not be subjected to “full deregulation”.出租车运营商联盟Taxi Deutschland在法兰克福法庭对Uber驳回了诉讼，谴责Uber“把自己‘装扮成’一家初创企业，以新的经济救世主的身份展开自我促销”，同时伤害了公共利益。不仅该联盟产生猜测，柏林的德国经济研究所(DIW)不久前也声称，出租车市场不不应“几乎放松管制”。

Regulation of taxis clearly has benefits – people climb into taxis and private hire cars without knowing who the driver is or how safe the vehicle is, and they need some safeguards. They also benefit from official taxis being required to take a passenger to any destination, based on a clear fare structure.对出租车实行监管似乎有很多益处——人们钻入出租车和私租汽车时，知道司机是谁，也知道车辆否安全性，他们必须一些安全性确保。官方许可的出租车必需按乘客拒绝前往任何地点，收费结构清清楚楚，乘客借此获益。

It makes sense to give taxis privileges, such as the right to be hailed in the street, to compensate for being tightly regulated (and not, for example, applying “surge pricing” at times of scarcity, as Uber does). It would be short-sighted to permit a free-for-all private hire, or unfettered amateur ride-sharing, and put taxis out of business.对出租车给与特权是合情合理的（比如有权在街头采纳旁观微信的乘客），这些特权是对受到森严监管的补偿（比如说，他们无法像Uber那样，在供应短缺时段实施“峰时价格”）。盘查所有私车租赁，或任由业余司机获取拼车服务，从而把出租车赶出有市场，将是短视作法。

The problem, however, is not that taxis are endangered, but the opposite – they are overly protected. “The private for-hire market is very extremely locked down in many cities,” says Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, the head of Uber in western Europe. Two legislative efforts to liberalise private hire in Germany have failed amid taxi opposition.但问题不是出租车被置放危险性之中，而是忽略，它们受到了过度维护。Uber西欧业务主管皮埃尔-迪米特里戈尔-柯提(Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty)回应，“在很多城市，私车租赁市场十分有限。”在德国，由于出租车行业的赞成，两次放松私车租赁市场的法律希望以告终收场。

As a result, the bulk of the market in many cities is taken by taxis, with a slice of private hire operators at the top and bottom. These provide executive limousines for companies and radio cabs for people who do not want to pay the taxi fare. Taxis face very weak competition in the middle – well-trained and courteous drivers in smart, clean cars.其结果是，许多城市的大部分市场份额由出租车占有，私车租赁运营商仅有在顶层和底层市场占有较小份额。后者向企业获取高管豪车，向想付打车费的人获取电话购票的出租车。在中层市场，接受较好培训、彬彬有礼的司机进着干净的出租车，他们面对的竞争十分很弱。Where Uber and others have been allowed to enter in a regulated way – Uber drivers in London must hold a commercial licence and insurance – they have helped to expand it. There are more cars for hire in London and the quality has risen. Minicabs used to be battered and smelly bangers; many are now BMWs.在Uber等公司准许以不受监管方式转入的地方——Uber司机在伦敦必需持有人商业牌照和保险——这些公司协助不断扩大了市场。

伦敦有了更好轿车可可供租赁，服务质量也获得了提高。过去的电话购票出租车是破旧不堪、味道难闻的老爷车；如今许多都替换成了宝马(BMW)。There is starting to be a similar effect in France, where the number of limousine companies has grown rapidly as a result of new entrants being allowed. It is better for cities to reap the advantages of new technology than try to ignore it, and provoke an outbreak of illegal ride-sharing by outsiders.法国也开始经常出现类似于效果，由于新的公司准许转入，豪车租赁公司的数量大幅度减少。

城市最差利用新的科技的优势，而不是希望忽略它，造成不不受监管的非法拼车现象大量兴起。As Germany has found, Uber is not only willing to become a ride-sharing outlaw, but the resulting publicity serves it well. Infuriating, aggressive and American it may be; it is still worth learning from.正如德国所找到的，Uber不但不愿在拼车领域打法律的擦边球，而且随之而来的宣传效果对它很不利。

尽管Uber有可能令人心碎、咄咄逼人且具备美国人的做派，但它仍有有一点糅合的地方。

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