Smartphone-Apps and web-based tools improve the transparency of taxi rides with regard to prices and routing. These technical innovations reduce asymmetric information. Hence, obligatory knowledge tests of streets and important places are no longer necessary. However, the provision of taxis may yield a waiting externality. Empirically the regulator takes the costs, structures into account and, therefore, acts for the purpose of public interests. Nonetheless, the population variable seems questionable. The reasons for the puzzling results might refer to different perceptions with regard to waiting time in sparsely populated areas.