Core thesis
As services account for more economic activity, locally delivered service prices can reveal differences in urban cost structures that broad inflation or PPP measures often flatten.
Why it matters
What the reader should carry forward.
- The index provides a repeatable lens on the service economy, where prices are shaped by local labor, regulation, energy, and operating costs.
- Starting fares are easy to understand, observable, and close to daily economic reality.
- The affordability layer translates the same local ride access point into minutes of work where wage data is auditable.
- Explicit non-core classifications prevent mixed tariff regimes from becoming false precision.
Inversion
Where the argument can fail.
- Taxi tariff rules are not uniform across cities, especially when fare bands, maximums, minimums, or operator-set schedules are used.
- FX snapshots can move after publication, so nominal USD comparisons should be read as a frozen release view.
- Work-time affordability is currently audited for seven cities and should not be read as a complete global ranking.
Update log
Recent changes connected to this report.
Taxi Index v1.2 replaces the public Taxi Index release
Updated the public Taxi Index PDF, publication metadata, and Taxi Affordability page to the v1.2 Lisbon transition note while preserving the 1 September data snapshot.
Web-native report pages published
Added readable companion pages for the Taxi Index, Financial Resilience paper, PAR Manual, and Circle PAR.
Taxi Index explorer launched
Turned the 34-city Taxi Index universe into a filterable table with core ranks, non-core reasons, source authorities, and audited affordability coverage.
Taxi Index 2026 Pilot Edition published
Released the first public Taxi Index snapshot with 34 researched cities, 22 comparable core markets, and seven audited affordability observations.