This week, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency unveiled the latest statistics on cab use in the city. In short, If you're a cab driver, it's bad news. Between March 2012 and July 2014 the average amount of monthly cab rides declined from 1,424 a month to 504.
What happened? The short answer is the obvious one: Uber and Lyft are growing. The start-ups have put a serious dent in the taxi industry, and San Francisco is pinning it as the major factor in the decline. But it's difficult to say what else might be happening; the companies don't share their data publicly, and so it's hard to directly correlate cab rides with Uber rides. Regardless, the taxi industry in the city is now providing incentives to drivers to keep them from jumping ship. They'll be temporarily waiving some regulatory fees and reviewing other regulations.