Socio-spatial embedding of platform mobilities. A study on taxi driving

Platform-mediated taxi services - despite their global, footloose appeal - are embedded in the socio-spatial fabric of cities: Operations depend on existing built infrastructure and are organised around local social circuits and relationships of trust that have evolved over years and decades. At the same time, platform-mediated services seek to evade local regulations and laws. Tracing the disruptions and continuities in Mumbai's taxi sector, the platforms' trajectory of (dis)embedding in urban socio-space is analysed. Thereby, it is observed how Mumbai's established taxi communities respond differently to the emergence of platform-based services and how privileged actors newly enter Mumbai's taxi sector via platforms. With the introduction of platform fleets, operations increasingly benefit entrepreneurs who invest in large vehicle fleets, while drivers are subject to sophisticated measures of surveillance that limit their agency and opportunities to make reasonable gains. It is concluded that mobility platforms in Mumbai build on and reproduce existing social inequalities prevalent in taxi driving. The insights into Mumbai's taxi industry shed light on the continuities and new tendencies of contemporary neoliberalism in Mumbai and the transformation of the dispersed urban service sector.