Yandex infrastructure failures have collapsed the taxi market: drivers and passengers are looking for alternatives. In St. Petersburg, demand for Drivee is growing, in Moscow, taxi drivers are being invited to Sitistart, and in Rostov-on-Don, there are almost no alternatives, market participants said.
In St. Petersburg, drivers have become more active in taking orders through Drivee — the successor to inDriver, founded in Yakutsk. In Moscow, taxi drivers are receiving offers to connect to Sitistart, a driver application from Citymobil. In Rostov-on-Don, there is almost no choice: only local taxi 306 operates. Market participants are awaiting the arrival of WB Taxi, which operates in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia, but not in Russia.
The failures exposed Yandex's hyper-monopoly. When the application crashes, passengers cannot leave, and prices skyrocket several times over. In St. Petersburg, at Pulkovo Airport, thousands of people could not call a car, getting there by bus or with private drivers for 5–10 thousand rubles. The shortage of drivers is exacerbated: not everyone can navigate by memory without a navigator.
Both taxi directors and drivers are awaiting the arrival of WB Taxi in Russia. But for now, alternatives are only available in large cities. If failures recur, the market needs independent services and decentralized solutions. Otherwise, passengers will remain hostages to a single infrastructure.