ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to understand forms of institutional experimentation in the passenger transport industry (taxis) when the long-established state-regulated business model is threatened by digital incursions heralded by the ‘ridesharing’ company, Uber. It explores how, through experimentation, the state and collective actors endeavoured to structure the taxi industry in Montreal, and why this institutional architecture was weakened with Uber's arrival. The conceptual framework developed in this chapter allows the authors to develop an analysis that foregrounds the ways that various actors can play when set institutional arrangements are dismantled. They present a case showing how such institutional transformations take place over time. Their aim is to understand how the various actors and interest groups organised themselves around these change processes. To this end, regulatory experimentation was used as a strategic tool in the hands of these actors, with the state and Uber at the forefront. Institutional transition was then forced and processes of mitigating radical change were put in place.
