Small correction, every ride that starts and/or ends in the zone incurs the fee so a taxi that enters, does 12 trips, then leaves pays the same amount as a private car even though they only entered the zone once.
There's still a per-ride citywide congestion fee baked into each Uber fare. So overall there are still more overall congestion taxes paid by the taxi/uber in your scenario.
It should be cheaper. No circling the block looking for parking, no space needed at all for that matter. That alone is worth giving taxis/ubers at least a different pricing structure.
I don’t know about cheaper - this is already on top of the $2.75 per-ride NY State congestion fee.
So now, if you take an Uber ride in NYC that’s even just a few blocks or few minutes long, it will be $2.75+$1.5 = $4.25 of just congestion fees for every ride.
Fewer cars "in the system" but same (or possibly more) cars on the road actively moving. Take a look at some of the dwell times for ride hail vehicles in NYC. Can easily approach 20-35%.
Plus the apps are kicking drivers out at various quiet periods of the day in order to avoid paying them minimum wage. So true empty time is higher.
Again I'm not arguing for better treatment for personal vehicles. I'm arguing all the fees are too low, and the ride hail fee egregiously so.
I don't know any of the science or research, but it still seems like it could possibly be a benefit. The increase in cars moving seems like it could be more than offset by the reduction in parking requirements. Those people taking private vehicles have to park them somewhere. More taxis means we can use some of that space for something useful instead.
Why should it be cheaper to be chauffeured?
Also your average Taxi may not even cross into the CPZ 12x per day, so unclear we are making it up on volume either.