'Taxi wars' is also current in Finland. Few young entrepreneurs tried to enter the market with moped-car taxis. Those teens were immediately choked out of existence with heavy handed bureaucracy. We've also had Maxi Taxis (a more serious venture), which entered the streets of Helsinki unannounced. They were trying to exploit a loophole (minivans registered as trucks) in the legislation. Besides heavy lobbying against them, they were constantly harassed and even physically blocked by taxis and their drivers (very radical approach in regards to current Finnish society). Maxi Taxis folded quickly as the legal loophole was closed in record time.

Our taxi licenses are cheap, but supply is artificially restricted. The Ministry of Interior decides how many taxis can operate in each town. Taxi licenses cost about 300 euros; processing expenses. Toughest prerequisite is a short (few weeks, cost less than 1k euros) taxi-entrepreneur course.

The Ministry of Interior resorts to micromanagement. They set the maximum number of licenses for each and every town based on estimated need (which is quite sensitive to lobbying). For example the current maximum number of licenses in Helsinki is 1386 (for a population of 590k). In 2008 100 new Helsinki-licenses were issued, and just as anamax commented above: It was protested with an argument "Cabbies don't make a "living wage" as it is". This number was reduced by 51 in 2010.

There are queues, but they are generally not very long (in Helsinki you might need to wait for 10 years, but many smaller towns have free spots which you can claim without delay). You can drive a taxi as a hired man as the license is vehicle-, not person-specific. Hired man gets paid about 30-40% of the turnover of his rides.

Both the number of licenses and fare rates are national monopolies. A ride of similar length costs the same in Helsinki as it does everywhere else. Rates are set by the Ministry of Interior.

No price competition and artificially restricted entry to market. Friction with modern society: heavy. Taxi monopoly might not be the first to fall, since we still have, e.g. state monopolies on gambling and liquor. Of these, the former could end soon thanks to the EU.