Uber avoids car pick-up app restrictions in London | Hacker News Reader

Uber avoids car pick-up app restrictions in London

bbc.co.uk

50 pointschoult51 comments

>The California-based private-hire company had urged its users to oppose suggestions that had included a ban on apps being able to show where their nearby available vehicles were.

>a minimum five-minute delay between pick-up confirmations being sent out and drivers being able to collect their passengers

Whoa, that's not even trying to be subtle. That's just straight up trying to legislate a required level of crapiness.

>Other rejected measures included:

> a minimum five-minute delay between pick-up confirmations being sent out and drivers being able to collect their passengers

> a requirement that private-hire companies let customers pre-book cars up to seven days in advance

Um. Perhaps it would be better if the black cabs focused their efforts on enhancing their own user experience rather than trying to artificially cap it? :)

Also, this article links to nothing regarding the decision, it's just a single (unnamed) author's quick take, which is disappointing - if he/she is going to write so little, could they please provide a link to a first-hand source (the decision itself?) or a more thorough analysis?

I see from this that there are still several (perhaps minor) measures up in the air, and one measure that will be adopted is a "formal English language requirement[1]."

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/20/uber-tfl-consultation-win...

(P.S. first post - did I link properly?)

"Um. Perhaps it would be better if the black cabs focused their efforts on enhancing their own user experience rather than trying to artificially cap it? :)"

That's certainly valid, but on the flip side, shouldn't Uber at least compete on even ground? They basically storm into town, ignoring things like taxi medallions and such. That's why laws like these start to get enforced, so that Uber can't try to sneak past laws by saying "we're not a cab company we're a <something only slightly different>".

Uber is competing on even ground. They've apparently designed a system that falls on the legal side of these medallion market protectionist schemes in most/many/a lot of locations. They're operating in the confines of municipal law.

There's a few taxi and black cab app hailing services that make Uber et. al. moot here in southern Germany. TaxiMagic, for example, is great and provides the full core set of capabilities (favorite drivers, estimated costs, time-to-pickup, in-app payments, etc.) and is actually a network of medallion-holding taxi drivers.

Consider that, if taxi companies offered competitive phone-based reservations (removing the convenience market differentiatior), they'd actually end up being the more reliable provider. No surge pricing, more consistent availability of favorite drivers, more predictable trunk/boot sizes ( no worrying if your luggage will fit when all the taxis in the city are ___ cars). etc.

There's a bunch of these app companies champing at the bit to find taxi providers to partner up. Which is to say... incumbent taxi ecosystems can absolutely be competitive and possibly offer a richer/more lucrative range of services beyond the awkward ride-along you get with an occasional Uber driver.

>Uber is competing on even ground. They've apparently designed a system that falls on the legal side of these medallion market protectionist schemes in most/many/a lot of locations. They're operating in the confines of municipal law.

It seems like that's not true in London, even though it would be trivial to comply. There, (my understanding is) you get to obey fewer regulations if you're offering a pre-booking service, and that exception requires that people be able to make a request for "a car at 3pm".

And IMHO, that's a pretty reasonable requirement; it's not saying customers have to specify a time, and it allows requests of the form "3pm or ASAP". It's also a feature many customers have asked for. But for some reason, Uber has this bizarre insistence on not allowing pre-booking:

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Uber-allow-customers-to-pre...

I find that Quora answer interesting. I get the argument that Uber is building for the future, where cars-as-appliances just hang out and pick you up when you call for them. But if I know I'm going to need a car at a particular time, why wouldn't my Uber of the future want to know that it needs to adjust the random distribution of cars-for-hire, or logistically coordinate more rides to end up near me, for that time?

If Uber knows it needs a car at 3pm, it can push work availability notices to drivers near the pick-up location who may not at the moment be working. It would be a benefit to the driver to be able to have the guaranteed fare, and if the driver is late Uber can just give it to a different driver. Pre-booked cars can be priced differently for the driver or passenger to ensure the opportunities are attractive enough for the slight inconvenience of having to drive a bit more to pick up the passenger. And it's more convenient for the passenger to know a car will be there.

Pricing can still do its surge thing, or they could require a pre-booking fee or something.

I don't see how ^ would require a fundamental reengineering of the system.

(And, as a round-about way, I agree allowing pre-booking would be a reasonable requirement, if it's indeed an existing statue.)

Agree 100%; I made similar points in a reply to that answer:

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Uber-allow-customers-to-pre...

>Consider that, if taxi companies offered competitive phone-based reservations

And instead, they are suing apps like MyTaxi in Germany. [1] The app allowed you to call cabs and pay via the app. But because MyTaxi promoted their app with discounts - even though MyTaxi paid for these - they sued them. Because f*, we don't need any new customers.

And considering they sued Uber as well, it seems like most taxi driver associations just don't want to improve and hope for the best.

Another example: In Berlin, they went to court over a new law forcing them to accept cards and collect a 1.50€ surcharge for it.

And this is even though a 1.50€ surcharge greatly covers their costs. https://sumup.de for example charges 0.95% for the debit cards that are very popular in Germany, so they make a profit for all payments under 158€ which seem very rare. And SumUp is quite expensive already.

They seriously need to improve their product. "Sorry, no app orders", "Sorry, card machine is broken", "Sorry, xyz"

[1] http://news.newsdirectory2.com/daimler-subsidiary-mytaxi-thr...

Why is it Uber's job to allow other companies to keep up with them?

It's just uber's job to comply with all regulation. Insurance, training, safety, etc. Generally those laws are in place for a reason. Claiming they are a "ride sharing" app to avoid commercial transport regulations is disingenuous at best.

Edit: Obviously artificial quality reduction legislation is a bad idea, but uber as a company has been pretty adamant about ignoring all regulation. Even if it is a bad regulation you don't ignore it, you lobby to get it changed.

> Um. Perhaps it would be better if the black cabs focused their efforts on enhancing their own user experience rather than trying to artificially cap it? :)

Bingo. For me personally the user experience starts with the price. The reason I tried Uber in the first place was because a black cab trip was £40 or so, the equivalent Uber was around £22 (with a bonus £10 off with a first travel code). I'm also a sucker for all things fancy and arriving in one of Uber's cars, while not exactly a stretch limo affair, just felt more classy than your bog standard cab. I also love the fact you can just move your slider across the more fancy you want your trip to be when booking.

I'm not familiar with London cabs either so I just assumed they were the same as cabs in my local town - Cash only. There were a couple that advertised they accept credit/debit but then you face the issue of picking a cab in the middle of the rank. Will they allow take the fare? Will the cab driver at the front of the queue throw a fit? Is someone going to get in trouble with a union if I just get in? Far easier to just tap in your destination and have a car turn up knowing you're all paid up and good to go.

On a final note it's probably driver specific rather than service specific but the Uber drivers I encountered didn't say a word after the initial greeting while I was riding until prompted by me. For someone that ends the day craving peace and quiet this was a godsend. I strongly dislike the idle chatter conversations you tend to get in taxis on the way home - just let me chill out and drop me off somewhere I can sleep!

It's quite possible you get all of that (minus the type of car) in a cab, but where do you even go to see that? Uber is branded as almost private cars for the everyday person so you go into it expecting a classy affair. Heck it could be that cabs just need a decent rebranding campaign.

In Sweden they've gone full circle with lobbyists and their friends in left-wing "news".

It's hard to explain to a 50 year old marxist/activist lawyer the value of booking a cab with my watch just to grab my wallet (and card) from the restaurant I forgot them in.

I've mentioned this before. No other company with bigger muscle/wallet here has whipped up an API - that's a litmus test.

Tells me the "Dread Pirate" (or his CTO) was on to something... everything should be a service.

I think that this article explains why that is not so good: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/applo...

"There is a place in this world for the sharing economy, and it could be a beautiful thing, but where I live these companies run the show. There are no rules. The apps are breaking the spirit of the law by abusing the independent contractor loophole and actively encourage (e.g., through dubious car placards) actually breaking the law. But it will only ever be the workers, not the companies, who are punished."

The problem with this companies is that they have traditional workers but they are hired as one man companies. So the workers lose all their rights, all their benefits and all their negotiation power. I work on the tech industry, as probably most of the readers, and I understand how apps works. I don't think that the apps are a problem, but removing the rights of thousands of workers is not a good thing. The article that I linked explains it better than I can here.

If those rights were really so important, why shouldn't independent contractors have them too? If the rights are not important when dealing with an interchangeable service provider like a driving contractor, then Uber is right not to grant them.

Each kind of contract makes sense in different situations. There are already laws that cover this situations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misclassification_of_employees... And there are precedents in the UK for this on Uber: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/11/uber-drive... All this app companies that people work for like employees but are classified as contractors are breaking the law. And I think that, as the abuse is growing, this laws should be revised and improved to cover all the cases.

Yes, it should. That's what my entire comment says.

Each kind of contract is used in different kinds of situations. That doesn't mean it makes sense to be that way. Much of that is antiquated tradition. The kind of thinking that gave rise to Uber in the first place.

I'm surprised a lot of the posts here are missing the key point.

The main argument black cab (taxi) drivers are making is that Transport for London (the regulatory body) forces them to go through a bunch of extra steps before they can work (1) whereas minicabs (e.g. Ubers) are free from this.

That said, it's definitely a good thing these measures did not pass because they simply made minicabs worse rather than trying to improve the situation for taxi drivers whose "it's unfair" argument is a valid one.

Even as someone who is open to new tech, there are nuanced arguments on both sides which are often overlooked.

(1) For example, taxi drivers must do a navigation test learning the vast majority of roads in London ("The Knowledge"); be CRB checked where minicab drivers do not.

You make a good point. I think some of those checks - the CRB for instance, are undoubtedly good things. I wish that the black cabs would move on and require operators to have GPS devices and not rely on "The Knowledge". Impressive as it is, in my experience it results in longer routes and often relies on the passenger knowing where they are going.

The main sticking point though must be the fares though - black cabs are significantly more expensive than Uber, and this is the main reason they are losing business IMO. I would be interested to see a breakdown of why the fares are more. Is it simply more money in the pockets of the drivers? Or does the extra money pay for better vehicles, insurance, training, taxes etc?

I don't know why they cost what they do, but black cab taxi fares are set by TfL and they can't charge any more or less. Here is the breakdown https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares/tarif...

I'd reason that legacy costs would be an issue for black taxi drivers even if they could set their own fares:

All registered taxi drivers have already spent £££ getting "qualified" to be a taxi driver. If they suddenly have the ability to set lower fares to compete with minicabs, they wouldn't be happy to do so given they have already incurred the costs (albeit sunk) of being able to do what they do.

If I were to start planning a solution, I would look at other ways taxi drivers can be given value-adding advantages without harming minicabs or worsening current levels of service for consumers. e.g. Only black taxis (not minicabs) can use bus lanes so anyone wanting a faster journey would be happy to pay a premium for black taxis.

However, I fear this has become too politicised for intelligent consideration of the issues at hand.

It's articles like these that make me wonder how many ridiculous laws there are that are not in the public consciousness. How can this possibly help make our lives better?

Yesterday, I was thinking that having the minimal amount of laws should be a goal, so we (the public) should continually audit down all active laws.

Like removing dead code.

We don't need the "citizens cannot keep goats on Tuesdays" type laws. And then we can graduate to the insidious stuff.

Exactly, and that's the value of Uber: forcing society to periodically re-evaluate its laws. As long as it doesn't cause heavy or permanent damage, we can always enforce the laws, kill their initiative and return to the status quo.

Laws should have a defined lifetime, and at the end of that time be reinstated only if they have greater support than the support that initially instated them.

And being able to wrap totally unrelated things into the bill.

Interesting idea... I don't know if I buy it. But I do love auditing...

How does one define "support"?

A litmus test for telling how corrupt a city/country is, is to look at how much additional regulation they try to use to block companies like Uber. Things like Las Vegas and Miami requiring pre-booking an hour early are prime examples (obviously no public good, only protectionism for taxis).

Las Vegas doesn't require pre-booking an hour early. I was there last week, and used both Uber and Lyft a few times. Cars arrived within minutes.

They did. It's only been a few months since that regulation was dropped.

All the laws regulating taxi-like services were enacted because of abuses before they existed. It's a classic case of "be careful what you ask for."

> All the laws regulating taxi-like services were enacted because of abuses before they existed.

I'm not convinced. What does the hour pre-booking requirement in Miami do to prevent previous abuses? What does the business test that drivers have to pass in Germany do to prevent previous abuses? What does NYC's 30+ day process to get the correct license do to prevent previous abuses? These all seem like laws regulating taxi-like services only for the benefit of making taxis more competitive.

The taxi industry in NYC has given the mayor over $500,000. Presumably they're looking to get laws passed (like the proposed cap on uber) in order to protect themselves, not to prevent abuses that previously existed. Maybe it's helpful to talk about what the previous abuses were, and then look at what are the best solutions to that in a world where everyone has smartphones. I'm not convinced that all (or even most) of the regulations out there are to prevent previous abuses, but maybe I'm missing something here.

>The taxi industry in NYC has given the mayor over $500,000

You say this as if Uber isn't heavily involved in lobbying for their own benefit.

I'll consider Uber to be on a level-playing field when I can be certain that any car I climb into has the proper insurance required for transporting people commercially. Right now it seems like Uber is putting that responsibility on the drivers themselves (which, I suppose, is their right). But I believe that's a huge cost advantage (with associated externalities when someone is hurt badly).

> You say this as if Uber isn't heavily involved in lobbying for their own benefit.

No. I say it to point out that there are laws that aren't for the public good. At that point, we're free to have an open discussion about which laws are for the public good and which aren't. If we start by assuming all laws are enacted to prevent previous abuses, we miss a key point here.

> What does the business test that drivers have to pass in Germany do to prevent previous abuses?

They ask questions like "What insurance do I need?" and "Which taxes do I need to pay?". All those things Uber is good at...

The test was introduced after many small taxi companies failed to do even the most basic accounting. Not every driver needs to pass these tests but the employer. If you claim your drivers are all "independent" contractors, well that's another problem.

Nope, at least in NY they were enacted because taxi drivers were beating people up and putting things on fire until they got a law eliminating the competition.

Striking taxi drivers was nothing new–the first strike took place in 1908, a year after the first taxi company was founded. But this strike had a hostile energy to it, as strikers went hunting for scabs to punish. As one driver put it, “the bastids that was scabbin’, we pulled the doors off their cabs.” Independent cab owners, who had nothing to gain by striking, had their windows smashed by blocks of ice and passengers thrown from their cabs. Police who tried restore order had their tires slashed and marbles thrown under their horses.

True, but that doesn't mean they're applicable or warranted for Uber-like services. Historically, pre-book/call-a-ride/limo services have avoided much of the regulation applied to taxis that can take street hails; the distinction long preceded apps.

When you pre-arrange the ride through a third party, to obviates most of the potential for abuse that led to cries for taxi regulation:

- There's nothing to rob since payment is handled elsewhere.

- Ditto for the issue of overcharging or deceiving a customer.

- The driver is authenticated when your booking is confirmed ('look for a guy with this license plate ...') so you're not just getting into a random person's car.

- The passenger asks for it so they're not getting pressured by some rando with a car.

- There's a record of who was paired with whom so if someone goes missing, you know where to look.

So it doesn't make sense to object to Uber/Lyft because of some image of what gypsy cabs were like.

IME the service offered by black cabs is worse than in NYC - they apparently have 'discretion' on accepting a fare or not, so even if they pull over they might just say they don't want to go in that direction. I remember saying 'sorry, I thought I was supposed to tell /you/ where /I/ want to go'. A problem that is compounded by the fact that the Underground shuts down at night.

Then again, my last experience with Uber was waiting 20 mins in the LGA cold for a driver '10 minutes away' never to arrive who then just cancelled the ride. And apparently because he never picked me up can't leave a negative review.

Honest question, why would you call an Uber to LGA? LGA has massive lines of taxis waiting to take you home. You'd easily get a cab in less than twenty minutes that is legally required to take you to your location.

Not OP, I live in a different city, YMMV, etc

I hate taking taxis. Their CC machine is always "broken", they always try to take me in some funky route, cabs are always dirty, and there's no way for me to give feedback on crappy drivers. I don't know if the taxis at LGA have these same problems, but I'd rather wait 10 minutes for an Uber than get an immediate taxi

> Their CC machine is always "broken"

If this ever happens to you, the answer is simple: tell them, "thanks for the free ride". If they don't tell you before the ride starts that the credit card machine is broken, you are not required to pay. (This applies both in New York and San Francisco).

Though for what it's worth, I'm not sure I've ever had that happen in NYC, in almost ten years of living here and taking cabs here. The only time that's ever happened to me is in the Bay Area (where the cabs really do deserve their bad reputation).

> If this ever happens to you, the answer is simple: tell them, "thanks for the free ride".

Done that on rides from JFK. Been threatened for a while. Like physically. Then suddenly the machine worked. Oh wonder.

The first time this happened to me, also JFK, I was half delirious after an intercontinental trip with long delays. The first time in the US. So back then I didn't feel like having a forceful confrontation with a cabbie I had a hard time understanding.

I think that's much less likely to happen to you if you live there. But it's usually pretty easy for a driver to recognize whether you're from NYC. Language, destination, asking outright...

EDIT: typo.

This was just a time thing. That and it was so cold my phone actually shut down before the 2nd Uber finally arrived.

I guess next time I could hedge my bets by ordering Uber and waiting in the taxi line at the same time.

Does anyone know if cancelling a supposedly en-route Uber could earns me a black mark? I probably would've cancelled the first ride after 15 minutes if I knew it wouldn't flag me

>it was so cold my phone actually shut down

how does that work? I've never heard of electronics shutting down due to cold. Well, at least not due to cold temperatures that a human can resist.

How do you know it was due to the cold? could it be that some water condensed inside the phone or something?

I'm genuinely curious since I've never heard this statement before.

Generally it's due to the battery.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/is-the-cold-weather...

https://www.google.com/search?q=cold+phone+shutdown

It was showing battery percentage in the 40s but then the screen suddenly went black. If I tried powering it back on it would only show me a diagram telling me to plug into USB.

Once I got out of the cold it came back to life, still showing 40 something percent battery.

Uhmm, very interesting. I'll need to read up on this.

Thanks for the other commenter for links as well.

Edit:

Btw... that must have been really cold whether!

I mentioned it to my friend and he said the same thing happened to him when snowboarding in CO over the weekend - could there be a market for heated phone cases?!

These were both iPhones, btw

Possibly to save money using "UberPOOL" or whatever it's currently called. While regular uber ("UberX"?) is around the same or more than a yellow cab, UberPOOL is sometimes cheaper than a yellow cab

Previously I've waited in the taxi line, become impatient, ordered an Uber and it arrived before I got to the front of the line.

Obviously this only works if the Uber actually decides to show up!

Yeah Uber is dodgy but when I don't know where I am in London, I can put a pin on a map and the driver will arrive to that point. Oh and I know their name and license plate instantly

but they make all of our lives better....

Reply on news.ycombinator.com