Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London | Hacker News Reader

Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

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82 pointsAgentIcarus41 comments

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310664

More from the Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/22/uber-lice...

They have 21 days to appeal and can keep operating until the appeal process itself finishes (Oct 13th then).

> [TFL said] Uber’s approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility

> They have 21 days to appeal and can keep operating until the appeal process itself finishes (Oct 13th then).

The 21 days is how long (from now) they have to begin the appeal:-

"The Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 includes provision to appeal a licensing decision within 21 days of it being communicated to the applicant. Uber London Limited can continue to operate until any appeal processes have been exhausted."

[In that press release] There is no specified time limit on the length of the appeal.

On NPR this morning they mentioned the appeal may take up to 18 months. No idea how accurate that is however.

Dang. Good thing London has Addison Lee.

Edit: who are a long-running minicab service who give fixed price bids, have a reasonable app, have their own fleet by dedicated drivers, and are usually price competitive with Uber.

Addison Lee are no better.

In many ways they are much worse. Their own corporate policies and their CEO encouraged drivers to use bus lanes, to ignore cycle super highways (to drive on them), to ignore all parking and stopping restrictions - if fines were issued the company paid for them to encourage drivers to carry on doing so in protest of not having the same access as black cabs (who in return for their training and being regulated to be accessible, etc are granted access to bus lanes and other stopping locations to ensure that accessibility can be fulfilled).

They also fell foul of using drivers without performing full background checks, etc. And their drivers are reasonably famed for not knowing where they are going (at least Uber technology saves their drivers from needing to know anything about London).

Is there much value in "the knowledge" anymore, given the existence of GPS, phones, and map apps with real time traffic and accident information?

tl;dr No. Google Maps is as-good as the knowledge or better.

Hailo allegedly did a piece of research to try and prove that black cabs were better than a private hire vehicle using Google Maps as Hailo had both at the time and had the data to compare.

The point of this was to enable a marketing campaign to sell Hailo for hailing black cabs because bus lane access and the knowledge meant that black cabs would be faster, etc.

But in reality, all they discovered was that for 99% of the time Google Maps was as good as, if not better than, the black cab.

Only in certain parts of London, at the worst of a rush hour or around some sporting event that has fouled up an area... does the black cab come out better by a small fraction, for a short window of time.

Google Maps is for all intents and purposes on par with a black cab and the knowledge.

That might be true for a taxi use case where few trips are the same but for regular routes knowledge still wins because you only need to have the software tell you to go a dumb way once to know that's not the best way to that place.

One thing to note is that Addison Lee minicabs are notorious for their dangerous driving and ability to get away with injuring people. Especially cyclists.

This measure of protection is not afforded to uber drivers, nor are they encouraged to drive illegally by their company.

http://road.cc/content/news/56878-tfl-warns-it-will-take-act...

I'd hate to fall foul of confirmation bias here, but as someone who regularly drives in London, some of the worst driving I've witnessed has been by Addison Lee cabs.

IMO Royal Mail are the worst drivers, far worse than any cabs.

I sometimes see them racing one another in large lorries, especially around Mount Pleasant. The fact that they have such large vehicles, while also driving unfamiliar routes (i.e. turning down roads that most traffic doesn't) makes them worse.

I ordered an Addison Lee to the airport a few months back. The driver spent the entire time chatting about Uber and how dangerous it is. It's like they get off on it. He was also being quite racist about their drivers. This was at 3am in the morning.

This is just one data point, but I wasn't impressed.

No excuse for asshat drivers, but I've had an almost identical experience with Black Cab drivers too, and plenty of issues with Uber drivers around the world.

Addison Lee are some of the craziest drivers in London.

Greyball specifically called out by TfL as a primary reason behind their decision - that's karma for you.

Can't over-rule the law everywhere Uber. (Public transport in London is incredibly good most of the time anyway...)

Expensive relative to other European capitals though (the unions control over TFL in part to blame for that though).

It's a lot more to do with putting off investment for literally decades, then finally having to pay for massive amounts of work on pretty much all the lines.

It's cheaper than Uber though.

Public transport in London is ok, not good not bad. Depending...

Buses in London are awful imho, unless you want to go 2 stops. If you want to go more than that then you have to put up with nausea and how slow they are in general getting from A to B.

Underground, its ok for most parts unless its summer... No aircon is a big issue.

Trains... well thats where it gets annoying. I am very biased as I use Southern (the worst train company if you dont know them) which they are totally unreliable.

Thats where uber comes on. As I live in South East london, its either I get an uber on a night out which will take me home with a fair price, or get on a bus spending an average 40 mins more than uber etc. (Not a good experience)

All and all I think TFL's decision sucks, cause its biased on the blackmailing by black cabs. If black cabs want more work etc, they should go out and ask so their faires are lower so people prefer them... Uber takes me £12 to get home, and a black cab is £40 ... I mean seriously what you expect of me to pay the overpriced black cab? I literally don't care that they are buying cars from a specific company and those cars cost a lot etc and their licence takes years to get out etc I don't care. Go out and demonstrate against all that so you can change your job around and become competitive on your prices, don't expect to just drive everyone else out of business. Also I do know cabbies that are millionaires! I hope uber wins this case, I use uber etc, I don't like their policies about drivers and how they treat others etc but well at least it fits my purpose of going around.

./rant over

Asking people to be competitive on prices with a company whose business model is to lose money by undercutting until all the competition is gone ... well, seems like that won’t end well for London

Don't forget that Uber takes a 20% cut. Black cabs don't have to rely on that at all.

Its up to the government to make the process of getting a licences cab less expensive, and open cabs on having whatever car with X amount of years limited... the monopoly of the company that makes those black cabs and sells them for 150k is absurd.

Here's the statement released by the regulatory body, pointing out Greyball as one of the factors: https://twitter.com/TfL/status/911168235189489669

Edit: the url of the story has now been changed from the original bbc news link to this url

Well, I can't disagree with the reasons, but as someone who lives outside the M25 this means I lose a really handy way to get home when I've had a drink. Ah well, I'm supposed to have given up anyway :-)

How much does that really cost though? Is that from central London?

You're looking at roughly twice the cost, usually more if it's late on a Friday/Saturday night. I used to regularly travel from Zone 1 to just inside the M25 to the West of London ─ an Uber costs ~£40, whereas I've paid between £80 and £120 for other private hires for similar journeys.

4 miles in a black cab summoned via Hailo can cost you £25 on a Saturday afternoon as a price comparison. It takes 15 minutes for them to turn up and the journey takes up to 30 mins or so depending on traffic.

I can actually walk that in under an hour if I need to.

If/while you still can, you might as well just walk (or take a bus, they're great)! London is a beautiful city, with myriad hidden wonders that you just don't find unless you're on foot.

I've found myself in countless situations where the walk is maybe 10-15 mins longer than any available public transport (Uber included), so I've saved myself the money and taken a hit on a little bit of time.

I really can’t stand busses. I used to walk 8 miles a day to avoid them!

I used to live outside the M25 and a black cab was £110 from central London (around 30 miles). Uber was around £50-£60, so much cheaper by comparison.

So they have to stop operating in London? I wonder if this will be used as a precedent to do the same in other cities?

Lose or never had one?

Their current license runs out on September 30th

Does that mean Uber can't operate in London?

Yes - that is exactly what it means.

What happens if they just carry on operating?

Uber is too useful and too much better to fail.

I agree.

You mean in London specifically, or in general? Because I agree with one but not with the other.

Uber will not be banned; it will just start paying attention to a number of things that it should already be paying attention to. It is not as if its business model has been ruled fundamentally illegal.

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