Uber London loses licence to operate | Hacker News Reader

Uber London loses licence to operate

bbc.co.uk

672 pointsgadders585 comments

I don't think the Mayor of London or TfL really expect to shut down Uber. It would be a deeply unpopular move. There's an acceptance that Uber has improved things for riders, albeit at the expense of the Black Cab industry, and London wants to welcome innovative technology firms.

However, I also suspect that Uber hasn't been as co-operative as TfL would like on several issues mentioned, and so this feels like a warning shot to get them to be better corporate citizen. Quote from an MP; "No company, however big and powerful, will be allowed to flout our laws and regulations."

Uber could have reacted by saying "we acknowledge our shortfallings, and we'll work closely with TfL and the Mayor of London to ensure we put passenger safety first. We hope to avoid any interruption in service and continue to play a valuable part in London's diverse and effective public transportation system."

Instead, they took a typically Travis-ish stance and said "Screw you, people love us because we're cheaper, we'll fight this and we'll win," without any acknowledgment of their failings.

Perhaps new leadership can change this approach.

They already had a warning shot four months ago, when their license renewal was denied in favour of a temporary renewal for four months. This one is the next step in the process.

Uber isn't magic - if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up. The issues TfL have with Uber aren't to do with the service they provide, it's failing to comply with TfL's administrative requirements. You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture - and there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app.

There have been few companies that have tried. Some mentioned in thread. They all had trouble working with tfl.

One company licenced their software with an existing cab company in order to work with them. TFL started an investigation and unlicensed the previously legally licenced private taxi company for no stated reason.

Make no mistake they are activity hostile against innovation that could make taxi travel cheaper and faster.

https://blog.taxify.eu/2017/09/bringing-fairer-ride-hailing-...

I suspect anyone who looks like they could be the next uber would simply be shutdown.

Reading Taxify's side of the story alone reveals significant bias, and even that seems to suggest that what happened is that Taxify bought an existing company for its minicab license - which is practically bound to be a problem.

Why couldn't they find a customer to sell their product to without acquiring that customer?

The problem wasn't the app - it was the company bypassing the licensing process.

Interestingly, their link suggesting that hundreds of private hire operators are in the process of being reviewed does not say what they think it says, and does not in fact contain any statistics for private hire operators being reviewed.

Buying a company that owns an asset or holds a license is a reasonable way to obtain said asset or license. Nothing wrong with that.

If you're talking about a license in the sense of a right, like a copyright or patent license, or a license to drill for oil somewhere, then yes. But this is a license in the sense of regulatory approval of a specific organisation, which is not something it's proper to buy and sell. You can't buy someone's driving license, gun license, medical license, license, etc.

It's common in many parts of the US to buy a liquor license from an existing establishment.

And generally there is a process that needs to be followed as well--public posting, public comment, etc. Any changes like operating hours, operating address, etc. means you have to go back to your council/commission.

Liquor licenses rarely just transfer unless you bought the whole business and didn't actually change a thing.

In the insurance field "acqui-license" deals, like "acqui-hire" in tech, are not impossible or even necessarily discouraged. Every US state has its own set of regulations for who can be issued a license to sell insurance, and usually it's easier from a bureaucracy perspective to maintain the license once you have it than it is to get a new one. So buying and selling of companies solely for their existing insurance licenses is a thing.

Sure, though The UK is another regulatory regime again.

Not sure the drivers license is a fair metaphor. That makes some sense: the government is saying this particular individual appears to be capable of driving. People change (thus the need for periodic renewals) but usually don’t change so dramatically that they can no longer drive.

But how does regulatory approval work with institutions? Institutions are ever changing, and like the ship of Theseus, eventually the original company will replace all of its employees, management, and even processes.

So what triggers a need for renewed regulatory approval? If the original company switches out 50% of its workforce it can keep its license, but if the owner changes suddenly the license is invalid. How does that make sense?

Typically, every year, or every X years, you undergo an audit, that verifies that your processes are still compliant.

Yes, the edge case of "Fire everyone and hire some other people" does not trigger re-licensing. Also, hardly anybody does this, in order to do anything other then downgrade employees to contractors, or union-bust. That's because 99% of the time, companies, even with a lot of turnover, don't change their business processes out of the blue.

99% of the time, when they are being acquired for their licenses, they do.

Suppose that you are running a company that stores PII, in order to... Generate credit reports that banks and car loan places can use to evaluate your credit-worthiness.

Suppose (Shockingly!) that you operate in a country with strict regulation about how you can store sensitive PII. Suppose that in order to operate your business, you need to be in compliance.

Your business processes have to pass regulator audits - you need to limit access to your data, you need to keep it encrypted while at rest, you need to take steps to prevent exfiltration...

Suppose that you're in compliance, you are licensed to operate with PII and life's great.

Now, suppose that another company, called FaxEqui buys you. They come in, institute all their own business processes, open up all customer data to interns, change all passwords to admin/admin, unencrypt your database, and have a direct link between your PII, and the internet. None of this is in compliance with the regulatory environment.

The regulator takes one look at this, and pulls their license. They FaxEqui then proceeds to write to anyone who will listen, to complain about how unfair it is that 'their' license was revoked.

The point of this licensing process is to audit and control a company's internal processes. Buying a company that has such a license does not magically bring your own internal processes into compliance.

For sure, a lot of the value proposition of Uber could be seamlessly be replaced by a different company. However one thing that Uber has that is totally proprietary to them is their global mindshare. For example, when I go to the US, I use the Uber app whenever I can, because it's the exact same experience as at home and I know what I'm going to get. For travellers, this continuity of experience is great.

Maybe so, but I didn't even bother using Uber in a country where all the guides recommended another app because it's more popular. Consumers aren't enterprise, they'll switch faster if they think they'll get a better deal.

I actively avoid Uber wherever I go because of that mind share and the negative connotations that it has. Not all news is good news.

> Uber isn't magic - if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up.

The thing is, until Uber popped up, that pent-up demand simply wasn't being satisfied. The taxi monopolies and regulators were quite happy with their rents (in the economic sense of rent-seeking), and consumers suffered from it (I suspect that Uber & Lyft have prevented thousands of drunken-driving deaths).

A lot of people give Uber's culture a lot of hate — but that corporate culture is what created a company which was able to satisfy millions of customers and save lives too. It's provided a colossal amount of economic value to the world (I also like to think that it's made visible the economic value the taxi monopolies & regulators have been invisibly destroying for decades).

> there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app.

I think that app is the keystone of the whole experience. I can, anywhere I am, open that app and a car will come to pick me up and take me where I need to go. The car will be clean; the driver will be friendly; the service will be prompt and inexpensive. I can't get that experience if I have to install an app in each city, potentially give each app horrible permissions (e.g., to get a ride in Some City I have to give the car company access to my files, my contacts and my email) &c. I travel a lot, and the quality of the Uber rides I've gotten has just been head-and-shoulders above the taxi rides.

Yeah but a taxi driver can buy a home and put a kid through college, perhaps even take a vacation once a year. An uber driver may have 6 or 8 months of economic boom but eventually the house of cards will come tumbling down. It is exactly the type of company that is destroying the middle class. It is also the status quo of making a few people extremely wealthy. If you use uber you're just contributing to the decline of western civilization. That seems a bit melodramatic and believe me I'm the first guy to be looking for a deal and stick it to the bloated establishment but uber cuts all the necessary corners, sticks it to the drivers yet it's so popular because it's cheap.

A taxi driver in London can't buy a home on his own income, don't be ridiculous. An uber driver in London can put a kid through college (it's basically free). Both can take vacations.

Anecdotally, uber showing up in London was when I started to use car transport in the first place. It didn't remove me from the customer pool of black cabs - I was never there; most of the time it's competing with the tube / a bus. I would guess the only significant customers moving from taxi to uber are business travelers - but those are rarely motivated by price, and rather it's the convenience of the app that appeals.

GPS killed taxi drivers, not uber; the wage is catching up to the fact that almost anyone could drive a taxi nowadays.

> and save lives too

Is this purely anecdotal, or is there something more to this statement? Just curious because it doesn't seem to fit into this general discussion, and I would imagine almost any taxi company also has anecdotes of saving lives.

Uber supporters often seem to think that the only alternative to an easy to use ride hailing app is driving drunk and killing someone. It would take some careful research to correlate Uber rides to drunk driving deaths and I have yet to see someone attempt it.

>You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture - and there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app.

But that just begs, er, fully reduces to the question of ... why haven't they? Is a slick, user-friendly app really that much of a barrier? The article has tweets that are (nominally) from users who are freaking about being able to get a safe ride home late at night, so they at least believe there aren't good substitutes.

Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps.

> Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps.

Good luck with that, the markets are not remotely comparable:

Austin: 900k pop; In a red state known for low regulatory burden; No established mass transit to compete with; No established tax companies

London: 8.8M pop; High regulatory burden; City's incentive: each Uber rider is a potential lost customer for the Underground; Taxi companies have influence with legislators

The only incentive TFL has is to make travel as efficient as possible.

The underground is way too crowded, but so are the roads (mainly because of taxis these days).

This makes Uber a better bet than taxis (more efficient) buses better than both, bikes best of all and something in between a nirvana.

However, none of that matters as long as Uber think they're above the law.

> The only incentive TFL has is to make travel as efficient as possible.

TfL has the incentive to follow London mayoral policy; the MoL has concerns beyond travel.

Did it happen in Austin? According to this article, they were allowed back in a year later and no longer were asked to perform fingerprint based background checks.

> Did it happen in Austin?

NYC still requires fingerprint checks.

In Austin, the mayor and people voted in favor of the checks, but the state legislature killed the city's fingerprinting rule. Some argue this diminished the city's ability to self-govern. That part of the history, despite being quite short, is left out of this article.

They have:

https://www.addisonlee.com/apps/

They are more hated then Uber. Their CEO is just as infamous.

> You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture

You act like Uber flaunting local flaws is a flaw for the company. Ignoring 10,000 different sets of local laws in all the localities Uber operates is what made them successful.

It would have been impossible to expand as much as they had if the bothered dealing with the local bureaucrats, and they would have 10,000 sets of compliance to deal with.

Indeed. Perhaps it would be difficult to replicate what Uber did in SF and other US cities without breaking regulations - but in London, their model is perfectly replicable, as evidenced by the fact that they were originally given a license by TfL.

But here's an even better model: 1. Do a good job 2. Consumers use your service & rely on you 3. Wait for the government to try to shut you down 4. Consumers will back you 5. Government backs down & lets you do what you want

There's not going to be much public pressure on TfL to reverse this decision. Most Londoners don't use Uber, and there are plenty of alternatives.

391,499 Londoners (and counting) beg to differ: https://www.change.org/p/save-your-uber-in-london-saveyourub...

How do you know that everyone who's signed it is a Londoner?

Who wants to bet this petition has been started by Uber itself? How many of these votes are bought?

Something else that can happen is that citizens side with their elected representatives and start boycotting you in significant numbers.

This is a marvelous summation of exactly what is polarizing about Uber's business model, in specific, and the recently popular disregard for regulation and oversight of the Valley, in general.

Whether you read this as praise, or damnation, depends entirely on your belief system.

Sounds like you are endorsing the idea that laws and regulations just get in the way of business, while ignoring the purpose behind laws and regulations to begin with.

>if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up.

I think we saw that in Austin after Lyft/Uber were banned and people started the various Facebook and other groups to do the same thing. Not formal businesses, or even set charges.

Not only would it be an unpopular move, it would throw approximately 30,000 drivers out of work.

Not really. Almost all Uber drivers in London used to be minicab drivers (or work for e.g. Addison Lee), and the pay, rates, customer-base etc. are similar.

> Almost all Uber drivers in London used to be minicab drivers

Source?

It's natural - you still have to be licensed with tfl to drive uber; all minicab drivers were already licensed; uber is a better platform to drive for than a shitty call-in minicab company. So most of the drivers switched, and only people who have got licensed after uber showed up don't count as 'used to be minicab driver's.

All Uber drivers in london must be licensed by TFL to operate. That license is the valuable bit, and is entirely seperate to uber.

Why is the license a good idea? because it stops rapists posing as taxi drivers (which alas is still a problem even with prominant signage.)

Uber only provides a customer gateway, there are may other out there.

For those of you in the US, the important thing to note is that the market is much freer than say new york, there are only two requirements:

1) a safe car

2) a minicab license (https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing...) which is reasonably cheap.

As a customer, I'm happy with that level of regulation.

I already got the begging email asking me to sign the petition. You're right that this feels like the wrong tone!

I signed it.

Valuing ethics over consumerism requires time and life experience.

What is the ethics of those who deny private companies the right to engage in volunteer transactions among people in the market?

Secondly, consumerism is possible only in the presence of production, and it cannot exist unless there's a product to consume. Are you questioning the ethics of value-production?

> What is the ethics of those who deny private companies the right to engage in volunteer transactions among people in the market?

You're breaking the law, laws with good reason.

> Secondly, consumerism is possible only in the presence of production, and it cannot exist unless there's a product to consume. Are you questioning the ethics of value-production?

Yes. Must I list human abuse that takes place because of "demand" and "production"? Child labor? Child prostitution? Slavery? Unregulated economics is anarchy.

> Yes. Must I list human abuse that takes place because of "demand" and "production"? Child labor? Child prostitution? Slavery? Unregulated economics is anarchy.

You are mixing together ethics of "producing a value as such" with immoral acts. One person's needs is not a claim on other people's life/time.

Slavery and child abuse is immoral based on exactly the same fundamental principle that makes regulations of volunteer trade in the market immoral - the principle that a human being belongs to oneself (which leads to the right to make decisions and to take choices based on their own reason and their capacity to think reasonably).

As for the child labour, it is not immoral as such - it's just a phenomenon of life that had better be absent in the contemporary society. Absence of it improves the quality of life, yet this quality is neither an inherent trait of life, nor something which is granted to a person upon his/her birth. It's quite the contrary - a human being must work in order to sustain their life and to prosper. It's a law of nature for all humans.

And an unregulated market multiplies opportunities for those who are willing to earn their own living by their work - by producing values and exchanging these values with other people, voluntarily, to a mutual benefit of each party. That's the essence of unregulated economy. And no government can either know beforehand or reasonably regulate or even be on the same page with all the possible volunteer transactions in the market that may benefit all parties. It's impossible because of a continuous technological advancement of humanity, of processes being improved and revisited for efficiency, and of many other aspects of human ingenuity. And that's why people might break laws - especially the laws imposed by government regulations, which are far from being reasonable most of the time.

> And an unregulated market multiplies opportunities for those who are willing to earn their own living by their work

I don't think that's true. Unregulated markets can result in a number of situations that limit people's opportunities significantly. Monopolies are a clear example and various externalities can also have significant impacts on commerce. To maximize the opportunities we need carefully tuned regulation. The problem is that our political systems for creating and enforcing that regulation are, shall we say, "a little broken".

> Unregulated markets can result in a number of situations that limit people's opportunities significantly. Monopolies are a clear example and various externalities can also have significant impacts on commerce.

Could you name an existing stable monopoly that is not a state-granted monopoly (i.e. a monopoly, that is not associated with government regulations, subsidies, grants, medallions, quotas and other things that have to do with regulating the market by the government), yet is capable of preventing other players from entering the same market?

> Could you name an existing stable monopoly that is not a state-granted monopoly.

No, because we have regulations to prevent them and break them up.

There are a number of entities that are clearly restraining their classically monopolistic behavior BECAUSE of the regulations such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

What's ethical about state-supported oligopolies?

If I have to pick between Silicon Valley oligopolies and state sponsored ones, I'll take the state; at least they're trying to protect their citizens.

What's ethical about letting Silicon Valley unicorns plunder world markets?

While not a popular topic here, Silicon Valley is starting to become the enemy.

SV is becoming the establishment the set out to "disrupt." Twice the son of hell.

What's ethical about Uber deciding for a city which laws and regulations are worth following?

I'm unfamiliar with uber in London or if it's any different than in the United States. I think it's only a matter of time before it gets shut down here and perhaps even have a class action lawsuit by present and former drivers. Uber claims to pay the highest wage at roughly $18/hr. which is a gross overstatement. I watched a Harvard math professor break it down to actually being $2.51/hour. She then outlined what it would take to run a business where the drivers are paid a decent wage, their vehicles are properly serviced & insured, business license, proper taxes, etc. You'll never guess what she came up with. Can you believe it? She came up with a figure that was pretty much identical to the average taxi cab fare today. Isn't that amazing? Imagine that.

See the difference in tone between London GM: "We are sure Londoners will be as astounded as we are by this decision. By trying to ban the app from the capital, the Mayor and Transport for London have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice."

And Dara, new CEO: "Going forward, it’s critical that we act with integrity in everything we do, and learn how to be a better partner to every city we operate in. That doesn’t mean abandoning our principles—we will vigorously appeal TfL’s decision—but rather building trust through our actions and our behavior. In doing so, we will show that Uber is not just a really great product, but a really great company that is meaningfully contributing to society, beyond its business and its bottom line."

Uber is such a contentious topic that a decision like this is ipso facto political.

There are [1] competitors (especially black cabs)that have a very strong interest to lobby against uber. [2] There are pro labour politicans that see Uber as workaround for labour laws, and the vanguard of a wider threat to labour norms. [3] Now, there are feminists and work culture interested people reacting to all the accusations about Uber's internal cultural issues.

Those aren't the quoted resons for the decisions, but they are a relevant political context.

The cabs were the first (and obviously self interested) objectors and Uber got used to fighting them and their politcal influence. This seems to have lead them down a cultural path. An agressive, ask-forgiveness-not-permission culture. A embattled rightous self image. "All the accusations against us are self serving incumbent bullshit!"

"Transport for London and the mayor have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice."

Disprupting taxis is/was the goal, so that antagonism was inevitable. On-demand labour is the method. Without that, they couldn't have grown like they did. The stuff they lost their liscence over,... that was an unforced error.

"reporting serious criminal offences, obtaining medical certificates and driver background checks." - also greyball

There's no good reason for Uber to lose a big market over that. Complying would not have disrupted their operations one bit.

> There's no good reason for Uber to lose a big market over that. Complying would not have disrupted their operations one bit.

This is the thing, Uber assumes that london is just like NYC, where its a highly regulated market with a massive barrier to entry. Its simply not the case.

A minicam license to operate costs ~£500 (https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing...) There is a rich and thriving minicab market. Uber are really quite late to the party, Addison Lee having an internet based hailing serivce in 2007, and an app since at least 2010. The only thing new they bring is "cachet"

> Complying would not have disrupted their operations one bit

They're required to do fingerprint checks in NYC and seem to do alright there.

Uber drivers are taxi drivers and should follow the same rules. It's very straightforward.

Full details: https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/911175207871762432

Criteria failed on:

1) Criminal reporting

2) Medical certificates

3) something about DBS checks

4) Use of Greyball to identify and block regulators.

Edit: Updated to new tweet.. they deleted the original

That gives a 404.

Looks like they deleted the tweet.

Link works fine for me.

It works again, strange.

Thanks for that. It's pretty bad that the BBC posts more information in a tweet than they do on their new article.

I imagine the proper news story will be updated with the hour.

Hmm, does that mean they used Greyball in London, or just the known sleazy uses? British regulators, just like CARB, have famously little sense of humour for stuff like that.

AIUI, the regulator had evidence that Uber had used Greyball in some markets (i.e., the known uses), and Uber were unable to convince the regulator that they had not used Greyball in London.

Not even sure how you would convince them. Full code and database audit isn't easy nor cheap and I doubt Uber wants to pay for that. Apart from that, there's no way to detect if Uber runs services to detect regulators.

Oh, I agree it's totally impossible, and the only solution is to not attempt to evade regulators in the first place. Otherwise you end up like Uber:

> We know you've evaded regulators in these cases, in other markets. How should we know whether we don't have evidence of you evading us because you successfully have or because you haven't used it here?

We didn't use it here.

> You said that in the markets where we have clear proof you used that, why should we believe you?

We won't disclose our code/database.

> OK, we'll assume you did use it here.

We didn't use it.

etc.

Open up your books. The problem is that once you have a history of unethical behaviour, nobody believes you when you say 'don't worry, trust me'.

were they given a chance to "convince" ? are they banned forever then?

Trump would beg to differ.

In my experience TfL are a pretty crappy organisation themselves. Cab drivers commonly take longer routes in order to inflate their fares. Try complaining about this and see how far you get. Worse, try seeing what happens if you are injured through negligence of a bus driver (as happened to my girlfriend). They will fight you even in spite of incriminating CCTV until they are dragged into court, and only offer to settle at the last possible chance. TfL are scum.

> Cab drivers commonly take longer routes in order to inflate their fares.

Keep a receipt and make a complaint. Longer routes would be really obvious in the taximeter data.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/2304/pdfs/uksi_20062...

Yeah bit of work there already. Receipts are a joke, they often give you a blank piece of paper where you write whatever you want on it. They think they are doing you are favour because they assume you are going to write more on it then the true cost so when you claim you make a profit.

Do you speak from experience? I do - and they put it down to discretion of the driver to cater for traffic conditions etc - even when I could physically see the alternate route around Clapham Common was empty! Plus you get obvious contempt from the people handling your complaint for good measure. The system is not designed for the benefit of transport users.

This is after the original (5 year) renewal in May 2017 was not granted and they only got a 4-month extension which expires Sept 30th.

So Uber have been on-notice since May that they need to comply with the regulator's requirements for an operators license and haven't done so.

This is an important piece of information missing from the article.

Namely this is not out of the blue.

Guardian article from may 2017.

Uber's London licence renewed for only four months

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/26/ubers-lon...

It's in the article.

I think they updated it a lot after my comment.

Apologies that it's no longer correct.

When I have reported black cab drivers misleading passengers, lying about pricing and regulations or bus drivers driving dangerously and being rude to everyone, TfL are totally uninterested. They give the impression that they know the scams operate and don't care. It's an interesting comparison with my Uber experience, which has been almost flawless and issues are usually fixed by Uber themselves promptly.

Last time my (getting rather elderly) mother came to London I told her and her husband to get an Uber as it was easier than them standing in the rain trying to hail a cab.

They flatly refused. They'd been told by a black cab driver the night before there was a 'strong possibility' they would get raped or robbed by 'foreign' drivers.

Why not suggest one of London's myriad of other options, which don't have so much in the way of unethical baggage?

The tube is fine for the most part but it can be a drag going from the eastern parts of London to LHR directly (or to Paddington or Victoria)

Addison Lee is a good alternative. Drivers tend to be a bit more professional, prices are not that much higher and cars are generally nice.

Their previously voiced views on cyclists should be taken into account though.

http://road.cc/content/news/56999-addison-lee-chairman-airs-...

The Keen Group have always been reliable for us (but could hold similar views for all I know)

You can downvote, but I hate cyclists in cities, because many of them break road rules. They think of themselves as neither pedestrians, nor vehicles. When they drive on pavements, they presume being pedestrian and expect to be treated equally (even though they operate a large mass of steel, often with high speeds, enough to cause serious injuries). When they are on the road, they like to be pedestrians and cross traffic lights, when cars have stopped. Don't know why cyclists constantly show such a selfish attitude. I am not singling out London, as I witnesses similar behavior in many European countries.

So, the cyclists behave just like car drivers then ... /sorta-joking

(FWIW I'm both and sometimes ride a motorbike or drive a van.)

What is the problem with cyclists cross the road on a pedestrian crosswalk (with a reasonable speed of course)? In some European countries cyclists are actually forbidden to take direct left turn on the road and have to use pedestrian crosswalk for that.

This is why cycle infrastructure, like one finds in Perth, WA is so good. In some places there is a separate cycle-road distinct from both pavement and road, in others there are cycle tracks running alongside train tracks, away from cars and pedestrians. It works really well, because someone bothered to plan.

I've seen many cyclists go through red lights in cases where doing so is obviously safe. But for comparison I don't think I've met a single car driver who obeyed speed limits, indeed they seem affronted when I raise that question.

I have never seen in London a car driver run a red light but I regularly see cyclists blast through a red light at > 20mph and it is always the ones on fixies or racing bikes not actual bikes built for commuting.

I have also seen bikes blast through pedestrian refuges during the rush hour

Black cabs do it regularly on Oxford Street.

Then let's ban cars in cities, considering the harm car traffic has caused to inner cities andvtgeir inhabitants.

Oh, and don't complain that infrastructure built for cars sucks when used by bikes.

Better to have the selfish people on bikes than in cars.

I'd not sure I'd call the AL drivers professional. A number of them are complete psychopaths around the Heathrow area.

More so than cabbies or Uber drivers?

Considerably worse. Some people use them as a cab service for the local school and it's like a pinball machine.

There are lots of private hire car firms, Addison Lee springs to mind immediately. And practically every street in the city has a minicab firm...

Not that I use Uber (not really necessary in Edinburgh and they don't operate where I live) - but one of the problems with there being so many taxi and minicab firms is how do you tell which ones are actually any good when traveling to a new location?

I've had great experiences with taxis, but also appalling ones... At least Uber seemed to be trying to solve that problem - shame they decided to solve a real problem while being a shamelessly immoral company.

I agree to some extent. Having a single app you can open, regardless of what city or even country you're in, and knowing you'll get a good service at a good price, that's a great idea!

The behaviour of Uber has been terrible, and it's a shame they don't operate much more like a passenger->service matching system with ratings, rather that operating their own fleet kinda-sorta-maybe (but they're all self-employed!)

It would be kind of neat to have a standard platform for location based services....

Edit: Not just discovery, but transactions as well

Mini cab drivers are often self employed, they pay a "radio fee" for the booking office, provide their own vehicle, licensing etc, have fares set centrally, and they keep their fares (and take cash to avoid paying tax).

How is uber any different?

On that regard I would say that the court case a little while back about the employment status of uber drivers might have some bearing. IIRC they demanded some drivers be available at certain times, and did other things that put the lie to "self employed" status.

Don't get me wrong, I know all the shady shit that goes on in this direction with delivery drivers etc, and I expect at some point we're going to end up with a big shift in the rules.

With Uber it's just one of many things that I dislike about them.

In my experience Addison Lee, Kabbee and the other private mini cabs are completely useless for uber use case. Unless you booked them in advance you need to be prepared to wait up to 30 minutes or more. With uber I can request a ride and I'm pretty sure that at worst in 5 minutes I'm inside the car.

And you're just as likely to be attacked/raped/whatever with a local minicab firm, probabpynmore as there's less tracking of what's happening.

Odd then, that the police are specifically calling out Uber for non-cooperation on this, and a failure to put proper checks in place.

Will be resolved with crossrail next year, thankfully.

Same experience here. Nothing done about a virtual mugging where the cabbie had no idea where he was going, shouted at me and told me I was a cunt because I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it and pulled him up on it. I rounded his fee down to the nearest £10 and told him to sue me.

I’ve seen black cab drivers shouting “Uber scum” and spitting in the windows of Uber drivers before. This isn’t want I and my wife wanted to experience when you’re getting into an Uber literally after she’s had a hospital appointment and surgery.

I’d rather fucking well walk than get in a black cab.

This whole thing is sad. TfL is a total turd bag as well. Constantly getting overcharged on contactless so I have gone back to prepaid oyster. Customer services tell me I’m a dumbass but several people I know have the same problem on the same routes.

This is where prepaid mastercards which sync up to an app on your phone come in really handy.

You get a push notification instantly as soon as a contactless transaction goes through so you know right away if you've been ripped off.

That's not a bad idea actually and the prepaid card actually stays as real money, not "non refundable blue TFL smart card arbitrary number"

In what way are Oyster cards/credit not refundable?

Don't you have to take them to a ticket office?

Only works in some stations and most refuse to deal with it. The there’s the online refund system which is unable to process a refund half of the time.

True, but that does not work for TfL because of how they charge you. Details:

http://news.revolut.com/post/146212645837/touch-it-tap-it-re...

I've been charged a wrong amount by TfL a few times in the past, I contacted them (either on the phone or via the webform) and I was always reimbursed. There are basically two situations where you get charged a wrong amount:

1. common: the "touch out" did not work. Just log in and click "refund previous trip".

2. rare: some weird software exception where your trip is charged via a Zone that you did not travel through.

The second happened to me a few times but honestly if I think of the massive amount of complex/arcane/exceptional software rules they must have ...I feel I cannot blame their software engineers :)

The option (2) happened to me many times in a row. One of the intermediate touch stations that you're supposed to whack at Highbury and Islington when you transition from tube to rail wasn't reporting or not working. This meant I got mugged every day for a week.

Getting the cash out of them proved very difficult.

Sure there are arcane and complex rules but the nature of those demands that the liability is on them.

You didn't get mugged. Please don't downplay muggings. Getting mugged is much worse than paying too much because of a software error. Tfl always reimburses and they pay out to any bank account, you just have to call them for the details. I can understand that it's annoying but that wasn't mugging.

Did you report the faulty purple reader? Those are used by several thousand people per day, I've never seen card readers out of service for more than a day.

Mugging is a colloquial term. Yes I did report the faulty reader. The reader was reading cards and acknowledging them ergo it wasn't faulty and I was charged correctly apparently. Unfortunately this was, to use another colloquial term, bollocks.

No, "mugging" is not a colloquial term for "overcharged" or anything else for that matter.

I’ve lived in London for over 35 years. It’s common parlance. That kebab shop was a mugging. You were mugged in the apple store. Etc etc.

I consulted three dictionaries, including a British one, before writing that comment.

Your use very fringe at best and is very inappropriate anywhere else, as it was pointed out to you.

> Your use very fringe at best and is very inappropriate anywhere else

New Yorker here. Perfectly fine usage there. “The cab driver robbed me” is our local variant.

"Robbed" is not the same as "mugged." You are correct that "robbed" does have a colloquial definition.

>informal overcharge (someone) for something.

If you overpayed you were mugged. Very normal term here in the UK.

Honestly it seems those dictionaries are not at all up to date with common English informal phrases. Source: native and resident Londoner of >40 years, and user of "mugging" in the "ripped off" sense for most of them.

You might find this interesting: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/20477/what-exact...

Dictionaries lag behind the language. They do not define the language. [1] Metaphorically, the dictionary is a slightly out of date road map, it doesn't define the road network. When the poster tells you of a new road, he isn't "wrong" just because it doesn't show up on your old map.

[1] http://www.maximumfun.org/adam-ruins-everything/adam-ruins-e...

Wait. What? In 2017? There are instructions and I have to report broken equipment? I have to figure out instructions on payment system?! There's no button to handle it all on my phone?

Cabs should either operate as well as Uber or die. Instead of figuring out how to become as good or better than Uber they are trying to push Uber out. That just means someone else would show up.

He's talking about the tube, not cab services.

> Wait. What? In 2017? There are instructions and I have to report broken equipment? I have to figure out instructions on payment system?! There's no button to handle it all on my phone?

lol nice bit

wait are you serious

Yes, I am. There's no bloody way I am going to use a dumber system is smarter option is available.

Hope you enjoy being angry all the time over literally pointless minutia

They do in the uk in my experience I call them up tell them where I want to go I get a SMS when they dispatch the cab and another when it arrives.

Only problem is during the school run time as many parents don't want "Oliver" or "Lucinda" to slum it with the poor kids on the school bus

Not in my experience, the cab is always "just round the corner" when it's 10 minutes late and I ring to chase it up. Another 15 minutes and maybe it arrives, or maybe I ring again and "oh we had to cancel it".

When uber is available it's a glorious system - know exactly where the cab is, which one it is (when it's busy and there are many outside), no "I don't go south of the river" type drivers, takes credit card (no "the machine is broken" at the end of the trip, or try to flag down a black cab that does take card), always get a receipt, not a scrap of paper you have to fill yourself, etc etc.

The only problem is it's not available in the town I live in. The local mini cab firms usually refuse to take bookings for short trips (2 miles), and usually refuse them even when you want one asap

Phoning for a cab is 1980s technology. I've used uber in a dozen countries on 4 continents, the same experience every time, far better than any mini cab or taxi (in NYC taxis force adverts down your throat!)

That's quite interesting. Option 1 has happened to me a few times with an Oyster card, and I've always had issues claiming refunds, receiving this message: "We have been unable to process your refund application, This is due to a technical error."

Since switching to using my Monzo card, I've had this issue one time and received the refund no problems. Not sure if that's coincidental.

Ah yes I got a similar error.

I designed the original tariffing engine for Oyster back in 2003/4. Compared to similar work I did for cellphone operators this was interesting in that Oyster actively seek to charge the lowest amount possible. The engine is pretty simple in that it does a shortest-path (£-based) determination between start and end stations. The trick was dealing with trips where a weekly or monthly travel card covers part of the route, and pay-as-you-go the rest. There are other edge cases that cannot be handled at all - having a travel card for, say, a trip through zones 1 and 2, and a pre-purchased ticket for zones 3 and 4 for a trip from zone 2 to 4.

Where can i get that in the UK?

Monzo, Monese and Revolut all offer this.

No banks I'll have heard of, then? Do you use one you'd recommend?

I've used 2 out of 3 of those, they all work as expected and work with same day deposits

I use Monzo, and would highly recommend them. Great customer support, very transparent (you can see their trello roadmap, they interact with the community via forums and Slack) and I love their product too (have switched over to their current account as primary bank account now). They have somre really great people working there too - if you're in London they have a lot of events and talks that are pretty interesting.

I and a lot of my friends use Revolut and it's excellent. They're a very well funded FinTech startup and have been around for a few years.

I use Monzo and Starling. I'm very happy with both of these and prefer them to my old bank (Halifax).

I've been a happy Monzo user for at least a year, but recently got a Starling account because they have Android Pay and Monzo don't.

However, if you use a credit card like amex, you always have the option of resolving it with them should tfl fail.

> spitting in the windows of Uber drivers before

In South Africa the local metered taxis have gone as far as petrol bombing Uber drivers cars.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-09-07-wat...

Nothing in South Africa surprises me these days to be honest. I've had too many colleagues from that part of the world :)

On the other hand, my cab driver left with my girlfriend's phone and never returned it back. Uber completely ignored us.

not turning the meter on, or asking you to give them the postcode (ie they should know how to go to you area of town, that's part of their training)

Or the card machine that is "broken"

"You are required to have one that works...no?" — "Nah mate, this one literally just broke, they'll fix it when I'll return the cab later."

"Awesome mate, they can find me at that time"

one cabbie took me hostage till we found an ATM.

I used an Uber for a 45 minute journey recently. The seatbelt didn't work. In the UK it's illegal to not wear a seatbelt, and it's against Uber's terms of service for me not to wear a seatbelt, and against their terms of service for the driver not to provide one.

Uber didn't care, told me they would "talk to the driver". I'd have expected at least an acknowledgement that they endangered my safety, but no, no acknowledgement of any fault at all.

Endangered your safety? Did someone force you into the vehicle?

The seatbelt broke 10 mins into the journey while we were on a motorway. It's illegal to stop on the motorway, and being left at the side of the road isn't exactly a great alternative.

In that case it was working when you sat down so it's not like the driver was trying to pull a fast one on you. What did you expect him to do? Like you said, he couldn't just pull over.

Sure, there wasn't a lot he could do right then, but Uber could have:

- Acknowledged the situation.

- Agreed that it was not right.

- Committed to not using that vehicle until the issue was rectified (not that I'd necessarily trust them on this, but it would be good to say).

- Could have refunded me or given me credit for the risk.

I think in a perfect world, the driver would have stopped at the nearest safe place, attempted to fix the belt, and failing that another car would have been dispatched to pick us up and finish the journey, but I realise that's unlikely to happen in a service that cheap.

And how would this have gone down with "Dave's minicab firm"? You really think they'd give a stuff? If the driver doesn't have a legal vehicle he's risking his license, be it uber or daves cabs.

How does a seatbelt break on the motorway in any case? Did it just spring out of the socket?

To be fair that does change the meaning of "didn't work" though.

It worked, then it "didn't work". It "didn't work" for the majority of the journey.

I'm not really sure what you expect the driver or Uber to do in that situation - there's no good solution AFAICT. The only option would be to leave the motorway at the next exit and arrange alternative transport.

Yeah, it's a tricky situation, but at the very least I would expect Uber to _acknowledge the situation_, rather than just saying "thanks for your feedback". I would have expected an apology, not extensive but literally just "I'm sorry about that, it's in our policy not to have that happen to you and we'll make sure this is fixed". Nope.

I had a non uber cab back from the airport once. The driver started slowing down on the motorway which was unusual at 11pm at night so I looked up from my phone, he stopped on the hard shoulder in the dark to fiddle with his sat nav and refused to move until I phoned the cab firm (I told them clearly I would not use them again as if I was about to ring 999).

Haven't used manchester Cars since.

You still chose to ride. You're the one not wearing a seat belt. You were within your right to exit the vehicle and order a new one but you choose not. Of course Uber doesn't care. You didnt care enough either so what should Uber do?

The difference is that those companies haven't built software with the express purpose to operate extrajudicially.

Being "innovative" doesn't mean that you have full reign to operate unethically.

> Being "innovative" doesn't mean that you have full reign to operate unethically.

You are right. Being "Government" means you have full reign to operate unethically.

Do you believe that if a government comission said that Uber cabs are safer than taxi cabs, that they would ban taxis?

They would a taxi company if they built software to allow their drivers to break the law.

If you truly believe that, you are naive. There is no reasonable situation that would make any government turn on its own cabs.

Where are there government operated cabs?

Everywhere. Tipically the gov' puts forth a guideline on license use and sells the licenses. In many markets, you cannot be a cab driver without dealing with purchasing a license through or related with the state, and then you have to abide by the state regulations. Only a few of the guidelines typically contrain options: having to paint all cars the same means that different car quality is masked from the user. Depending on the market, doing a complaint on a cab driver, it goes to the state and it goes nowhere, because the state does not fullfill quality control, etc. In Buenos Aires, the government is also providing an Uber-like app for taxi-cabs.

I dont know the details of London, but most of the time, cabs are what they are because of the government, that has a fiduciary duty to the people they sold the licenses to.

Having lived in London for several years, I have a special hatred of black cab drivers. I have never had a single good experience using a black cab, and very few of my friends do either. Complaints range from refusing to take a fare (which would've been four miles but crossed the river - cabby flatly said "I'm not going south of the river this late, I won't get any fares to come back") to deliberately taking long routes (I took a cab from Covent Garden to Islington once, when we were about to cross the river I told the cabby I'm a Londoner, not a tourist, and if you cross the river then I'm getting out).

I really dislike Uber, but there's no question I'd rather use them in London than a black cab. This is one of those decisions that are likely to be fully justified, but will still suck for those who have come to rely on them.

If they can't or won't reform then excellent, let's be rid of them.

I don't want to give any business to a company that are seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly, and squirrel away any profits to the US. We have a perfectly healthy cab ecosystem in my city, app-driven and with fare competition and city regulation. Which I suppose is why Uber, though present, hasn't really taken off here.

That said, talk of profits may be a little early and AFAICT they're losing money by the fistful. Which kinda says that they're engaging in some dodgy market distortion to me...

However, the article would greatly benefit from more factual information. What "threat to Londoners' safety and security"? Be specific please.

This does appear just to be a summary article and a bit more background would be good.

A click on the subject tag gives me some recent political criticism from the Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on taxis (who knew such a thing existed?) -

"It stands accused by the police of failing to properly handle serious allegations of rape and sexual assault of passengers.

It had to be dragged through the courts to recognise its responsibility to provide even the most basic rights and protections to Uber drivers. Its business model is based on saturating London's taxi and private hire market to drive its competition off the road."

> What "threat to Londoners' safety and security"?

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/vv598m/uber-drivers-a...

Failure to report serious crimes and allowing the driver to continue driving for Uber: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/13/uber-fail... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uber-drivers-accused-of...

Failure to properly check medical certifications: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1897962/investigation-reveals-...

Failure to follow up DBS (criminal records) checks (can't find an article about that one).

Use of Greyball to dodge regulators checking on the service: https://www.ft.com/content/2ab3c0e8-0076-11e7-96f8-3700c5664... (not specific to London but they're being sued all over the place for it)

TfL's statement about the ban - https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/septem...

More than 400 London cab drivers charged with crimes last year [0]. Not sure if this includes Uber, but from your comment, Uber doesn't report to DBS, so it doesn't. When you judge a service, you should really ask "compared to what". I prefer knowing the name and track record of my driver, not to mention an easy way to report mis-behavior, a history of my ride and ability to share my location. I don't have any stats, but from my experience, these factors greatly increase safety and comfort

[0] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/over-400-london-cab-dr...

> Enhanced DBS checks are carried out on drivers every three years when they renew their taxi or private hire driver's licence, and every individual's fitness to become a licensed taxi or private hire driver is considered on a case-by-case basis.

And failure to properly conduct DBS checks is one of the four reasons given by TfL for suspending Uber's license.

> The FOI showed the number of people charged who gave their occupation as a taxi driver or minicab driver.

That would include Uber drivers.

> I prefer knowing the name and track record of my driver

You know their name, but their track record? You can see previous ratings, but that's not exactly going to include "1*, driver sexually assaulted me" is it?

I personally never had a negative enough of an experience to warrant a bad rating, but I know people in the US that rated their drivers a low score for some reason (poor navigation, speeding, cell phone use), and they subsequently had an Uber rep reach out to them to discuss. It seems that they take the ratings very seriously. And it also shows because many of the drivers I spoke to were concerned about their ratings and even offer such amenities like water and cell chargers to make the ride more pleasant. As for yellow cabs in NY, many times I've witnessed the cab driver speaking on his phone and refusing to open the door before final destination is disclosed. Also, reports about not picking up minorities or people in less wealthy neighborhoods. These bad behaviors have gotten better over the years, but I attribute that to more competition from Uber

Oh definitely. I think Uber has, on the whole, improved the rider experience here in London. That doesn't excuse them from complying with regulations like ensuring drivers have valid DBS checks though.

Uber drivers were accused of 32 sexual assaults on passengers in 2015/16. In 2015, 126 London taxi drivers were charged with violent or sexual offences — or 521 over the past five years.

Source pls.

> Failure to properly check medical certifications

I can't see why doctors forging documents for people that they later use to become drivers is anything to do with Uber. The article even says those doctors did the same for drivers applying to other minicab companies.

That is factually a quote from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, as reported in the article. It is not the journalist's job to provide specifics on the behalf of others.

Investigative journalism? Sort of is their job.

You're not just supposed to blindly reprint things people say.

Admittedly everyone does it anyways, but still.

> You're not just supposed to blindly reprint things people say.

They did not reproduce what he said as though the content of his statement was factual - they reproduced it to report what he had said.

To illustrate the point further, they had his quote:

> Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: "I fully support TfL's decision - it would be wrong if TfL continued to license Uber if there is any way that this could pose a threat to Londoners' safety and security."

and then several paragraphs later they had this from an Uber driver:

> But one driver with Uber in London said: "I don't think it is a fair decision. Uber offers a flexible schedule, and a weekly income."

The also reported on statements by "Fred Jones, head of cities for Uber across the UK and Ireland", and "Uber's general manager in London Tom Elvidge".

Reporting on the statements of a range of parties interested in a particular dispute is perfectly reasonable journalism, and should not be compared to opinion-led journalism where the statements of favourable individuals are rewritten as though they were facts.

To clarify, I'm not claiming that the BBC as an institution is devoid of opinion-led journalism, I just don't think that demanding that journalists substantiate the claims of interested parties (as O.P. did) is very reasonable.

In what city do you live?

> a company that are seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly

Who said anything about them seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly?

They are a cab company, expanding globally. Any other company can do that too, if they want.

>> Who said anything about them seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly?

They behave as if they are attempting this, IMHO.

>> They are a cab company

I believe, depending on which way the wind was blowing, they might dispute this. Their argument is that they are not a cab company, merely a service for connecting drivers and potential passengers. This is how they avoid pesky things like employment laws.

>> Any other company can do that too, if they want.

Few others have the access to VC money that Uber do - I would consider this reliance on an absolute ton of investment, which allows them to operate at the prices they do, to be something of a market distortion.

> They behave as if they are attempting this, IMHO.

Every rational company should behave as if they're attempting to become a monopoly, this is a completely meaningless point to argue either way.

This is like the idea that every rational company must skirt the very edges of the law, regardless of good ethics, to maximise profit.

I don't personally believe either to be true, and I do believe there's a very real difference between out-competing the competition and using a ton of VC money to undercut them, or skirting rules and regulations that may add cost.

Taxis have an ACTUAL monopoly. Are you seriously siding with "banning potential monopoly" to protect an entrenched centuries old monopoly.

>> Taxis have an ACTUAL monopoly

Not really, there are lots of private-hire firms in London.

>> Are you seriously siding with "banning potential monopoly" to protect an entrenched centuries old monopoly.

Nope. That's a wilful misreading of what I've been posting and I'm not sure it warrants much response. I'm siding with protecting a diverse market from an unethical company who appear to be bending the rules and sinking a ton of investor money into distorting the market in an effort to capture it.

> Not really, there are lots of private-hire firms in London.

If thats your definition of monopoly, then UBER is also not a monopoly. Those still exist and can continue to exist.

> I'm siding with protecting a diverse market

You are not siding with protecting a diverse market because you are eliminating an option. Its the exact opposite direction. The rules are written by the same people that invented taxicabs. If the rules are removed, UBER would not be bending any rules. Its a problem created exclusively by the government, and uber drivers and passengers are being disregarded. This is what people want, and you are advocating for restricting those people in favor of another.

To help one side, you are advocating the attack of another one. That is not an even standing.

Uber are not a monopoly, never claimed they were. They act like they want to be though, and are using VC money to undercut AFAICT

The rules are much more than there to protect just black cabs, they are there to protect consumers and workers too.

Uber are a set of problems all to themselves, and have only their own attitudes and practices to blame.

I am not advocating helping any one 'side', and to paint my arguments that way is disingenuous.

Some companies are happy to serve a restricted demographic, provide work for the owners and employees; you don't have to be a megalomaniac to lead a company. That seems rational, can you explain why it isn't?

Some people aren't primarily motivated by power and profit.

> Some companies are happy to serve a restricted demographic

Right, but whatever their target demographic is, they're still going to want to have an exclusive stake in it. I'm not saying that Taco Bell can/should seek to monopolize all food.

We have customers who go to other places for our niche services (art/craft), I don't have a problem with that. We could seek to get those customers exclusively to use our services, I just don't find a compelling reason to do so (of course I'm greedy for money, but other than that?).

I mean no disrespect, but I think you are perhaps misunderstanding the concept of a monopoly.

Could you expand on that point please because my understanding of the term monopoly, "the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service." would align with the point the other commenter is raising.

Some independent stores simply aren't interested in being the monopoly in their local area for their particular product. Sometimes they just run the business because its a product they enjoy and running their own business is preferable to being an employee for someone else.

Another example of businesses not run like monopolies is with consumables like fast food. You might have a successful fish and chip shop, Chinese or Indian take-away. Most UK towns will have multiple different independent restaurants but you seldom see these restaurants open up more shops in town, or even in other towns. Yet there is clearly a demand for good take-aways.

> Could you expand on that point please because my understanding of the term monopoly, "the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service." would align with the point the other commenter is raising.

pbhjpbhj's comment implies that by addressing a niche market, you would avoid the drive to monopolize. I'm arguing that if you are addressing a niche market, you are working to monopolize that market, and you don't have to monopolize the whole market of similar services to be a monopoly. For example, Microsoft has a monopoly (in this case a government one) on producing Microsoft Windows, but Microsoft Windows is not the only PC operating system.

Similarly, you could monopolize a certain demographic. For example, Microsoft has an effective monopoly in PC operating systems when it comes to government administration workstations in most countries.

>> I'm arguing that if you are addressing a niche market, you are working to monopolize that market, and you don't have to monopolize the whole market of similar services to be a monopoly.

That's pretty much what a monopoly is, and even in your niche, not everyone wants to be a monopoly.

I have a friend who runs a small craft beer bar. Another craft beer bar is going to open two doors down. To him this is great - the area becomes known for craft beer and more people come along. There is no monopoly there.

>> For example, Microsoft has a monopoly (in this case a government one) on producing Microsoft Windows, but Microsoft Windows is not the only PC operating system.

But they tried to make it that way, and came close for a while. That's the time period they had various anti-competition lawsuits aimed at them.

This is what most people are talking about when they are talking about monopolies, and it's clear that not every business aims to be one.

The sibling comment by laumars puts the position well - perhaps you could explain where I'm erring? I consider a monopoly to be exclusive control of a market niche by one company (eg limited to a particular geographic area). Uber would have a monopoly if they drive out competing taxi services (or "private hire" in the UK, depending on the scope of the niche you want to focus on).

I know plenty of small - and, actually, big - companies which have reasonably good relationships with their competition, actually. Craft breweries regularly collaborate with each other, as an example - even those which have taken significant capital investment.

Craft brewers are not in strict competition with all other craft brewers for the whole market. They would have to expand their operations immensely to do so (and likely no longer be considered "craft"). If I want a pilsner with more or less hop, a smooth saison, or a high-alcohol belgian-style wheat beer, no craft brewer I know of can afford to serve all of these whims. That said, a craft brewer could seek a local monopoly on the citrusy saison, and collaborate to serve different niches.

Craft brewing is almost defined by a premium on variety, and that marketable variety creates an highly recursive system of market segmentation. Since flavour/atmosphere/taste has so many facets, and there is so much variance in terms of "customer success", all product categories which are differentiated by flavour and/or atmosphere and/or taste tend to multiply markets rather than consolidating them. Coca-Cola, for example, could be seen to have no competition at one level (the market for Coca-Cola specifically), and enormous competition (the market for all beverages). Legal restrictions on transportation and processing of raw coca leaf, and on marketing products as "Coca-Cola", help the Coca-Cola company retain a monopoly on Coca-Cola specifically.

Every company should attempt to be the best in their field, yes. However, that does not in general encompass taking vast piles of VC money to run a loss-leader service for years and years on end in an attempt to monopolize an entire sector by undercutting all the competition that has to actually make a profit pretty much every quarter, with their valuation almost entirely based on the idea that they can succeed and then raise prices to become profitable.

Yes, there is a qualitative difference here.

There aren't really any barriers to entry for local taxis.

Uber really can't just put the entire world out of business.

Undercutting competition just meana VC funded cheap rides for consumers.

If people acted with the rationality of companies, we'd live in a society of psychopaths.

Business wasn't always like this, and doesn't have to be either.

Seeking a monopoly seems to be a big part of their business plan or else why would they be offering fares which are so low they lose money for years?

> Who said anything about them seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly?

I think everyone who looked at them, for the past 3 years or so. It's been plainly visible that they're a) reaching globally, and b) not afraid of using any means necessary, including illegal ones, to destroy their competition - both from the taxi world and other Uber-like companies.

Not if they want, if they have enough cash to burn as Uber does.

Just look at Lyft, they don't have the bankroll of Uber to play so it's very hard to compete on the global scale when your competitor is basically playing a price dumping scheme with investors' money.

Not really. Regulated cab companies, for example, can’t offer surge pricing or things like that (a big part of Uber’s viability), or a single app in every market without a million different kinds of meters, etc.

> Who said anything about them seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly?

Their former CEO. And not just a cab monopoly, but a car monopoly, period.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/16/technology/uber-travis-kalan...

They are losing money at the moment, despite their 'success'. It is theorised that the only way they could become profitable is through monopoly and price rises.

Most Uber-sized companies squirrel the profits to tax havens in the Caribbean. Getting the profits to the reach of the US tax system would be unexpected.

That's why many people prefer small, local cab companies that pay license fees and taxes to a local budget.

In the US, I don’t think I’ve ridden in a small, local cab company whose cars didn’t smell like cigarettes and was barely legal to drive, and often had drivers trying to scam you. It was always nice expensive black car service, or shitty local taxi company, which was a super last resort.

The transparency and accountability that Uber brought has been preferred by everyone I know, and people are voting with their dollars.

It might be due to the fact that in most parts of Europe there's a cheap and good public transport available, so cabs must compete with it too. In USA, there's not much to choose from, so cabs have local monopolies, hence higher price and lower quality service.

Canada is in the same position. Cab drivers regularly take longer routes than necessary to drive up the meter and often pretend their card machines aren't working to force cash payment.

most taxi services in Europe are quite bad and hugely overpriced due to artificial monopoly, to the point that I try to stay away from the countries without Uber

From your description and my personal experience, only London falls under this category. What other cities do you have in mind?

In my opinion as a local, Lisbon is pretty bad. Scamming and rude drivers, unreliable when requested by phone, forget about paying by card (now some have apps, but that's a post-Uber development), plus the organization leadership is very corrupt (getting around licensing limits by putting them under their families names, outright snatching licenses from members when they ask for help renewing them, leaving small towns without cars by using the licenses to drive in big cities, etc).

Before Uber, I already avoided taxis as much as I could, only taking a couple per year.

Athens, Greece is one obvious example; also Brussels. And Amsterdam. And a lot more. And I _love_ Vienna.

I've never had that experience with local cabs. Now what?

Game theory makes it clear why anonymous cabs paid in cash will almost always provide worse service than a rating sensitive system.

The notion that people will be kind and nice because of social norms or "plain decency" or something is sentimental hogwash. People behave well when the system rewards them for doing so and penalises them for not.

Most of local cab companies in my city also let you rate a driver now, so it's not a unique selling point of Uber anymore.

When was the last time you rated a local cab? If no one uses the system it might as well not exist.

Last night, actually.

They do? You sure about that?

Then why not just let them compete?

"They do? You sure about that?"

Yes, I pay with credit card 9/10 times and get a receipt. I doubt any of these companies are big enough to have offshore companies to route their income through.

"Then why not just let them compete?"

They do. There's quite big competition in my city among public transport (city owned), many local taxi companies, private taxi drivers and Uber. Competition is quite fierce and costumers can choose freely whatever they prefer. I prefer taxi, I call taxi, some of my friends prefer Uber - they call Uber. What other competition do you have in mind?

I was responding to the "lots of people prefer" part.

The competition you describe is exactly what's needed, but that's not always the competition that's allowed.

Yes, I was talking only about my city and my personal experience, I agree that it's more of an exception than a rule (at least judging by many comments here, especially coming from USA).

I dont think people appreciate the uneven response. They equate allowing Uber to Uber vs taxis. But thats not whats being discussed: cabs arent banned. Its Uber vs Governments. The foe is large and abusive.

You can exercise your opinion by not taking an Uber. Why would you ban a third person from using uber?

So, you're arguing the majority of companies over, say, a $50 billion market valuation in the US are hiding all their profit in the Caribbean and none or very little of it is reaching the US tax system.

Conveniently, a few minutes going through public financial statements disproves that outlandish, comical premise.

3M, McDonald's, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, AT&T, Delta, UPS, Disney, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Honeywell, Intel, Walgreens, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, Boeing, Visa, Comcast, Altria, Exxon, Chevron, Nike, Honeywell, Intel, Merck, Pfizer, Cisco, Oracle, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, etc.

They're all going to be very upset to discover the 20-35% tax rates they've been paying on their earnings, they could easily have avoided by just squirreling it away in the Caribbean.

One could also do a few minutes of research:

"The average effective tax rate among S&P companies that had posted calendar fourth-quarter results as of Friday was 24.11 percent"

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/tax-cuts-sp-500-may-not-get-...

Not all their profits. Just the profits that occur outside of the US. The US corporate tax system is relatively unusual in that it attempts to tax not just profits earned within it's borders but worldwide profits for any company incorporated within the US.

So what US companies tend to do is incorporate subsidiaries in tax friendly locales like the Caribbean (Ireland is also popular) to avoid paying US corporate taxes on this money.

It's quite common.

Its why apple has that massive cash pile off shore

Yup, exactly.

> "The average effective tax rate among S&P companies that had posted calendar fourth-quarter results as of Friday was 24.11 percent"

The question in a discussion of tax avoidance, of course, is 24.11% of what.

Uber is a very very very long way from making a profit.

What profits? Aren't they problematically loss making?

They're loss making by choice so it's not problematic for them at least.

> I don't want to give any business to a company that are seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly

You don't have to use their service

I don't, and I'm happy to see it disappear if it can't or won't behave fairly to passengers and drivers, and compete honestly.

For now, sure, but you may have missed the word "monopoly".

Fact is, Uber is running an unsustainable business in a lot of markets to gain market share. It's anticompetitive business practice. Free market fanboys will argue that the issue will fix itself after Uber raises prices - thus allowing more healthy competition, but this takes time. Not everyone can drive or rely on public transportation. In modern society, transport is a utility, and to act like people can simply "not use" a taxi service is ridiculous.

> Free market fanboys will argue that the issue will fix itself after Uber raises prices - thus allowing more healthy competition

Yup, by which time the current players may well have been driven out by the undercutting. Not really a sign of 'healthy' competition.

I would welcome the current taxis going bust

>Free market fanboys will argue that the issue will fix itself after Uber raises prices

The "issue" will likely fix itself by uber going under and losing all of its investors their money in a spectacular and richly deserved hubristic implosion.

What uber is attempting has been managed before (e.g. the 'bus wars') but it's unlikely they will achieve a sustainable monopoly.

"For now, sure, but you may have missed the word "monopoly"."

The Taxi business in every city is a 'monopoly'. Shares in this 'rent seeking entity' are bought by owning 'medallions'.

It's hypocritical that a cabal of local medallion owning rent-seekers want to attack Uber for their 'monopolistic' practices.

The cab drivers who don't own medallions aren't getting much out of it.

Uber is not a monopoly, nor has it been demonstrated that their drivers are 'more unsafe' than other drivers.

Love or loathe Uber - this is a political move - and it's scary. A government can come along and arbitrarily decide they 'don't like you because you're foreign' or whatever and ban you from doing business?

If London wants to make 'cabs outside of those holding medallions' illegal, I would disagree with it, but it would be fair at least.

It seems that there is room for competition in London in terms of taxi services.

40 000 people are going to be out of a job - let's say 1/2 are full time - that's 20 000 jobs.

Literally, a US 'startup' creates 20 000 jobs for people in London alone using tech - and the Mayor squashes it?

'We don't want jobs' is the essence of his argument.

It would seem there's quite a lot of rent-seeking in the Black-cab business if London can sustain an additional 20K full time drivers, that can't be ignored.

>> The Taxi business in every city is a 'monopoly'. Shares in this 'rent seeking entity' are bought by owning 'medallions'.

This is just not true, and the medallion system doesn't seem to exist outside of the US.

The rest of your post is just as much nonsense. There's a whole list of reasons Uber are having this happen, and none of it's political.

Oh, and according to Uber, they aren't jobs - or else they'd have to comply with employment law, something else they'd rather avoid.

" they aren't jobs"

Just 'let them eat cake' then?

This is really quite insulting to the 20 000 - 40 000 people who are about to lose their source of income - most of them at the lower end of the economic scale - and the millions of users of Uber for whom Black cabs are just too expensive, because medallions or not - the system is de-facto a controlled economy.

I highly doubt that a fairly operationally competent entity such as Uber would simply fail to supply some information or adhere to some basic regs when the writing was clearly on the wall that they needed to do so or lose their license.

This from the BBC: "But a wave of bad publicity about its corporate culture, its lax attitude to checks on its drivers and its treatment of this freelance army seems to have spurred TfL into action." - i.e. a populist action.

>> I highly doubt...

Yet that's exactly what has happened in multiple markets now. Uber have a history of pulling this stuff.

--edit-- and now I'm back at a real keyboard:

>> This is really quite insulting to the 20 000 - 40 000 people who are about to lose their source of income

So by that logic we should allow any company to continue to operate, regardless of how badly behaved?

I don't think this argument has much merit, especially when unemployment is at a record low and there is clearly a lot of appetite for services in this sector.

>> i.e. a populist action.

Which must mean it's wrong, obviously? That couldn't be a wave of information coming to light about how bad they are, and how they are not in line with regulations?

Uber are not the best behaved lot - I understand.

But they are not stupid.

If they were given only a '4 month extension' in London - and told to 'comply' with certain things - this is a very direct 'shot across the bow'.

Uber creeped into markets 'under the radar' - but when the regulators are directly holding your business hostage - and are saying point-blank: 'do these things or no permit' - it's time to believe them.

Uber is not stupid. They know the difference between 'being under the radar' - and when things are 'for real'. They can ignore city councillors here and there, but this was not that.

Uber is, if anything operationally competent. They'd have had a legal team, strategy sessions etc. on this. It's London - maybe their #2 largest market globally (or at least top 5) - so they're not going to screw around on this.

If Uber was definitely continuing to cheat - and if they were definitely non-compliant, and there were in fact 'a lot of rapes' or whatever with Uber ... then I have no problem with them being banned.

But I believe this is a hugely political move - irrespective of what Uber was and was not.

European regulators from bottom-to-top have been attacking American companies with special regulations.

Apple had to pay a 'magical' $25B tax bill. EU regulators are now trying to create special 'google' and 'Facebook' taxes. They want Uber off their turf.

It's politics and geopolitics as much as anything. And there is a strong whiff of economic protectionism.

It's entirely possible that Uber was just breaking all the rules - but it would also be very naive to not see the geopolitical interplay here.

It's how 100% of international business works. There's no such thing as 'free trade' in reality.

They were given a four month extension, they didn't fix the problems. Now they are down to an appeal process. I have no doubt they will drag it out as long as possible.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/uber-and-volvo-put-300m-in...

“Uber and Volvo put $300M into building self-driving cars” doesn’t imply that Uber really care about their drivers either.

Well tough - by your argument companies that adulterate food should be protected because "think of the workers" - though in China they have put people in front of a firing squad for food adulteration scandals.

> This is just not true, and the medallion system doesn't seem to exist outside of the US.

We have licenses in argentina which are basically the same. While the taxi drivers that are unionized flipped out cars and threw stones at Uber offices down here, they claimed Uber wasnt safe.

At least 50% of taxis in argentina dont have working seatbelts.

Seat belt? Most taxis in china hide that under the seat cover.

> app-driven

Does that mean that you can only order for a cab via an app? Or are apps an alternative?

I'm not an original OP, but in my city there's a centralized call center and several apps -- you may choose to use whichever you prefer as most cab companies support all or at least many of them.

>> Does that mean that you can only order for a cab via an app? Or are apps an alternative?

Well, apps are my primary way of ordering cabs now, because I can set the pick-up and drop-off precisely by map, and track the vehicle before it arrives etc.

But they still have their phone lines too.

More UK cabs need to start allowing cars payments. Instead they use their local monopolies to force cash use and under declare taxable income.

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/accepting...

If the anecdote and the law are both accurate, then that certainly goes to show exactly how effective all those stringent regulations are. It seems like this one would be simple to check.

You can just refuse to pay any other way except by card. There is not much a black cab driver can do in response to that, since they are now not even allowed to be on the road accepting customers if they don't have a working card machine.

Can you? I would think common law would take precedence over taxi regulations.

All London black cabs must take card payments. If their machine isn't working, they're not allowed to be on the road.

And that applies to tips?

"Tips" are not a thing for London taxis. It's not the US, the price is the actual price.

Well you kinda do... If he's done a good job (direct route, not taken the piss, been polite) then the custom is to round up the fare to the nearest £1.

It's England. You don't tip here.

Apart from restaurants

Not really, it's a service charge that in most places is charged for groups over a certain size (4 or 5). There is no culture of compulsory tipping for anything, because it's ridiculous.

My experience does not match what you are saying. I was always taught that (unless a service charge is already included) you should tip 10-20% in good restaurants. Not to tip I believe is generally seen as rude/a sign that service was bad.

Of course, most of us don't regularly eat in "good restaurants" - pretty much anything on the high street/your local shopping centre isn't, and anywhere you can get a meal for under £15 a head before drinks doesn't count as a "good restaurant", in my books.

I mean where you draw the line is up to you, but if there are three of you x £15, plus drinks lets say total of £64 , I would normally round it up to 70. By good restaurants I meant anything that isn't fast food (Subway, McDs). But perhaps I am not a typical customer, I don't know.

Often I go out to a restaurant with a friend and order fairly common food - totalling <£30 including drinks, and not making many demands of the staff. I don't think tipping someone to do the bare bones of their job is reasonable.

On the other hand, if I were to go with a reasonably sized group of people, had to get a table big enough for the lot of us, have people with dietary requirements or order cocktails or who otherwise make many demands of the staff... it's worth tipping as we're a pain in the ass, basically. And many restaurants automatically add a service charge in that case anyway.

Seems reasonable!

Sure, but you wouldn't leave a tip after getting a cup of tea at a wetherspoons, would you. I guess that's the UK equivalent of coffee at a diner.

Some places accept tips, and perhaps in some you should. The vast vast vast majority don't expect them as par for the course.

I have never heard of someone getting a cup of tea at spoons ;)

Ok, but I still think restaurant = tip expected. But hey, you are free to tip/not tip as you see fit.

In London I see this charge all over the place even for only two people... usually it's 10-12%.

Well, in restaurants now the tip's already on the bill, unless you want to make your entire group or date uncomfortable by "talking to the waiter about taking it off".

To be fair, I've only ever seen this in expensive restaurants.

Really? I rarely have dinner over 20 pounds a person (which isn't cheap, I get it, but for London prices it's also not expensive), and I haven't seen a bill without service charge added in months (excluding Whetherspoons). As soon as I don't manage to order at the register, and instead someone brings a menu, there will be a service charge.

There was one restaurant recently that didn't have one, and we almost freaked out about it.

Really? I've seen it in heaps of places in London - adding 12.5% "gratuity" is common at many places where you'd pay ~£15+ pp.

http://www.visitlondon.com/traveller-information/getting-aro...

"You can tip taxi drivers as much as you like, but most people round up to the nearest pound."

I normally round up or if I have called a minicab in real bad weather I might add an extra couple of pounds to a £7 ride to say 10

Always nice to tip. Not expected or required.

Uber, it's worth pointing out, does not currently allow for tipping either, I believe.

It does now

Didn't in Delhi yesterday

True, but not taken seriously by cab drivers. I've had many broken card machines in a black cab, and when challenged, it almost always lead to a, "alrite, get out mate" — or a, "well I can try if it works again, it didn't earlier..." I didn't report them, and with their ongoing nonsense and this now, I'll definitely make sure I will from here on forward.

I have the same experiences.

You absolutely 100% must report them. Seriously. Every time. It's the only way we make it better for everybody.

The requirement for it to always be available is a new one - it was introduced in recent months. So if your experience pre-date that, that behaviour may have changed.

If it hasn't you absolutely 100% need to report the driver to TfL.

Was after October last year, I should've reported and will do so now. It's a bit intimidating to take a photo of the license, but I guess it's easier when outside the cab. Which is, again, one more thing I like about Uber, I open the app, and it's all there. If a driver takes a wonky route, I complain and don't need to proof it much and get into an argument with the driver, the evidence is there, I merely deal with customer support, and I always get my money back.

> It's the only way we make it better for everybody.

Not true. Alternatively, you can have competition and consumer choice which can also make it better for everybody. Not everyone wants to be a squeaky wheel on these things, nor should they be forced to.

> It's the only way we make it better for everybody

All the reporting in the world didn’t help my black friend hail a yellow New York City taxi. You know what did ? Uber exerting competitive pressure on the Taxi & Limousine Commission and its drivers.

There is a much easier way to make things better for everyone.

The easier way is to use a service that doesn't suck, and let the services that DO suck go out of business.

I see cab drivers in my city have gone to the same cab driver school.

"You wanna pay £8 with card? Really?"

That's when I stopped using black cabs.

"Yes", or if they make a fuss, report them - you've got their license number on the plate right in front of you, and actual accountability rather than an unaccountable star-review system.

Yeah, except most people won't bother. So it gives in fact less accountability.

If this is a problem, write an app that emails/faxes/whatever a report to TfL? Could even integrate some CV stuff to read a license plate number from the phone's camera. This is the sort of thing that takes large organisations a while to build, but could be a weekend project for an interested developer.

Still would need to be popularised to actually give any benefit (i.e. similar levels of accountability for minor shittinies as uber's ratings). people are lazy. Rating an uber takes seconds, and is built in to same app you need to order it. I am guessing many people don't rate anyway. Also, making an app that that does this well is NOT a weekend sized project.

Especially because the fees have been lowered specifically for taxis, so fees from the approved payment providers top out at like 3%.

Why would I pay more money for a higher chance of getting into an argument with some asshole cab driver instead of using Uber, saving money, and avoiding the hassle entirely?

So on-point. Let markets figure it out.

All this central planning is annoying me a lot these days

Safe driver-hiring processes are a lemon market.

Had a terrible experience my first trip to London with black cabs. Headed to Heathrow express, late for flight as it is, He tells me 3/4 of the trip through, no cabs accept credit. We pull up to a stop light, and a cab directly to our left, has "we accept credit" on the window. So now I'm sitting here driving around with the cab guy to find an ATM at 5am just to pay him.

I've learned to always, ALWAYS ask when I first step into a cab whether they accept card payments, anywhere in the world. As far as I can remember, every time I've done this the answer has always been "yes" and the card payment worked without a hitch at the end of the ride. Yet just about every time I took a cab without asking about cards upfront, the driver would tell me his reader isn't working and he'd have to drive me to an ATM. Funny how conveniently finicky those readers are...

Many places (check in advance!) require the driver to be upfront if their card reader isn't working or you're not obligated to pay.

It's amazing how those finicky card readers miraculously start working when you say 'oh well, too bad I guess' and step out of the car!

That's a great strategy too if you know the law is on your side and are bold enough to pull it off. But I'm pretty non-confrontational (even when dealing with people I know are trying to cheat me) and when I take a cab I'm usually in an unfamiliar place where I didn't have the foresight to check on the cab regulations beforehand, so I'm going to stick with mine :)

In Berlin it's now illegal for them to transport passengers if their card reader is not operational.

Drivers have still pulled the ""my reader doesn't work" on friends.

I was half drunk / no sleep at the time. I probably did ask them, or just assumed like every other cab in the civilized world takes them. Anyhow, horrible.

Counterexample -- happened near London. I asked to the cab driver if he accepted card payments and he says no. I asked him if we could stop to an ATM machine on the way and he said no and had me leave the cab (it was raining and there was a huge queue to get a cab).

Fair point -- if cabs are in high demand / short supply (and/or you're in a hurry) my strategy might not be ideal.

>We have a perfectly healthy cab ecosystem in my city, app-driven and with fare competition and city regulation

Sure, but that doesn't exist in the majority of cities. The user experience is why I use Uber.

Uber's rhetoric doesn't seem appreciably different in London from elsewhere.

And yeah, I'm a Londoner, don't really feel the need for Uber to exist in my area.

In my city, especially as a disabled person, I've had vastly better experience with Uber than with regular cabs. Just being able to indicate precisely where to stop on a map is an incredible improvement for me over having to provide instructions to a cab driver who can't find the spot. Not having to deal with cash, drivers more willing to help etc. gives me a much better experience with an Uber.

London cabs can be hailed using apps and accept card payments, so Uber has no real advantage in those respects in London.

My concern is more about the precedent that this sets for other cities to follow suit.

I hailed a cab during the big tube strike a few years back. 60 GBP got me, not to the airport, but the DLR (automated trains; no drivers). We had to stop by an ATM since he didn't take cards. Uber had surge pricing at the time due to the strike, so I'm not really sure which one would have been worse.

Corporations are paying people to post on HN as well as reddit now adays??

This breaks the HN guidelines badly. Please read them and don't do this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In the UK Uber (and other private cab companies) keep being sued for not taking wheelchairs or dogs, or trying to charge extra for doing so.

Here's an interview with a woman who got uber drivers prosecuted: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0783lhl

Here's another article about the same woman: http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/19/blind-woman-repeatedly-turned-...

A different case: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-30523449

And another: http://metro.co.uk/2011/02/28/blind-yvonne-saint-john-guide-...

Uber is far from unique in refusing service dogs or wheelchairs. It seems the rules are more clearly explained to regulated taxis than they are to less regulated minicabs.

Here in Vilnius I feel the same. Uber was late to the game (which is weird as they have an engineering office here) so there were a number of other apps launched by local companies that worked with the existing taxi companies. They provided exactly the same service (mobile app where you can specify pickup and drop off locations, and card payment) as Uber, so when they finally launched it wasn’t a big deal.

It’s been two years since Uber launched and they still haven’t really taken off, mainly because they are a lot more expensive than the other apps and don’t have as many cars. Although Uber’s cars are a bit nicer (executive car vs 10yo Prius), people here are cost sensitive so that isn’t really a selling point.

> The user experience is why I use Uber.

User experience is why I avoid Uber. I've only used ride hailing services at airports, and Uber drivers tended to be very aggressive on the roads compared to Lyft or regular cab drivers. I had one driver miss an exit on a freeway, and then proceed to REVERSE on the freeway to get back to the exit. That about sealed it for me with Uber.

Yes, I hate that about Uber and Lyft drivers but I don't blame the company for it. It's the passengers. They could rate these aggressive drivers one star. It will correct driver behavior.

Uber has a maximum driver count in most cities. In many places if you get below a 5 from multiple riders, you get cut. In Seattle, this meant a lot of them switched to Lyft exclusively after Uber dropped them. Lyft drivers in Seattle were terrible. One didn't stop for an ambulance. Another cut off several cars in an intersection.

I still prefer Lyft and haven't had big problems in other cities. But it's worth mentioning.

UK doesn't have Lyft. I'm sure if we did it would be similar. I tried out Lyft in Miami. Was good.

"healthy cab ecosystem"? Have you lived in outer London? If you're out as far as one of the houses outside Brixton, the cab system isn't even in existence, let alone healthy.

That comment was about the city I live in now, Southampton, where we have multiple cab firms with reasonable prices and reasonable apps.

That said I used to live in Streatham in the mid 00s, and sure, the transport situation wasn't great. There was choice back then, but between terrible or worse.

In what part of London aren't there multiple cab firms operating locally? Certainly not "as far out" as Zone 2, where I've caught a cab from dozens of times, and that's not even thinking about firms like Addison Lee that operate across London.

I live in Croydon, zone 5, much further out than Brixton, and have no problem relying on black cabs several times a week, on top of at least half a dozen minicab companies.

> I don't want to give any business to a company that are seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly

Do you buy from Amazon? Essentially the same thing, and I for one use it regularly. Like you, I worried for a while about a monopoly, but I think capitalism will pan out.

Amazon and any other online retailer that can successfully provide massive selection, good product review system, and reliable and fast home delivery will drive a change in the landscape of retail locally. This will eventually lead to smaller local physical stores through agreements with those retailers where the most popular items are stocked.

(The exception for the short-term will be supermarkets. And you've already seen the attempts at transformation; many generic retailers are half-grocery store now. That's what they will become in full, if they survive. But, home delivery will take that over also, eventually.)

Uber had poor decisions made, but along with Lyft in the US, Mytaxi in the UK, etc.- these are the "early Amazons" of the transportation business. The old method that Taxi services use is no longer relevant now that anyone can find directions easily. London is somewhat unique in that some of its cab drivers are known worldwide as those that have incredible memories, and that's great, but they are the typewriters of the future- used by some, but not by most. All of the dispatch and directions have been automated.

This decision has officially nothing to do with tax evasion/optimization. It is on grounds of consumer protection that Uber's licence is not being renewed.

Anyone who has taken a black cab should immediately understand the hypocrisy motivating this decision. The user experience is absolutely horrendous and there's no good tracking system to make black cab drivers accountable. In short, as everyone knows, it is just another artificial monopoly enshrined into law by regulators.

A good thing is that same regulators are losing lots of credibility. For decades they could pretend they were acting on basis of consumer protection. Now it is clear they aren't. People love Uber (not necessarily applies in the US anymore) because the experience is amazing at decent prices. Even in a city with a high density public transportation system like Paris, you are always happy to have that option in case it is past 1:00am or you're in a hurry.

I didn't mention taxes, but it seems to be explicitly about non-cooperation in criminal matters, workers rights and all sorts of other areas.

Black cabs are far from a monopoly, and Uber are far from the only alternative.

> ...it seems to be explicitly about...

The BBC article is a bit light on details. Do you have a link where I can read the detailed license revocation reasons so I can make my own judgement?

Check out the rest of the thread, onion2k gave a few

I saw those links, and can Google others as well when searching for Uber wrongdoing. I want their details, not a commenters.

I saw the Tfl's statement which only had four abstract bullet points. What did they ask about Greyball and what was answered? Which unreported crimes and were there cover-up attempts by the company?

In general, one might expect a level of detailed transparency in these rulings lest it's seen as a foregone conclusion retroactively finding reasons. Is there a commission report I can read or a committee hearing I can watch?

I presume it's available somewhere, if one looks hard enough. london.gov.uk has a lot of detailed info, including minutes of transport committee meetings, various FOI requests (including an Uber one from earlier in the year - https://www.london.gov.uk/foi-disclosure-log/foi-uber-meetin... )

If there isn't enough already published then you could consider submitting an FOI yourself.

--edit-- This may be interesting and has various links to rulings by the London Assembly, and other bits and pieces:

https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/chair-of-t...

Thanks! Digging now, but only finding a couple-statement motion and some congestion info by uber and separately by inrix.

If anyone has a link to the actual investigation/details, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll keep digging and if I find it I'll post it.

Please do, I would be interested to have a look too!

I'm sorry but you will have to do more to explain your point on black cab user experience being horrendous. Whilst it can be hard to get a hold of one at times, in my experience of 20 years of using them, the user experience is great - the drivers are typically friendly and get you there as quickly as they can. I have used Uber many times in London and abandoned it months ago, as the drivers don't have the local knowledge required to quickly move across what is a very busy city. SatNav isn't everything - give me driver experience every single time.

uber is pretty much useless in zone 1 since the roads are too narrow and the traffic too extreme. you could literally take a leisurely walk from the british museum down to leicester square garden faster than a minicab. black cabs have the benefit of being allowed to travel on bus lanes and that makes all the difference in central London.

that said, black cabs get more and more unreliable the further away from central London you are.

As someone who grew up in zone 4 and has lived for 18 years in zone 6, I don't recognise the last point here at all.

I've only taken a London cab a handful of times, but I never had a bad experience. I don't think I've had a bad experience with Uber drivers either...maybe one or two weird conversations .. same with Lyft drivers.

I just want to know if Uber drivers can average the same income as cabbies working the same hours. In New Zealand, several Uber drivers use to be cabbies and switched from Wellington Combined because they earned more money with Uber. That was years ago and I'm curious if that's still the case or if those drivers have switched back. In Berlin, the Uber app hails a regular taxi driver that's under standard taxi regulations from the city, so there it's more just a billing system.

Everywhere else I've taken Lyft/Uber, the drivers never started out in taxis. It's turning the taxi industry into a "gig economy" I realize a lot of people got their start in new cities as taxi drivers; immigrants from generations back. Things are changing. It's not good or bad, just different.

The biggest concern is Uber as a company. Most of the rides I've mentioned I've taken with others. I prefer public transport when possible, Lyft when I have to. For a while on HN, ever week was another post: Greyball, the Hell map, the two harassment blog posts, anti-union efforts against drivers, hiring Eric Holder for damage control, the continuing Google/Waymo self driving tech court case, etc.

Are there any recent posts on how much drivers earn? I've heard it's going down each year. Is it worth it to lose an entire career path for some people for cheaper rides?

> I just want to know if Uber drivers can average the same income as cabbies working the same hours.

I have no data, but my prior based on conversations in London is "no way". Uber pays similarly to minicabs --- minimum wage-ish when car maintenance is accounted for. Pre-Uber, I heard cabbies made £40k-£60k pretty steadily.

£50k is more than 90% of the country, its no wonder they hate the competiton.

(I suspect they make £60k but they don't declare anywhere near that)

I've had black cab drivers insist that I can't use my card, and that I must get out.

I've had cab drivers refuse to drive me to certain parts of London because it's inconvenient for them.

They are also really expensive.

Pretty much this, and I have only crossed the channel a handful times to visit friends. Same experience in France when trying out legacy taxis, they are supposed to take cards, they display it on their car, yet, some will refuse it and cause trouble if you try using it.

Basically, it comes down to lack of serious customer support and accountability system. Setting new rules from top to bottom in a legacy industry that has decades of industry malpractice under its belt cannot be effective if you aren't able to enforce those rules.

> I've had black cab drivers insist that I can't use my card, and that I must get out. > I've had cab drivers refuse to drive me to certain parts of London because it's inconvenient for them.

Report them, by taxi license number (displayed on a plate in the passenger area). Both those things are rare and taken seriously, but the authorities can't do anything if they aren't told.

Defiantly not rare. And I don't want to spend my evening complaining to tfl.

Then just accept the fact you’re part of the problem. If everyone was like you and only in it for themselves, quality service would be rare, if not ever.

I'm PAYING money in order to get a service to reduce the stress in my life.

I'm not paying money to increase it.

I improve services by voting with my wallet, which black cabs are trying to take away from the consumer.

While the cabbies do hate Uber, I'm not sure you can blame the current moves entirely on them, there's quite a lot more to it than that.

Everybody knows the blackcabs have been lobbying tfl and major for a long time.

Sure, but I don't think you can really blame the black cabs for the ban, there's a lot of substance to the complaints.

No. Switching to a different provider is an excellent response to poor service. And one that definitely incentivizes improvement.

LOL! How about instead of doing that, everyone just uses a service that doesn't suck?

A customer should not HAVE to report people for this shit. It should just work. And if it doesn't, then I am using a different service.

Black Cabs in London are wonderful, except:

1. When you need one at about 10pm in the City, and stand on the street corner for ages watching dozens of them go by with their lights off and no passengers.

2. When you are less than 1/2 a mile north of the Thames, and the cabbie refuses the ride because he 'doesn't go south of the river, mate'

3. Same as #2 but 'doesn't go north of the river, mate'

4. Same as #2 and #3 but for inside/outside the north/south circular ringroad.

5. Deliberately ignoring your route request, and then snarles the cab up in non-moving traffic all while the meter is still running (Black Cabs charge by time, not distance).

In nearly 20 years of relying extensively on black cabs as I don't have a drivers license, I've never experienced a single one of the above.

Sounds like you're exceptionally unlucky.

Let me guess: you're white, male, in your 30s+, and usually in a suit when calling a cab?

Rarely in a suit. The rest, yes, but the same also applies to my black ex, who incidentally also uses taxis far more than me. No doubt there's plenty of racism in the UK, but of all the places she's complained about racist behavior, black cabs has never been of them. Maybe we've just been lucky. Or maybe you've been extremely unlucky.

I think the TfL night bus service is a game changer for a lot of people, you may be waiting for 20 minutes for a connect to what would be zone 5+ but the personal security aspect is pretty good and there are no 'South of the river' games played by bus drivers. I like being under CCTV for my journey when on the night bus.

For me it is not 'let's grab an Uber', it is 'drat, missed the last train, where and when do I get the night bus?'

Because traffic is considerably lighter at night the bus goes at a good speed and during the day the bus has its own lane, one which Uber can't be in.

I appreciate that if you have some very important clients arriving then you want to book them a cab, plus there are plenty of other reasons to get a cab, however, TfL is putting together a transport system for everyone, not just people stuck in their apps.

> (Black Cabs charge by time, not distance).

that's incomplete.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares/tarif...

> The meter automatically adds a charge based on time for any part of a taxi journey when the speed drops below 10.4mph.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/taxis-and-minicabs/taxi-fares

I've had the second (refused to be driven) from Uber drivers in London before, except couched in silly excuses like "there are roadworks, it's not possible", and to add insult to injury, marking the ride as complete so I get charged anyway. TBF Uber were extremely prompt about refunding it.

The last point I won't disagree with; Uber is definitely cheaper, qualitatively so, such that you'd consider it for trips that you'd never take a black cab for.

I've been turned away by a black cab driver because they didn't want to go where I wanted to go.

Yes, during the rush hours they are faster than ubers (mostly because they have priviledged access to bus lanes etc). But catching a black cab at night is almost impossible.

Also some of my friends regularly get ignored by black cabs when they try to hail it.

Black cabs need to be kicked out of bus lanes. They should be for mass transport of people, not chauffeuring businessmen from Euston to Canary Wharf quickly.

> Which I suppose is why Uber, though present, hasn't really taken off here.

This is very far from my understanding, most people I know use Uber quite regularly.

Note that I said in my city.

I know nobody that uses them in Southampton, though they are here.

Sorry, I had misunderstood and thought you were talking about London.

Fair point.

The TFL press release summarises the points on why the licence is not being renewed - https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/septem...

  TfL considers that Uber's approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications. These include:

  Its approach to reporting serious criminal offences.
  Its approach to how medical certificates are obtained.
  Its approach to how Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are obtained.
  Its approach to explaining the use of Greyball in London - software that could be used to block regulatory bodies from gaining full access to the app and prevent officials from undertaking regulatory or law enforcement duties.

I'm quite certain that the last one is the important point. All the others can easily be fixed. But that the company had a program to avoid regulation should be enough to ban it. Unless they do a full code audit, there's no way to know if they still use these techniques.

Interestingly they claimed that technology is to defend themselves against fraudulent activity (fake accounts, competitors, sting operations).

From what I understand, it works by marking accounts as fake (using credit card lookups etc) and then showing them fake cars that never pick them up.

Imagine being falsely flagged by that system and just always having a terrible time getting a cab and not knowing why!

Can you quote with ">" instead? We can't read your comment fully.

EDIT: Here is the quote:

> TfL considers that Uber's approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications. These include:

> Its approach to reporting serious criminal offences.

> Its approach to how medical certificates are obtained.

> Its approach to how Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are obtained.

> Its approach to explaining the use of Greyball in London - software that could be used to block regulatory bodies from gaining full access to the app and prevent officials from undertaking regulatory or law enforcement duties.

Londoner here.

The license is not being renewed not because TfL isn't interested in innovation (they actively encourage it), not to retain power for the black cab drivers, and not because London isn't interested in companies like Uber operating here.

It's because of the rapes.

The Metropolitan Police (the part of the UK police force that polices London), has objected to their license.

In 2015 alone, they had to deal with 32 cases of Uber drivers raping or sexually assaulting lone female passengers.

In the entire history of the hackney carriage (black cab) license - going back to 1662 - I know of only one case of a driver having been prosecuted for rape, about 5 years ago.

Uber is not reporting crimes, not co-operating with the police when they are reported, is not doing suitable background checks on criminality or medical suitability for being a private hire driver on its "workforce", and there is suspicion that they are both price gouging and specifically trying to go around the private hire regulations they claim to support.

Also from the TfL statement:

> 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.

That means they're not shutting up shop soon, they can appeal in the next 8 days, then continue to operate until the appeals process is over.

That means if they start dealing with driver checks, crime reports and regulations properly within the time frame of the appeals process (which can be years), they'll be allowed to continue to operate.

As a Londoner, I'm OK with that. If they aren't interested in conducting criminal record checks, medical checks, making sure my gf is safe when travelling alone, etc. I don't want them in my city.

If the regulators bring about these changes, they are doing their job and I'm happy for them to scare the holy fuck out of Uber and their management team in the process to make that happen.

In the meantime, other operators have upped their game a lot in recent years whilst Uber has been operating. Addison Lee (one of the larger private hire firms) has an app almost as good as Uber's, with fixed cost pricing.

We will not miss Uber if they go, they are going to need to show that they are worthy of being a part of the diverse and amazing London community if they wish to remain.

Absolutely! If they can reform, great. If not, well they've certainly forced the hands of other operators to modernise and offer a better service, but that's no excuse for the rest.

(ex Londoner who still visits once in a while...)

Well, this is probably not the best point to base an argument on:

"In the entire history of the hackney carriage (black cab) license - going back to 1662 - I know of only one case of a driver having been prosecuted for rape, about 5 years ago."

Anecdotal, and also, "prosecuted" describes a very certain slice of the data.

The following link extends into other companies and crimes, but it hopefully adds to your anecdotal comment a bit.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/over-400-london-cab-dr...

Those numbers include uber drivers, minicab drivers AND black cab drivers all lumped into one - they are people who described their occupation as "taxi driver" or some derivative.

It is fair to say that regulation in London has generally tended towards safer experiences for all.

I was in a car the other day where the driver bemoaned the paperwork. He came to London in the 1980s without knowing English and bought a car for £200 that had six months MOT left on it and would likely be scrapped at that point, and was operating as a driver the next day.

Now cars can't be older than 10 years, are MOT'ed every 6 months, the drivers are all having to do English proficiency tests for safety reasons, and as a result the whole system is better and safer.

Uber is actively trying to skirt around regulations, and is - in the eyes of the London police - not doing enough to protect women from sexual assault and rape compared to other operators, including other private hire and black cab operators.

They are undoubtedly doing so because of their data and experiences relating specifically to Uber as an operator, and not because they don't like Uber.

As such, Uber should be forced to respond by either amending, or ceasing operations. The regulator is doing their job.

And we need to be clear here: the number one reason the Police and TfL are giving are that you are far more likely to be raped by an Uber driver than you are a driver for another firm or black cab driver - if that were not the case, they'd be suspending licenses elsewhere too/instead.

"I was in a car the other day where the driver bemoaned the paperwork." ... again, I was in a black cab a while back, and the guy parked between the two lanes in the middle of the road, then ran off to pee in a nearby hotel. On his way out, he just said, "if somebody stops, just say it was an emergency" — same guy also didn't want to accept credit card as the ride was under 20 pounds, and "he stopped the meter a few minutes early to make up for his brief pee-stop."

Anecdotal (mine is also 100% true, I am not kidding).

I am with you, on the fact that Uber needs to get their shit together, 100%, absolutely right.

But the number 32 is a tricky one — it's rape allegations (while clearly 32 too many, and I am really, really not saying this is not bad) — 32 allegations, not drivers. John Worboys (black cab, prosecuted), targeted 14 women alone, with police estimating 102 cases total, David Perry (prosecuted, 2 cases), etc.

"The regulator is doing their job." — YES! "Uber should be forced to respond by either amending, or ceasing operations" - YES!

"Those numbers include uber drivers, minicab drivers AND black cab drivers all lumped into one" - YES!

"The number one reason the Police and TfL are giving are that you are far more likely to be raped by an Uber driver than you are a driver for another firm or black cab driver" - NO.

Some anecdata related to this – discussing with colleagues today, one mentioned that she had got into an Uber where the driver was clearly not the person registered with Uber, and the car was not the one she was told would pick her up. She mentioned another case she knew of where a driver was sharing the Uber registration with his cousin to earn more money.

This sort of activity severely impacts the safety and security of passengers, and makes Uber's job of helping the police that much more difficult as well. As far as I can tell, Uber doesn't care about these practices, or turns a blind eye to them.

Surely when a car arrives with a different licence plate and a different driver, you don't get in? Moreover, you report the driver?

I'm not strictly pro-Uber but in any system there will be people who try to break the rules.

I would gladly wait another 20 minutes, and warn the driver of calling the police (were they to harass me) to get another Uber. Even fronting the £7 cancellation or w/e is worth it to me for the peace of mind to not have to deal with something shady like that.

I would under normal circumstances, but if you're alone/in a place you don't know/drunk/woman/at 2am, or even all of those, that's a tough decision on whether it's safer to get in or stay out, and we're socially conditioned to not question these sorts of situations as much as we probably should.

Unless you called a cab to escape a particularly dangerous situation, I can't imagine it ever being a good idea getting into a car with a different driver and registration. You're not getting into a taxi, you're getting into a stranger's car.

Don’t underestimate how hard it is to say “no”.

same thing happens in cabs though all the time.

I'm not sure that's true. Black cabs are highly regulated and others in the comments have written about very low numbers of rapes/etc from black cab drivers. As for private taxi companies, they are subject to the same regulations as Uber, and I'd imagine most have their licences renewed or not for the same reasons.

> If the regulators bring about these changes, they are doing their job and I'm happy for them to scare the holy fuck out of Uber and their management team in the process to make that happen..

Not a Londoner, but this was similar to my take on it. This feels like a ceremonial ban designed to wake Uber up and force them to lift their corporate behavior standards. TFL would have known that a multi-year appeal process was almost guaranteed, so it's an easy way to put Uber on notice while also gauging public sentiment towards them during that process.

> In the entire history of the hackney carriage (black cab) license - going back to 1662 - I know of only one case of a driver having been prosecuted for rape, about 5 years ago.

That's absolute bollocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys

Is it possible that that's the case PaulRobinson was referring to? A few years earlier than he thinks but it's plausable no?

Possibly, but as mattlondon's sibling comment alludes to, the statement of a single rape prosecution in more than 300 years is still a long way from the truth.

Yet no-one's managed to come up with evidence of it being false. Perhaps less knee jerk "I can't believe that!" and more checking facts before discounting comments

Someone else gave that link: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/over-400-london-cab-dr...

Over 400 that same year he quoted.

That's crimes though, not rape prosecutions, which is different to the original posters claim.

Im suspicious of your base data. Uber's are not anonymous, and although it might give a broader access to the service for criminals, its not less able to turn information over, if not more. Argentina has an issue with taxicabs picking girls out of night clubs and sexually assaulting them, but there is no record of which cab it was, so the criminals are never found. That would not happen with UBer (without finding the criminal, that is).

It's not my base data.

It's the Met Police force who have intervened and given their reasons why.

> In the entire history of the hackney carriage (black cab) license - going back to 1662 - I know of only one case of a driver having been prosecuted for rape, about 5 years ago.

Pardon?

John Warboys - a registered black cab driver - was convicted of 12 rapes in 2009, and was thought to have carried out over 100. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys

David perry - a registered black cab driver - was convicted of 2 rapes in 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32118391

Edward Chapman - a registered black cab driver - was convicted of rape in 2012. http://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/crime-court/black-cabb...

Musie Asgodom - a registered black cab driver in Sheffield (not all black cabs are in London) - was convicted of 2 rapes in 2012 and failed to overturn his conviction. http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/rapist-sheffield-cab-driver-fa...

I could go on but those were the first 3 or 4 links I found, and even those are in the past 5-8 years.

I dont see how some background checks are going to prevent people from raping someone if the opportunity presents itself. Rapists are rapists regardless of what license they have been given by filling in some forms.

Presumably a background check might catch priors?

Except that in UK approx 95% of such offences are carried out be people with no prior convictions - so you don't weed out that many attackers this way.

If that 95% assumes that people undergo background checks, my assumption is that number might decrease.

I'm not certain that crime is one where the perps are logically weighing the pros and cons.

95% is sexual crimes in UK in general.

Another example of how lazy people who don't want to do research are easily persuaded by the propaganda.

Yeah, I felt it is pretty weird when the OP claimed that Black Cabs don't rape women (I don't mean the car itself)

What would be a useful metric is: Rape per capita for Uber and Black Cabs. I'm too lazy to search for that, but if someone comes up with the data, he'll have a stronger argument.

OK, you 4, the most recent was in 2012.

Uber has one every 11 days on average in London.

And - and I can't stress this enough - they were all caught and prosecuted. The Met Police are saying Uber is making that harder, even allowing drivers to return to driving after they've been charged with an offence.

Can you see the differences and understand why a police force might decide that this operator in particular is a problem?

I would deeply miss them if Uber went away. Speak for yourself. I prefer not to overpay black cab drivers with consistently bad, racist attitudes. I think in a fair world the taxi drivers should be available for those that want them (like Mercedes Benz Uber Black options).

If Uber is only going to be available in a model where your female family, friends and colleagues are at increased risk of being raped, are you OK with that?

While I don't particularly feel good about the business model and lack of employee rights etc, one thing I prefer Uber for over Black Cabs is the pollution.

Many Ubers are Toyota Purises. Black cabs have 2.7L Diesel engines which contribute to London's terrible air quality.

Especially as I often see black cabs without passengers driving around - not sure if the're looking for rides or not, but there is no reason for an Uber driver do be doing the same - I see them waiting with the engine off.

Priuses can't take wheelchairs, have a wider turning circle and have other drawbacks that make them unsuitable for black cab workloads.

That said, the UK is committed to eradicating all petrol and diesel cars over the next 22 years, and the black cab drivers are looking at what you're talking about: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/11/black-cab-t...

Yes, from 1 Jan 2018 all new registered taxis are required to be all-electric or petrol-electric hybrids. There's going to be a £5k grant for taxis over 10 years old (note there is a maximum age of 15 years that has long been in force), which will hopefully push the oldest third of taxis to get replaced more quickly than normally.

I don't understand why Uber can't get their shit together. In the US they have competition from Lyft and I can almost understand why they have to push the boundaries. In London they have very little competition and therefore don't need to engage is controversial business practices. Personally I don't see what my alternative will be if their service ceases, they have that little competition.

Although I am kind of annoyed at the decision it's understandable. I hope with Kalanick out Uber will quickly become a better corporate citizen and get this license renewed.

NB: I'm aware of black cabs, Hailo, etc. but none of these are as convenient or cost effective as Uber. I can see the night tube getting a lot more use but I know quite a few people who don't like to take it after having more than a few drinks for safety reasons.

What's Lyft like here in London? I just downloaded it, much use?

AFAIK it isn't available in London.[1]

[1] https://www.lyft.com/cities

It's not available in the UK at all.

Lyft is US only

There's MyTaxi, Gett and Addison Lee has an app. I used to use Hailo before it became MyTaxi. It's certainly not as cost-effective but what I did like were the flat-rate rides you could get. They weren't black cabs, but more like Uber Luxes or Uber Execs and probably 20% cheaper than black cabs.

With Uber gone, I'm sure the market would provide something else.

And Kabbee which just unifies all car hires.

In London Uber was the cheapest for short drives < 15-20 min for pretty much everything beyond that the reverse bid system or Kabbee provided cheaper fares.

Thanks, I hadn't heard of that firm.

Looks like I might be needing it.

Correct me if I'm wrong here: MyTaxi and Gett are solely for black cabs? This makes them a lot more expensive than private hire. Their UX is also slightly behind Uber's offering.

Addison Lee are also overpriced, and are not a company I'm willing to support due to their director's comments about cyclists and public transport.

One service you haven't mentioned here is Green Tomato, which have a tolerable app, but seem to have so few cars on the road that the wait time for a car is often a lot higher than Uber. Potentially this could be an opportunity for them if Uber truly do disappear from London.

Addison Lee also tend to seemingly employ many drivers who drive as if they're doing their best to kill you, themselves, and any cyclists or unwary pedestrians around them. Worse still, this activity is actively encouraged by Addison Lee's own corporate policy

I don't know about now but Hailo (now MyTaxi) certainly used to do regular cars as well as black cabs. You could book them ahead of time and they were quite a good service.

In the early days they were a lot better than Uber, which was quite unreliable in London at the time. At the time I was working late on a startup and I could be there after the last tube had gone so I just expensed a cab home.

> Correct me if I'm wrong here: MyTaxi and Gett are solely for black cabs? This makes them a lot more expensive than private hire. Their UX is also slightly behind Uber's offering.

Gett IME charges less than the normal metered rates.

To be honest, few people here in London bother with taxis. Public transport is very good, can be faster than sitting in traffic, and is cheaper. Most folks ordering taxis either don't know where they are going, missed the last train or are wealthy enough to not care about the cost. Uber literally made no impact on the quality if life to your average Londoner and won't be missed.

This seems rather subjective?

Anecdotally, many of my friends and colleagues use Uber frequently, especially at night.

Anecdotally, my friends do as well.

I used to take public transport but at the end of a night out, a cab is a lot nicer so long as it's within my price comfort point.

A black cab isn't really in that comfort zone for me.

Pre-uber I'd take the night bus, as I'm not paying £50 or £60 for a black cab from town to my home. Post uber that same journey is now less than £25 and well worth paying for to avoid the occasional horrors on the night bus.

I could not disagree more - often times, especially if travelling with multiple people it is far more convenient, comfortable and can even be more affordable than taking public transport. While I agree that London has great public transport, Uber has been a game changer for myself and many people I know.

>"While I agree that London has great public transport"

This must be a different London from the one I was in ten years ago.

No, same London as it was ten years ago. You just have no idea what you are talking about.

Lived here all my life, no idea what you mean, it's always been great, and even when it was run-down it was still better than nearly all other cities at the time.

Thats the problem. You never experienced anywhere better. I mean they only recently got an underground that operates past midnight. Barcelona has had that for years, its way cheaper than London, and no one here seems to think it is anything special.

What about London public transport do you think isn't great? Compared to anywhere else in the country, it's leaps and bounds ahead.

Why limit comparisons to the same country? Britain claims to be one of the richest most developed nations in the world.

Well—aside from the fact that London's public transport was pretty good ten years ago—it's not the same, no. There have been substantial improvements in the past 10 years, including the expansion of the Overground service, new rolling stock all over the place, capacity improvements, some 24-hour running at weekends, clawback of TfL Rail, system-wide contactless card support, improved bus services, the imminent arrival of Crossrail…

So yes, it's different.

It was shit then. I experienced it.

>> Uber literally made no impact on the quality if life to your average Londoner and won't be missed.

As a Londoner I dispute that claim. It's made a huge difference for a lot of people. Until the night tube's arrival last year getting home from late nights out was expensive, difficult, or impossible. It's quite useful when moving flat - something younger Londoners tend to do quite a lot. I had to go somewhere with some heavy equipment last week and if it weren't for Uber I would have spent a fortune on taxi's. When I was ill for several months which prevented me taking the tube I used Uber to get to/from work. It was expensive but affordable. Taxi's would have been too expensive and I would have been screwed.

Finally - I received half a dozen messages from friends within minutes of the news being announced. Looks like it will be missed.

When you say Taxi are you specifically referring to Black Cabs? Pre-booked radio Cabs are reasonably priced, perfect for moving (it's what people used before Uber and still use today) and for regular scheduled trips like going to work.

For late night trips, Uber was very handy for that short window of time before the night tube. It still has some use when you can fill the car and get the per-person price down but unless it's very late you'll just sit in traffic.

In conclusion, life will go on.

I read what many Londoners say about Uber like they never heard about Addison Lee cabs, which existed years before, offer a nice app, professional drivers and fixed tariffs. Last time I checked, tariffs were about 20% higher than Uber. But depending on congestion, could end up cheaper. Most of my friends were praising Uber, but I was warning them that their prices are unsustainable and slightly higher easy-to-hail cab services with apps have been for years on the market largely unnoticed by hipsters ;-)

AL charge a fortune for airport runs last I checked. Central London to LHR via uber-x is 30 quid or so.

But there are fast and frequent train services that cost less than that, so it doesn't make a huge difference whether or not Uber is an option for that route.

All of which are completely unsuited to use with luggage, and/or require you to first get to Paddington station.

So get the AL to Paddington then get on the Heathrow Express. The Heathrow Express has never been very crowded in my experience, and has at least as much room for luggage as a cab does.

I always thought AL required pre-booking. Can I get a car to my door/where ever I'm standing in 3-5 minutes?

Sure you can. Nearest car is shown on the map and in my experience there was always something very close. Just choose "NOW" and it'll get booked. Besides, comparing pre-booking, it's done properly with AL, because it sends you a confirmation right away after driver accepts. With Uber the system would simply "schedule" your booking for the time specified and then fire request up as usual. Which means you're at a mercy of nearby driver's acceptance. And you have a false expectations that the pre-booking is more timely assured.

Agree with the first part of your comment, as it relates to black cabs. Only wealthy or hapless Londoners use them. Otherwise they’re just a tourist attraction.

Strongly disagree with the latter part.

My impression was that Uber, through price and convenience, created significant demand for Private Hire travel in London where it didn’t previously exist.

> My impression was that Uber, through price and convenience, created significant demand for Private Hire travel in London where it didn’t previously exist.

That may or may not actually be positive.

Granted, although for consumers it’s rarely a bad thing to have more transport options.

Consider those who, in the absence of Uber, would rather drink drive home after a night out than pay the extortionate fares for a black cab.

I don’t mind a bit of extra traffic if a few more of those types are kept off the roads.

Is that really a problem in London, of all places? I've never been but it doesn't seem like driving to bars would even be a temptation.

I don’t think it’s necessarily something people plan, but it certainly happens, especially in the more car-centric outskirts.

Sure, if you live in Zone 2, or live near a tube station and are travelling radially.

If you live further out, getting home at night can be a multi-bus, multi-hour affair. And if you're not going in or out of zone 1, the odds of their being a convenient bus route is slim, and again, diminishes the further out you get.

Public transport isn't great - often cramped and with delays. It's expensive - if anything involves bus then tube then for two people Uber Pool is often cheaper. Uber is often faster, and it's widely used and supports a massive amount of employment.

Most people don't order taxis much daily true, but they do widely order Ubers because there's a massive price difference. And on nights out, taxis are often used because until recently we had no night tubes and now we only have a few lines and only on weekends.

I don't want to flame but this post is so wrong it makes me wonder if you're living in a different London.

uberX from East London to Heathrow is £45-60.

The equivalent adult single fair is £5.10 or £3.10 offpeak.

> this post is so wrong it makes me wonder if you're living in a different London.

My thoughts exactly

Yeah if you cherry pick a long journey that's possible to do in one go on the tube you can obviously find situations where public transport is cheaper. Most of the time it is. But there also exist journeys for which Uber is faster and cheaper, especially with two or more people, and especially at night.

Or journeys where Uber is marginally more expensive but people are willing to pay £1 for convenience.

I'm not sure what we're arguing about, the fact that it's 40k drivers and the everybody's phones just received several messages about it proves that there's demand.

Did you read the comment you replied to?

It specifically says that people who miss the last train get cabs. So yeah, you've not really disputed anything they said. You like to get Uber? That's nice for you. I just use my local minicab company as they're almost as cheap and way more reliable. The price difference is only massive if you're silly enough to ask a black cab to take you 20 miles. Otherwise it's not really that much, nevermind "massive".

Also, if you're spending lots on public transport, just get a damn travel card. Transport's only expensive for tourists buying each on every journey. Londoners know how to keep their costs down, which makes me wonder if you're a tourist or business traveller who doesn't actually live here.

I live here, on a pretty much average London income, from zones 1 to 3 and have for ten years. I cycle so I don't have a travel card. The general point of the post above was that London doesn't want/need Uber, which just isn't true. The point about us having a great public transport system also isn't true, Londoners infamously hate the tube. It didn't get to support 40k drivers from novelty value.

Basically I _am_ your average Londoner, by income etc, and Uber has made my life better. And it's not because I'm rich or stupid. The post I replied to was just too heavily biased against Uber to see the obvious utility for a lot of Londoners.

Last time I was in the UK I tried Gett, and at least for the few rides I used it for it worked perfectly fine. Even at 2am.

Where does the cost saving vs black cabs come from? Is it from drivers working for less mostly (I have seen example calculations that claim that)?

Then the fundamental innovation of Uber is not to make things more efficient but to eliminate labor laws, workers safe guards and unions.

In my books, your convenience is not really a good argument for getting rid of those.

I think you've missed my point. I agree with Uber losing their license. They need to be a better corporate citizen. I think they can do that and still offer a lot of benefits.

Unions aren't a good way to set prices. Wages in each industry shouldn't be set by how hard it is to unionize them and how well they capture regulators to ban competition. We need to find a better way.

Noone in London sheds a tear for black cab drivers, Uber just exposed the extent of their price fixing racket.

The innovation in making it much much faster and easier to hail a cab.

> none of these are as convenient or cost effective as Uber.

I disagree, and let me tell you why:

https://i.imgur.com/JITqdiP.png

I have blocked out the location of my home and the identity of my "driver", but this guy shouldn't be driving, let alone driving a passenger. I'm never riding Uber again.

> I can see the night tube getting a lot more use but I know quite a few people who don't like to take it after having more than a few drinks for safety reasons.

If you're too drunk to ride the drunk train/bus, there are cheap hotels all over London. Getting in a stranger's car who might not know how to drive (as I've noted), or worse (see below), is a terrible idea.

* http://nypost.com/2017/08/18/uber-driver-accused-of-raping-w...

* http://q13fox.com/2017/09/21/woman-accuses-uber-driver-of-ra...

* http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4815554/Uber-driver-...

* https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4251165/uber-driver-caught-bra...

I am not 100% sure what I am looking at in that pic...

Does it show that he took a massive detour (presumably to extract more money from you)?

That's how I read it.

The guy took the wrong exit twice. It's less likely to be malicious than accidental. Uber will refund you your money but you lose the time. Either way, hardly an argument to get a hotel.

This has happened to me before. I wrote to Uber's support and they recalculated the correct route and refunded me the difference. Did you try that?

This sort of thing happens with black cabs outside airports from time to time but with Uber you at least have some sort of way of getting your money back.

Me too. Literally a one line complaint and a refund in a few hours.

And here too. And the Uber driver was actually carved up by a truck trying to get off the motorway and had to drive past the junction.

Try getting money out of a black cab.

I filed my complaint with Uber support while I was standing in line at airport security, and I had a refund before I got through the metal detector. It's also worth emphasizing that the rider only even knows about these shenanigans when there's a GPS map of the ride; if a normal taxi takes a circuitous route when it's dark or you're in an unfamiliar area, you just never find out.

Exactly that. Try to get a refund if a black cab rips you off. No chance for that.

But to be fair, this works for all app based cabs. If uber is replaced by some competitor, there's no reason for people to miss uber.

> I wrote to Uber's support and they recalculated the correct route and refunded me the difference. Did you try that?

Yes. I pressed the contact button and had to type in a great deal. I never saw any refund, but I don't care about the money: I want my time back, and the best I can do is simply not give Uber any more of my time.

> This sort of thing happens with black cabs outside airports from time to time

Addison Lee has been extremely reliable, and since it's fixed-fee the driver is motivated to get you home quickly.

1. Your example of a bad trip is extreme. It's clearly awful but out of probably close to 100 trips I've had one where the driver took a bad route (he ignored GPS and got stuck in rush hour traffic in a tunnel). I contacted Uber who gave me a full immediate refund.

>> there are cheap hotels all over London

2. I could get from Brixton to Mile End for £20 (£5 when split between passengers). Find me a hotel for that price.

Finally - my point was that Uber was the only cheap and convenient option. You have not provided an equal alternative. My point was never that Uber should keep their license. I agree with you there are huge issues and hopefully this will spur them to solve them.

Edit: Although the first issue you point out is not your fault in anyway I'm curious whether you were asleep or not during that trip? That's a massive detour in the wrong direction twice. You and the driver both have a map showing your current location and destination. It seems like an easy mistake to quickly notice and correct.

> I'm curious whether you were asleep or not during that trip?

No. I was not asleep.

> That's a massive detour in the wrong direction twice. You and the driver both have a map showing your current location and destination. It seems like an easy mistake to quickly notice and correct

And yet somehow he missed the A312/M4, he missed the A40, took his time turning around passing two exits and then took the A40 in the wrong (west) direction. Unbelievable in the evening with no traffic. Should have cost £20ish pounds.

I had to point out each of these, and I couldn't understand his english. He might have been too tired to drive, or he might have been incompetent. I don't really care, but I'm not getting in an Uber again.

I agree that's a terrible experience. But you could get a refund with 30 seconds effort in my experience (a lot easier than if this happened with a normal taxi as you have GPS to prove what happened). It also seems like an extreme outlier experience.

> If you're too drunk to ride the drunk train/bus, there are cheap hotels all over London

That may be but getting any at 11pm+ is impossible. I have tried a few times after missing my last train home... Always end up calling a friend to sleep on their couch or more likely office meeting room sofa...

I've had very good luck getting them in City: Most I've spent is something like £70 since they're not getting any better offer that late in the day.

Did you contact Uber about that trip? Their business ethics seem to be generally shitty, sure, but they should be very quick to refund especially in such a clear case.

Uber don't make contacting them easy, and even if I got one: A refund doesn't cut it. My time is valuable to me. If I wanted to take an hour to get home I would've taken the tube.

> If you're too drunk to ride the drunk train/bus, there are cheap hotels all over London.

Is this serious? You think that booking a hotel in London is a better choice than just getting a taxi home?

Uber is worse than random minicab businesses in London? This seems like a real stretch.

Random minicab businesses do not use Uber’s Greyball to avoid regulatory inspections.

Uber as a company is immoral from time to time, however their service is great, and I'd be sad to see it go from London. TfL operates one of the most expensive public transport systems in the world, and is happy to license black cab drivers (who in my experience, can be rude and are an absolute rip off a lot of the time). Not only that, black cab drivers in my area regularly drive through zebra crossings while people are on them, but I am yet to see an Uber driver do this (I'm sure they do as well, but black cabs drive around London with a sense of arrogance and entitlement that I find most irritating).

Did you try Taxify? Started in London recently, could imagine many drivers will sign up there now. Haven't tried it yet (didn't take an uber over the past weeks) but their offering appears very similar.

They've been shut down as well: https://blog.taxify.eu/2017/09/bringing-fairer-ride-hailing-...

Uber isn't going away in London. Never mind the passengers, consider how many thousands of (mostly Labour-voting) people drive for Uber as a job. They might not love their employer, but that doesn't mean they'll be happy become unemployed en-masse. This is a political tactic to try to force Uber into improving its safety and regulatory practices. Whether it works will depend on whether Uber or City Hall blinks first.

I hope you're right. I genuinely believe if Uber was to go away from London, it would be a step backwards. They are the modern taxi, and I would bet they are more fuel and time efficient than black cabs driving round London in the hope of someone flagging them down.

Is this the first domino? Will France (and other European countries) then turn around and say, ah oui we too don't think Uber is fit to operate.

Uber is pretty crappy in London, I had one the other night and the guy wasn't even the guy who's picture was on the app (yes the driver did not match the registered uber driver). This is before we even get onto the fact that he didn't know where he was going.

Uber is already 100% banned in Denmark, for refusing to adhere to hire car regulations.

This happens all the time in black cabs. My wife and I rely on uber all the time. It feels right for a city like London. This is a step backwards in my opinion

I’d like to add that most black cab drivers make out like their card machine doesn’t work. It’s a total cash scam to avoid VAT. I’ve had a black cab deny picking me up before because I didn’t want taking very far (I had a twisted ankle and just wanted to shorten my walk home)

If the meter is on, it's reported and recorded income, is it not?

Is the meter connected to a server? If not, i don’t see how that would even count as accounted income.

It doesn't need to be connected to a server if the meter is periodically attached to a computer that downloads the data.

That said I have no idea if that's something they do. I am now going to try to find out.

--edit-- it's not easy to find data on this. So far I have found out that most taxi meters have to be taken in to an office or depot to get the fare-structures updated...

Here's the spec requirements for a taximeter: http://content.tfl.gov.uk/taximeter-specification-1.pdf

There's no requirement to log information (let alone store it for future upload), only that the taximeter is audited (for distance accuracy) every 12 months or so, and that it has updated fare structures (which modern ones do over GSM/GPRS).

Interesting, that would appear to be something of an oversight.

Even more interesting - https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/accepting...

"Every driver must accept card and contactless payments and provide receipts for those payments upon request.

All taxis must have a fully working TfL-approved fixed card payment device fitted within the passenger compartment - a handheld-only device will not be sufficient to meet the licensing requirements. Any taxi found not to meet the requirement will be issued with an unfit notice, which will remain in place until the requirement is fulfilled and the vehicle is presented for inspection."

So it looks like either the story was a little old, or the cab was in violation of the rules.

I guess that would be the first time someone violated rules...

They're required to accept cards and can't make you pay with cash. Just tell them you don't have cash, and they'll make sure their card reader starts working.

> Just tell them you don't have cash, and they'll make sure their card reader starts working.

They will actually usually just suggest driving past an ATM so you can get them cash.

A good alternative that usually works is if you suggest paying them with a cheque. Usually then their card reader will magically start working.

Try that at 3am and see if the cab driver cares.

If they want any paying at all, presumably they will.

They are required by TFL to have a working contactless and Chip'n'Pin device mounted in the customer compartment. I have a feeling we're talking about things that happened in the past.

What's required and reality are sometimes very different. I know I've been told the card machine doesn't work, then magically after saying I have no cash it'll start working a minute later...

Do TfL "mystery shop", they should and with confiscation of license and vehicle for malfeasants.

Yes, but their enforcement team is way too small for the number of taxis and private hires on the road for it to have much effect.

Mini cabs are just as bad. I had one last week that was ordered by a top hotel, the hotel told me the guy accepts cards, the guy had card logos on the window, then when we arrive at the airport he tells me he'll add £10 to the bill if I want to pay with cards. I was this close to telling to go fuck himself and charge me the right amount on the card, but had a plane to catch and didn't want to waste time fighting so I went to an ATM and went back with the cash.

Uber may not be a perfect regulator, but it's apparently "good enough" and that's what the existing incumbent regulator can't stand - their own efforts to make cab drivers behave appear to be worse than what the private sector can provide.

But hey, what do Londoners expect when they voted in a Labour (left wing) mayor whose first act was to freeze the cost of public transport, thus gutting TfL's budget. Londoners also elected Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott. They don't get to turn around now and complain about excessive regulation killing off businesses they don't like!

Germany has practically banned Uber for sometime now.

It was never even allowed in the first place. Uber is just regular cabs in Germany.

That being said I've never heard anyone had any problems with German cabs e.g. scams, misleading etc..

It’s not exactly banned – Uber could return at any time when they ensure that their drivers have insurance that is valid, and a driving license that allows for driving passengers around. In fact, the driving license part was even considered something where the officials would ignore the regulations, if Uber would just comply with the insurance part.

But Uber didn’t want that.

Uber was kicked out of Hungary, I'm not sure on what pretext exactly but the gist was that the taxi drivers revolted.

(But to be fair, I think at least Budapest has excellent taxi service and didn't need an Uber. It's probably different outside the capital.)

Uber is already banned in Belgium. With the exception of some variations, like Uber VIP or something.

Here's a little perspective from another company trying to bring Uberesque services to London.

Not trying to defend Uber but the motives of british establishment might be a bit more selfish then they want you to know.

https://blog.taxify.eu/2017/09/bringing-fairer-ride-hailing-...

Black cab drivers are very active, and quite violent lobbyists towards tfl.

I have literally seen black cab drivers spit at uber drivers.

The same week I read about the Gett-Blackcab bus partnership (woohoo one route, that will make a difference..). £20 for a hour's drive in a Mercedes E class (with a driver) is hurting the protection racket?

Other news, the government is offering huge subsidies/ grants for conglomerates working on driverless cars and lorries.

Btw: I trust a computer more than most London drivers.

Uber needs to license their software to existing companies. Stop trying to push cab companies out of business, and start trying to be cabOS. The user experience is why we use the thing, I don't give a rats ass who is picking me up, as long as they are safe and courteous. And they come pick me up with a few taps of a phone app.

I've been thinking about this as well and not only for Uber. Airbnb and other similar companies could create platforms to allow people to do this on their own. The sad reality, though, is you don't make billions by enabling people, you make billions by controlling people.

Yup, cabOS is a niche, even FOSS-with-SaaS company. Not a $60bb company.

You mean like Oracle, and Microsoft? Taking a small % of every cab transaction, sounds like a billion dollar business to me. Right now the only thing Uber is doing is spending more money than it makes.

Right now they take a large % of every cab transaction (done on their platform).

Right now they take nothing, since all they are doing is subsidizing the majority of the fare with VC money.

They won't license their software any time soon. They decided against it in the earliest days and it really wouldn't fit with the Uber brand today. Maybe once they are a public, growth from new markets has slowed and they are chasing profits they sign license deals to open up otherwise closed off markets. I am skeptical that many taxi commissions in major cities would line up to license though. As of now the current system obviously works well enough for them (and that's to say nothing about the little those orgs likely trust Uber). If they have successfully banished Uber (etc) to the point where Uber wants to license software just to join the market I'd expect revenue split terms would be so unfavorable to Uber that they would not be interested.

One of the big reasons for Uber's success is that cab companies and city regulators don't want there to be a CabOS. They are actively against integrating technology into their systems and, while some of them have been forced to in recent years, they resent it and try to flout it when they can (in my experiences). It's really hard to get away from "the meter's not working"

As one of the 3,500,000 users I hope they sort it out. I've not heard any demands from us fellow Uber users to have the service banned for our own protection. The assaults and muggings which happen are usually because someones walking sometime's because they can't afford a cab.

I think you'll find sexual assault happens because an assailant sexually assaults someone, not because someone can't afford a black cab.

Do you really consider it acceptable for Uber not to do legally required background checks (DBD, health)?

I think Uber should do background checks. I think the chances of sexual assault are considerably higher walking down the street than getting a cab/Uber the same distance.

I'm not so sure, we'd need to look at statistics for that.

Regardless background checks should be done; just like cleaning checks in commercial kitchens, you may be more likely to get sick from home cooking, that seems largely irrelevant.

Another analogue: Most child sexual abuse is by family members, I don't see that as a reason not to do background checks on care workers.

Uber will appeal no doubt and probably promise to sort out their problems, say they are reforming etc.. and then get the license back

Did gett do to Uber in London what HailO/mytaxi did to them in Ireland?

This could simply be a case of Uber not adding enough value for independent drivers who don’t need Uber’s regulatory avoidance scheme to get on the road in the first place.

Uber's response to the assault claims. https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/vv598m/uber-drivers-a...

I suspect that this is actually behind doors shenanigans by the hands of incumbents.

Uber is big... They have many more rides than anyone else (outside of Central Central London), and there doesn't appear to be any evidence that more crime proportionally is happening with them than any other company.

Big news. I'm sure there's a few parties working to make this happen and Uber sure doesn't help themselves with the way they act. I suspect there'll be enough community backlash along with very good lawyers working to get this fixed very quickly. I suppose if it doesn't get solved it could be the first of a series of moves that take out Uber. I bet there's a lot of cities looking at this. Personally, I really don't want to have to use my local taxis and love the alternative whether it's called Uber or not.

> to get this fixed very quickly

Uber could fix this quickly by amending some of it's businesses processes that effect safety.

Anecdotal evidence, but I can confirm black cabs are pretty rubbish and extremely expensive in London. Broken card machines ("broken"?) are a thing. Friends complain similarly.

Uber experiences all good so far.

Not an Uber lover here, just astounded by people reporting that black cabs offer a decent service. I really like the design of black cabs, but since those bad experiences I have avoided them completely.

This would be an interesting tine for Lyft to launch in London if it can meet the regulatory requirements

Regardless of the merits of losing the London licence - which will almost certainly be temporary. I hope there will be some other group to take advantage and bring competition.

London Black cabs complain too much... about _everything_ .. yet I have not heard about them modernising.

If they just lose it for a week this could be fatal. I can imagine most drivers will now start signing up for competitors. As soon as the license is gone, people will switch to a competitor. If they offer similar service and price, there's no reason to come back to Uber. The only way then is to start giving away free rides again.

Is there clear evidence that Uber is less safe for drivers and passengers than competing services? They've been operating for a while with millions of users, so I expect any shortcomings would be evident in the statistics by now.

There is a mention of the taxi association being a major opponent. The black cabs have had numerous strikes regarding uber for their own wrong doing, it just seems like another tirade from them. There was legislation passed that required all black cabs to hold card readers, the overwhelming majority refused to allow you to use them, install them, or acknowledge the legislation ~2 years after the fact. They only have themselves to blame.

At a point in the past black cabs used to be good, this is no longer true. Not having uber (or an alternative - black cabs are not) will be more a problem than most realize.

Launched this off the back of this news: http://uberdrivers.london/ - crowdsourced thoughts from Uber drivers and users in London

Thinking it through - Uber (indirectly) leads to 40,000 drivers being employed (if I read correctly). I suspect this is just TfL flexing their muscles and Uber will use these 21 days to find a compromise...

I think they are self-employed, and not employed by Uber.

Well, it depends on which way is more convenient for whatever they want to argue at any given moment.

I think that is the situation that Uber would prefer, but sadly (for them) not: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/28/uber-uk-t...

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/asla...

Court rules drivers are employees, Uber's appeal starts next week.

That's why I said indirectly. There are other platforms, sure - but I'm not sure there's any with less friction / the size of network to accommodate

Considering they've been on notice for the last 4 months and are yet to find a compromise, I wouldn't hold your breath.

The 40,000 drivers won't go anywhere. They will just be using other comparable services.

I was using Wheely before Uber came to London. I switched to Uber after multiple unpleasant experiences, like the drivers showing up 40min early and chasing me. But Uber didn't invent this concept, it just happened to have become the platform that dominated the other ones through its critical mass / network effects. But it can be replaced pretty quickly.

Some existing discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15310631

So, what does this actually mean? Will Uber not be able to operate in London, or will it just not be sanctioned by TFL?

Supposedly they can't operate legally after 30th Sept unless some temporary transitional agreement is put in place.

That often doesn't stop them though.

If they don't appeal their license expires on 30th September.

"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."

So they will leave it to late September to launch an appeal, and whilst the appeal process is ongoing they can continue to operate.

How long they can push it after the 30th September isn't known as I've no idea what the TfL appeal process involves.

Alongside the reasons in the link (crime reporting, medical certificates, DBS checks, greyball) it's probably also got something to do with the huge increase in license fee: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/uber-licensing-cos...

I have switched to using black cabs with Gett, I find it a much better experience. I like knowing what to expect, lots of space, the drivers are professionals and there's no pressure to chat. For me that's a good thing, I prefer to have a bit of free time instead of a social interaction with a stranger.

Not a lawyer but I find it interesting that they say to "immediately challenge" the decision. Since they can operate in the meantime, shouldn't they file it on the 21st day? They can already announce to appeal but challenging it now could just shorten their life span?

There are loads of alternative private minicab firms in London. Addison Lee has excellent mobile site. No need to sign up or install an app. And in my experience has always been excellent service and keenly priced.

Wait I thought they already operated above the law and didnt care about any licensing stuff. Thats how they were able to offer low fees. What changed here? Why would they care about some licensing all of sudden??

Does anyone know how much time is left for them to operate in London on the current license then?

30th Sep

So, can they become a mere client for black taxis, as they are in Berlin, for example?

It probably wouldn't work well. There's already a well established one - Hailo. Cabbies would probably use that rather than Uber who they don't like much.

Edit- now it's become mytaxi app.

So, what are the best alternatives to Uber in London right now?

Black taxis in London are a 150+ year old institution also. As a Londoner I found it sad seeing the drivers looking unhappy waiting for passengers at Paddington....not getting so many. Black taxis just seem to me to be as much of a part of London as Big Ben, Red Telephone Boxes and Red Double Decker busses.

w.t.f.? does this mean no more uber in London?

Can they get rid of those dreadful oBikes next?

40,000 jobs..

No coincidence this comes a day before Labour Party conference.

40,000 drivers. "40,000 jobs" is a misleading figure when those jobs can vary enormously in terms of hours worked.

I cannot understand why you need a license to ride other people from A to B...

for the same reason you need a license to drive: regulations.

But there is a license for that: a driving license. And the one which is given allows to drive a car with passengers inside. It should be enough...

There's a difference between driving another person from A to B and charging that person. As a comparison you can invite a friend to your house and cook for them. If you start charging people for that there will be food safety regulations etc. you need to comply with.

So perhaps adding the insurance for Uber drivers would solve the issue? I really don't see other reason. Except for the governments fighting with concepts which disrupt current, inconvenient and outdated state of things.

"Criteria failed: 2) Medical certificates"

That seems an a obvious requirement for the insurance, but Uber aren't complying.

Not everything needs to be seen with a negative (American?) view of government. Uber's competitors, including those with apps, have licenses.

In principle, being regulated means you adhere to some sort of code of conduct and are fully accountable for whatever goes wrong on your side, which is seldom the case with do-it-yourself solutions... in the latter case, you are basically on your own and good luck, aka roulette. Many people find it unsafe for several reasons not difficult to figure out.

In the UK we have an excellent 0-to-5 point rating scheme for all establishments that serve or prepare food. It includes Street food vendors, kiosks, even schools. All sellers are required to show their "number" at the front door or POS, you can verify it online. You used to be able to see the inspectors report too (sadly it seems they removed that feature and replaced with a summary).

It's an excellent system that warrants repetition in other industries.

Regulation done right greatly improves one's position soliciting services - I want to know if my driver has had recent accidents, speeding tickets, has poor health, doesn't pass a DBS check, can speak my language (very useful in cities you don't know), that their vehicle is safe.

Actually it doesn’t. In many places your regular driving license becomes void as soon as you have a single paying passenger, and it becomes driving without a license, and you get a fine. Germany is one such place.

Good news is, a driving license for with passengers is just an additional test that will overall set you back less than 100 Euros.

And, additionally, your insurance becomes void as soon as you have a paying passenger, or are driving to one. But cars on the road need insurance, and Uber’s insurance only is valid while a passenger is in the vehicle – not on the way to the passenger.

That's a new thing to me. I was driving in Germany several times with passengers and I didn't know my current driving license isn't good for it.

I even rented a car at the airport and Hertz clerk haven't mentioned anything, despite seeing me approaching with friends. They only asked if there are drivers, not passengers.

So how does it work?

> a single _paying_ passenger

Not passengers in general.

Your Hertz terms will clearly say that you're not allowed to use the car to carry paying passengers.

My bad. I missed that "paying" word.

paying passengers.

If you transport people commercially – be it as driver for hire, Uber driver, taxi driver, etc, you’ll need a Führerschein Klasse P: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerschein_zur_Fahrgast...

This allows up to 8 passengers. If you want more, you need a license for bus drivers, Führerschein Klasse D.

If the passengers pay you less than, or equal to the costs that you had during driving, you do not require any of this, and it is considered noncommercial (for example, when carpooling and passengers pay for gas)

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