Hacker News Reader

Comment by rahimnathwani | Hacker News Reader

"Indeed if TfL have any kind of ulterior motive for their actions, it is simply that they dislike the impact Uber are having on congestion within the capital"

As compared with official London taxis (aka 'black cabs'), cars operated by Uber:

1) After dropping off a passenger, drive to their next pickup point (vs. black cabs which drive around for an average of 25 mins waiting to be hailed).

2) Pay the London congestion charge (vs. black cabs which are exempt despite the fact that they're generally on the road for about 10+ hours per day than the average car, and spend a far greater proportion of that total time within the congestion charging zone).

View on HN

The goal of the congestion charge is not to make money off cars in London - it's an attempt to reduce the number of cars in London. The number of cabs is limited largely by the complexity of The Knowledge, while the number of minicabs is rather less limited, so in conspiracy theory land, TfL have motive to ban minicab operators wherever possible.

In any case, it's very unlikely that this is an ulterior motive - there's no reason why the problems aren't exactly what was listed, i.e. mostly administrative failures on Uber's part where other minicab companies are more cooperative with the license requirements.

> it's an attempt to reduce the number of cars in London

Not sure if that's true. I think it's mainly to reduce the polution in central London. Otherwise, electric/hybrid cars wouldn't be exempt but charged the same amount!

Ah, true. I do think we'll see a congestion charge on electric cars as they become more popular, though - London plain and simple doesn't have enough space for personal road traffic.

Edit: Hmm. London's own stuff claims that it was originally largely intended to reduce use of personal vehicles, and then in 2008 the Mayor implemented the current system of charging based on pollution. Again, I suspect it'll go back to charging for electric vehicles once people actually own electric vehicles.

I'm not sure the two aims are in conflict. I'm pretty sure that consumer electric cars were pretty much nonexistent when the congestion charge was first implemented.

>> I think it's mainly to reduce the polution in central London.

I lived in London when it was launched, it was also to do with making the city centre flow again, so that those who actually needed to be there could travel in a reasonable amount of time.

You mean, the ones who have money to pay the congestion charge. :)

Well yeah, but as with all things in life, taxes and capitalism - money and motivation get used interchangeably because government has no imagination!

Correct. Until we have a better economic system, this is how authorities often make incentives.

That's not a contradiction. There's also a separate scheme to reduce London pollution (LEZ), and there's an extension of it currently starting up (ULEZ). They have overlapping aims.

For example, bus lanes were made for busses, despite cyclists and motorcycles (on most red routes) being able to enter them.

> Otherwise, electric/hybrid cars wouldn't be exempt but charged the same amount!

That's an anomaly I'd say. The congestion charge was introduced in 2003, at that point electric cars were a curiosity, a fraction of a fraction of the market. I'd expect within 10-15 years the exemption will be removed.

The purpose was partly to reduce pollution, but as a secondary effect of the primary aim to reduce traffic:

https://londontransportdata.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/inne...

It is reasonable to believe that these goals are both in mind! Edit: there's a new Diesel charge coming in soon, to reduce the extra pollution from these vehicles entering central london, for cars as well as lorries. In all the communications emanating from politicians and TFL it seems that numbers and pollution are both problems to be solved. Note also the new 'Boris' buses were designed as hybrids to improve air quality, even though in practice they don't work well and run on diesel mostly.

  > mostly administrative failures on Uber's part where 
  > other minicab companies are more cooperative with
  > the license requirements.

But TfL inspectors gave Uber the green light ten times [0] including recently before suddenly deciding to ban them. There doesn't seem to be a history of repeated administrative failures here.

[0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tfl-inspectors-gave-uber-...

Then why did they only get a four month extension four months ago instead of the five-year one applied for?

I'm sure that had they used the opportunity to shut down Uber years ago over a paperwork issue, rather than waiting for the Metropolitan Police to write to them expressing concern that Uber's policies of refusing to report crimes and obstructionist approach towards police investigations may have lead directly to people being sexually assaulted, the people still arguing on here that Uber's conduct is above criticism would have been even more outspoken in condemning authorities.

The ten times Uber got the green light in numerous other inspections and fact it wasn't halted early in operations over paperwork (unlike, say Taxify) is far better evidence in support of arguments that the regulators have been extraordinarily flexible and tolerant towards Uber than evidence for the insinuations they're more bothered about hurting Uber than Uber hurting its customers.

  > rather than waiting for the Metropolitan Police to write
  > to them expressing concern that Uber's policies of refusing
  > to report crimes and obstructionist approach towards
  > police investigations may have lead directly to people
  > being sexually assaulted

Uber responded by saying that they have a "dedicated unit [...] tackling any incidents [...] run by former Met officers". [0]

This easily verifiable so I think it is extremely dishonest to say that they have a "policy of refusing to report crimes" or 'obstructionism'. This would only be the case if Uber was in some way incentivizing this team to fudge numbers.

I also know many people that feel much safer knowing that their friends and family are able to see where they are on a trip, and like the fact that they can retroactively determine the name and number plate of a driver the next day.

If you are assaulted by a black cab driver and they speed off, you have no way of gathering information about your driver. This lack of transparency makes being driven in a black cab much more dangerous.

  > The ten times Uber got the green light [...] 
  > evidence in support of arguments that the regulators
  > have been extraordinarily flexible and tolerant
  > towards Uber

If Uber was not given the green light then you see it as proof that they are not playing by regulations, but if they are given the green light you see it as proof that they received tolerance and flexibility yet were not following regulations. What information would change your mind?

[0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/13/uber-sex-scandal-...

If their "tackling" of incidents involves not reporting crimes to the police, can that really be called "tackling"? The fact it is run by former police officers is irrelevant if all they do is decide whether or not to retain a driver.

That is true. If crimes are being reported to them which are not reported to the police, that is a problem.

If the Metropolitan Police write a letter complaining to TfL about Uber's policy of refusing to report certain crimes and obstructionist approach towards police investigations (specifically, refusing to provide information except as formal FOI requests) then this is clear evidence that in the opinion of somebody who has considerably more first hand knowledge of Uber's actions and expertise in police/minicab co-operation than HackerNewsers who like the app, Uber is refusing to report crimes and acting in an obstructionist manner towards police investigations.

What is extremely dishonest is to respond by pretending those claims are an untrue invention of mine, using a line from Uber's press release which in no way refutes the police officer's specific contentions about information not being reported to the police appropriately as justification.

As for changing my mind, I'd probably start with the need to refute that basic prima facie evidence that Uber isn't viewed as respecting a minicab firm's obligations by the relevant police official. You can't really counter that by pointing out circumstantial stuff like them having their own investigation team or passing inspections of how they comply with other regulations, that's not how proof works. And yes, an extraordinary claim like "actually it's the regulators who've repeatedly refrained from using many possible excuses to shut down Uber over the five years it's spent deploying Greyball and suing them over regulations it doesn't want to follow who are the ones most likely to be wilfully misinterpreting the letter and spirit of regulations here" probably needs evidence a little more extraordinary than their self-exculpatory press release.

In the mean time, Uber has taken the uncharacteristic step of apologising and acknowledging they "need to change".

They wanted a 5 year licence back in May but were given a 4 month licence and a requirement to resolve the issues that there were. 4 months later the issues are still there so what else could TfL do?

Well prior to this their license was only renewed for 4 months (rather than the normal 5 years), so that suggests there may have been a warning.

"The goal of the congestion charge is not to make money off cars in London - it's an attempt to reduce the number of cars in London."

Surely the goal of the congestion charge is to, you know, reduce congestion. One way would be to reduce the number of cars simultaneously on the road during periods of congestion. Excluding black cabs from this incentive structure does a disservice to Londoners.

Not a priori, as a decrease in cab utilization from higher fees might lead to more cars and in fact make congestion worse.

This would be something you had to measure the effect of, due to (possible) non-trivial feedback.

Cabs/Ubers have very different marginal driving decisions than "regular" drivers, and a congestion fee is not an effective policy to target them. If London feels like the cabs are the real opportunity to reduce congestion, which doesn't make much sense to me, the way to do so would be in how they implement their medallion system.

> The goal of the congestion charge is not to make money off cars in London - it's an attempt to reduce the number of cars in London.

Initially, yes. But it's now a revenue stream, and it's really hard for governments of any philosophy to gracefully accept a loss of revenue.

There is also the Shirky Principle: "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution"

2 isn't true private hire cars are equally exempt see https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/discounts...

I stand corrected. Sadly it's too late for me to edit my original comment.

Your second part is not true. As the blog post makes clear, Uber cars drive under the license of a minicab firm (as personal hire vehicles), and are therefore exempt from the congestion charge.

Given your first point, could you please share the like-for-like data on uber vs. black cab time spent waiting to be hailed/booked? That sounds very interesting.

3) Are typically petrol (gas) rather than diesel, and are often hybrids (less pollution).

Edit: Not significantly smaller, as pointed out below 4) Are typically more compact than a black cab - take up less road space

So no, it's not about congestion in that sense. What the author appears to be suggesting is that there are more cars on the road plying for the same trade, and the more journey miles taken in an Uber, the more idle time a black cab will spend waiting to be hailed - either congestion on the road, or congestion in the taxi ranks.

However, if that were the true ulterior motive, that could be applied to any car service that competes with black cabs, not just Uber.

5) Don't drive in bus lanes (black cabs can and do drive in most bus lanes; other cars cannot, regardless of number of passengers).

How is this an argument against black cabs? Bus lanes in my city are usually empty. Allowing cars on bus lanes would actually lower congestion.

For the record, London is a city where for some major routes, there's buses every 2-3 minutes. They're a major part of the public transport infrastructure in London. Bus lanes in much of the city centre are never empty.

The simple answer, then, is that black cab drivers are tested on successfully fitting in with the flow on bus lanes so that they don't slow down buses, and minicab drivers are not.

Also for the record, here's a quote from a different post by the same parent:

> 3) I used to drive to and from work every day. Part of the journey took me along the A4/M4 towards Heathrow. There was a traffic jam every day, going home from work (towards Central London). This busy road had a bus lane. I don't recall ever seeing a bus going past me in that lane, but plenty of black cabs did. I don't see why a black cab should get to skip past the rest of us waiting 20 mins in traffic.

Perhaps there are some bus lanes in London that are very very underused and should be turned into regular lanes. Perhaps the people in charge of roads have discovered that if they were to remove that bus lane, the result would be congestion further into the city in a location less able to handle it than a motorway. Perhaps, for operational reasons, the buses absolutely need to be able to bypass traffic on the motorway.

As for black cabs, perhaps it would be a complete hassle to implement a "no black cabs" rule for that one road just to avoid upsetting people who chose to drive into London.

There's all sorts of potential reasons for that bus lane existing - and there's a very good chance that if someone were to file a FOI request with TfL, they have a report on the potential results of removing that bus lane.

> Perhaps the people in charge of roads have discovered that if they were to remove that bus lane, the result would be congestion further into the city in a location less able to handle it than a motorway.

It's a well-known controversial bus lane, which became a political issue. Anyone complaining about it loses my respect on HN, as they didn't look at the traffic engineering problem, just the Daily Mail hate.

The motorway is 3 lanes until the final stretch into London, which has two lanes. The width reduction isn't at a junction, so the extra lane didn't help traffic flow -- it just caused congestion and collisions by making drivers merge. The lane was ended at the preceding junction's slip road, and a bus lane continued for the spare length. This improved journey time for buses (a minority of vehicles, but a decent proportion of people), and also improved journey times for cars!

But, the sight of the bus lane annoyed the Tories, so they got rid of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_bus_lane

https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-m4-bus... is where I first heard about it (I lived in London at the time, but didn't have a car.)

Sounds about right. Major roads in the UK tend to be remarkably well-engineered, and if you can think of doing something to them, there is almost definitely a document explaining the exact repercussions of doing that and how much it'd cost.

"Allowing cars on bus lanes would actually lower congestion."

That's an argument to get rid of bus lanes, not to allow some protected class of cars to be permitted to use them.

Anyway, bus lanes aren't about reducing congestion overall, but reducing the congestion faced by users of buses.

> 4) Are typically more compact than a black cab - take up less road space

I thought "that can't be right, black cabs aren't all that big". And a quick search suggests that a Prius and a TX4 black cab are pretty much the same length - 454cm (Prius) vs 458cm (cab).

The black cab is 18cm wider, which may make a difference, although length seems the more significant dimension here. And black cabs are much taller of course.

Huh, seems perception is not always reality. Thanks for fact checking!

18cm could make a difference navigating some of our narrower streets, but my mental image was that there was a more significant difference than there actually is.

I've edited my original comment.

The implication is that the subsidised fares Uber offers are leading more people to use individual road transport.

Why do people frame this as "Uber vs Black Cabs"?

That completely misses out on the wider context of transport in London as a whole.

> Why do people frame this as "Uber vs Black Cabs"

I can't speak for others, but my tuppence as someone born in London, and who lived there for >30 years:

1) Black cabs are really expensive. So much so that I can count on one hand the number of times I've paid for one out of my own pocket.

2) Black cabs, despite the terms of their licence, are known to refuse to pick you up if they're going the other way, or refuse a fare if you're going to South London (where I was born).

3) I used to drive to and from work every day. Part of the journey took me along the A4/M4 towards Heathrow. There was a traffic jam every day, going home from work (towards Central London). This busy road had a bus lane. I don't recall ever seeing a bus going past me in that lane, but plenty of black cabs did. I don't see why a black cab should get to skip past the rest of us waiting 20 mins in traffic.

4) There are many taxi ranks where taxis wait for fares. For example, near Kings Cross station. 100% of the drivers leave their diesel engines running whilst they're waiting, right next to the pavement where people are walking. I don't like this unnecessary local pollution as I'm walking by.

5) Congestion charge (see my original comment).

Overall, my point is this: Uber and minicab firms work within the same road usage framework as other car owners. Black cabs are somehow exempt from this (which is unfair to begin with) when, given the time they spend on the road waiting to find a passenger, they cause much more congestion and pollution per passenger-mile than other cars.

1) and 2) make it sound like Uber potentially going away would have more influence on other Minicabs and not so much on Black Cabs?

Right, so you don't like Black Cabs. That doesn't answer my question. The choice isn't Uber or Black Cabs. It's London with Uber or London without Uber.

How are cabs even relevant at all to the point your original post brings up?

"Indeed if TfL have any kind of ulterior motive for their actions, it is simply that they dislike the impact Uber are having on congestion within the capital"

I.E. Uber is adding a mass of cars to the street and worsening congestion, likely by offering cheaper fares and tempting people off busses and the tube.

Surely Black Cabs aren't relevant to that point?

Uber seem to be pushing the Black Cab issue here... A organisation that makes money from Uber was very quick to claim that the issue was due to TfL being pressurised by Black Cabs so I half expect it to be in Uber's briefing note pack...

"Surely Black Cabs aren't relevant to that point?"

They're totally relevant: the way that black cabs are regulated is evidence that limiting congestion isn't TfL's primary motivation here.

You've got an argument as to why one Uber car is less congestion-causing than one black cab, because of these regulations. And a list of reasons you don't like black cabs.

What you haven't got is evidence that Uber, by making cab travel cheaper, aren't making things a whole lot worse.

Black cabs are a distraction in this argument. It's Uber vs not-Uber. Trying to frame it as purely a protectionist matter is misleading.

And to add to that, it’s only Uber, not app-hailed minicabs as a whole.

If TfL were banning all minicabs then I could see how a conversation vs black cabs would make sense. But this is just one operator that has flouted regulations other app-based companies have not. They will be more than able to fill the void left by Uber.

Your journey was faster with the bus lane. https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cbrd.co.uk/indepth/...

At least in part: Because Uber frames it as "Uber vs Black Cabs".

I don't understand why there aren't more governments challenging Uber on their subsidized fares. Doesn't that fit the definition of dumping?

Because democracy is weak to organized capital. Uber proves that you can get away with whatever anti-competative and scummy nonsense you like, as long as you have a good PR department and a lot of money to throw at it.

Black cabs are limited in number due to the difficulty of the Knowledge test. Ubers aren't limited in number and Uber makes no effort to discourage excess drivers from logging on. (If it reduces the average wait by 10 seconds, it's worth it in their eyes, as it costs them nothing. The congestion cost is externalised.)

Uber also sends push notifications to drivers to go to specific areas to prevent surge pricing.

> vs. black cabs which drive around for an average of 25 mins waiting to be hailed

I'm not from London, but where I'm from, cab drivers don't "drive around" until the next ride. That's a terrible waste of gas. We have special reserved parking for them, usually close to places of interest (next to bus stations, malls, etc.). This is one of the reasons there is a limited number of licenses available per city. Uber drivers can't use these parking slots.

How about the fact that black cabs wait to be hailed longer period of times because people choose Uber drives, thus adding more cars on the road instead of using the ones that are already there?

> How about the fact that black cabs wait to be hailed longer period of times because people choose Uber drives, thus adding more cars on the road instead of using the ones that are already there?

You can't be serious..

- Price

- Accessibility

- Customer service

To name a couple.

I was replying to an argument made about how black cabs are worse for congestions than uber cars.

Wait, are you trying to say Uber are more accessible than black cabs?

They and their drivers keep getting sued for refusing to take guide dogs or wheelchairs, or trying to charge extra for doing so.

'I'm not from London, but where I'm from, cab drivers don't "drive around" until the next ride.'

Then perhaps my points don't apply to wherever that place is. But I'm talking about London, and never claimed to be stating universal truths :)

So then black cabs drive around non-stop, even without passengers? I couldn't find any information about this online.

I still don't see why you choose to compare Uber with black cabs. Uber drivers in London are minicabs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com