UberCab Ordered to Cease And Desist | Hacker News Reader

UberCab Ordered to Cease And Desist

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104 pointstswicegood97 comments

I think there is a pattern across both UberCan and AirBnb where both are facing opposition from existing, regulated industries (taxi services and hotels respectively).

Among all the posturing essentially meant to protect their existing businesses, I do think they have one valid point - that they both skirt around laws and regs in place. Though a lot of these laws and regulations are outdated/driven by special interests, some of them are in place for a reason. For example, not having hotels in residential areas so that neighbors aren't disturbed. Or having safety training for drivers of cabs.

I do worry about the risk that UberCab/AirBnb could cause to its users (or others indirectly impacted).

In both cases, the existing industries aren't doing themselves any favors. The argument around existing dispatchers maybe not making a living anymore - if someone else provides a better service than I do, it isn't their fault if I can't make money anymore. Reading the comments on the cab drivers' blog [1] is a bit sad. One of the commenters recognizes how good Ubercab is but uses that as an argument on why they should be shut down, instead of going "Hey, what if we started doing some of the things they do and improve?"

http://phantomcabdriverphites.blogspot.com/2010/09/tac-iii-p...

The best argument I've heard against AirBNB is that some people are buying up property and basically setting up hovels that they're renting out. Unsafe, unclean, miserable places to live.

But hell, I've stayed in shitty motels where the only thing keeping the carpets glued to the floor was the roach shit.

I think review systems will weed out the crappy, unclean places.

The best argument I've heard is the liability issue. Americans are sue-happy. One slip in the shower or bad car accident and then what?

Are AirBnB and UberCab totally immune from litigation?

Yeah, just need one sap to suffer through a bad night and write that bad review. Hope it isn't you.

That's the main reason I don't even bother to look at AirBnB for the handful of cities where it's particularly bad (NYC and London mainly). If they made a better attempt to distinguish people genuinely renting out their own house/apartment from black-market businessmen running unlicensed hotels, I'd have much more confidence. For that matter, I'd like to be able to easily exclude licensed hotels too, some of which try to list themselves as if they were apartments for rent.

I've rented one room via AirBNB, and it was fantastic. I'm renting another one in a few weeks.

I'm not a poweruser of the system, but it seems like it's fairly easy to figure out what's legit and what's not - look at reviews and photos.

I guess I don't really know what I would do if I arrived and the place was completely not as advertised. Probably hop on my iPhone, figure out who to call at AirBNB, and see about getting my money refunded and their account shut down.

In which cities? Everywhere I've looked except NYC it's been fine; NYC specifically is the place that seems to be a mess (I've heard London is similar, but never looked).

The review system does weed out some of them. If you look for rooms in NYC, there's a lot with negative reviews along the lines of, "thought this was a spare room, but turned out to be a hostel". I don't have much confidence that the reviews have caught all of them, though.

I could have gotten lucky. I've only used it in NYC once so far, and just registered for another place.

And it seems that all it would take is one negative review. If I see a "bait and switch" type of commentary, I'll avoid that place for sure.

I suppose people could game this - mutually book each other's place, eat AirBNB's take as cost of business, and just vote each other up.

Any new product is never better in all aspects, and usually can't yet fund the fleet of lobbyists that existing players have. Regulations are primarily a tool of established businesses which they wield like a sword when all else fails, kind of like lawsuits. And a disruptive newcomer which reduces municipal tax revenue is sure to be in the gunsights, because almost every new business can become "illegal" at a politician's whim. It's incumbents of both types (political and business) against the newcomer, except they aren't actually offering a better service but rather pointing a gun at the interloper.

Where is the statistical evidence that Ubercab and AirBnB are actually less safe than the alternative? Moreover, we let people choose to use motorbikes OR cars; why should the "less safe" alternative always be illegal? Sometimes other attributes (convenience, speed, price) mean that you'll settle for three rather than four nines in safety.

>Where is the statistical evidence that Ubercab and AirBnB are actually less safe than the alternative?

I think it's a bit premature to ask for this kind of statistical evidence no? Are these companies old enough to have any useful, relevant statistics?

Or having safety training for drivers of cabs.

If only that were true. Taxi drivers are among the most reckless drivers in my city, and pretty well every other major city in North America that I've visited. If there is any training, it is not taken too seriously.

every other major city in North America Why stop at North America? It's worldwide.

BUT: The only good thing about taxis in London is that they need to pass a test called The Knowledge (refs below) which means they are able to figure out the best route to anywhere in London on the fly. And if you think this is easy, it's not: the structure of the brains of taxi drivers is actually bigger in the part responsible for spacial memory, the discovery of which led the researchers winning the Ig Nobel prize.

Refs:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpartners/taxisandprivatehir...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/677048.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7613621.stm

http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2003

A more comical interpretation, arguing that this test leads these cabbies to have mutant brains:

http://everything2.com/title/Mutant+brains+of+London+cabbies

The only good thing about taxis in London is that they need to pass a test called The Knowledge (refs below) which means they are able to figure out the best route to anywhere in London on the fly.

HNers who are into Sci-Fi ought to check out Will Self's "The Book of Dave", which is funny, brilliant, and (in large part) about a future post-apocalyptic society which makes a religion of "The Knowledge."

Can you elaborate on why this is a good thing ?

Instead of using a 200$ GPS, they are required to spend a long time studying a body of knowledge superseded by technology.

And this translates to higher costs for the casual cab-rider.

I suppose there are cases where people want to go to certain places, eg. "the shopping center", without having specific enough information to look it up with a GPS. Also, the driver knows ways that may be faster than what a GPS will suggest, since he knows about traffic, construction, etc.

Then there's the social aspect: by being more strict and maintaining an image of quality, you can attract better, nicer drivers.

Obviously a driver shouldn't be someone who is in the city for the first time. They know all the major points (like shopping centers).

The other points just shows that GPS have a bit to go yet, and they are going there. There are quite a lot of GPS solutions who get real-time traffic updates, construction, etc (look at waze.com)

The second point is true, wonder if there is a better way to solve it tho

Remember this is from the days before GPS devices were so common.

And frankly, given how rubbish a lot of those devices are, a human's intimate knowledge of the side roads is a very good thing; for example when you hit unexpected traffic and the device's service hasn't updated yet and you're in a hurry.

The driver's knowledge is not superseded by technology. Transit times in London are heavily affected by factors not taken into account by SatNav devices. Roadworks, time of day, congestion patterns due to current events, and accidents, all can change optimal route selection by factors of 5 or even 10, and all are taken into account by the London cabbie. I would trust a London Black Cab driver's route selection over SatNav every time, without fail.

The cost to the taxi driver of gaining The Knowledge is far higher than $200, so the people who do it take their job very seriously, and they are in general extremely safe and reliable.

There's a marked difference in quality of service between minicab drivers who use GPS units and black cab drivers who don't need them. They both exist in London, and given the choice, I'll go with a black cab every time.

I wonder if part of the reason for all the unsafe driving is that passengers have reduced incentive to complain about it. Clearly, it endangers passengers, but passengers WANT drivers to go faster so they can avoid paying too much.

I'm not sure if per minute/mile pricing is necessary or just a creature of regulation. I certainly don't encounter it any other time I travel with someone else driving. It certainly ruins the cab experience for me. Can't they properly estimate time and distance now with the mapping and traffic apps we have today?

And even if some of the regulations they have to face are outdated, stupid, in need of reform.. well, they still can't just break the law. Existing hotels/cabs follow the laws, including the stupid ones. We should fix the laws.

Maybe I'm just misinformed but... basically they're running a taxi service without a license to do that, then acting surprised when the city calls them on it?

There's a taxi company I use whenever I'm in London called Addison Lee, and they've done the same as UberCab - using nice technology to know where you are, where the nearest available cars are, how long it will take for a car to get to you... In actual fact, at least based on http://www.ubercab.com/learn, AdLee is better: it has all the benefits of UberCab, plus they tell you the price of the journey before you book the car (it won't become more expensive if you get stuck in traffic, or if the driver takes a longer route), which always works out cheaper than a black cab, in my experience. Oh, and in adition to letting you pay with the credit card on your account, you can chose to pay by cash if you so wish.

Anyway, my point? Seems that Addison Lee have been (albeit in a different city/country) doing what UberCab is doing, slightly better, and for quite a bit longer: and they actually bothered to pay to be a licensed taxi provider, meaning that the London officials don't have a problem with them.

Maybe taxi license requirements are vastly different between the two countries making it prohibitively expensive or unrealistic to do the same in the US?

I couldn't comment on the costs involved in either country, but that really isn't relevant. If you can't balance a company's finances without saying "we won't follow the law because it's too expensive" then you're doing something wrong.

That argument sounds semi-reasonable when coming from a teenager downloading films illegaly, not from a serious company avoiding paying for a license it needs.

>If you can't balance a company's finances without saying "we won't follow the law because it's too expensive" then you're doing something wrong.

No, it's the law that is wrong. It is corrupt, it is repressive, it is evil.

First of all, you can't just "pay for a license" to operate a taxi in S.F., because competition is illegal. The industry is a closed, city-enforced cartel, and the taxi "licenses" -- "medallions" -- first of all, have a mandatory cap of 1,400 taxis, secondly, are "allocated to individual drivers on the basis of seniority on a waiting list":

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2010/02/24/feb-26-cab-industry-...

Your standard labor cartel.

Even better. They are piloting a program to "liberalize" the "licensing" (that SFBG news story), which mean under certain conditions you can actually "pay for a license" -- at a cost of $250,000 apiece. Although, naturally, the government quotas are still in effect, and you have to be a S.F. taxi union member to begin with, and who gets to buy the licenses is in order of seniority, etc., etc.:

>Under the pilot program, only certain medallions can be sold: those held by individuals 70 years old or older or who are permanently disabled and cannot fulfill the driving requirement. While no medallion holder is required to sell, only those who elect to participate in the pilot program have the option to sell at this time. The other set of medallions being sold are those in the possession of the SFMTA due to the death of a medallion holder or through revocation proceedings. The price for a medallion is $250,000.

>The medallion buyers are subject to the same rules as other current medallion holders, such as the full-time driving requirement and driving a San Francisco taxi for at least four of the past five years. Under the pilot program, available medallions are offered to qualified buyers in the order of seniority on the waiting list and after that in order of the driver A-Card permit seniority. The decision to buy is voluntary, but interested buyers had to notify the SFMTA of their interest in participating in the pilot.

http://www.sfmta.com/cms/apress/SFMTAAnnouncesFirstTaxiMedal...

More about S.F. taxi licenses, from the cartel's own webpage:

http://www.medallionholders.com/medallions.html

Many other union-infected city governments do the same thing. NYC stands out: its taxi "licenses" now cost $825,000 each:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-06/nyc-taxi-medalli...

Disclaimer: IANAL, all I know is what I read in news articles.

Companies can't just decide that "the law is wrong" and ignore it. They can speak out against it, lobby to get it changed, etc etc, but they can't just decide to break it and hope no-one notices.

Of course not. What I'm saying to the grandparent is, you don't have to be doing something wrong to fail; if the law itself criminalizes competition, than you will fail no matter how good you are at what you do.

But in that case, the failure was in deciding to try and compete in a market where you will never win - it's still a failure.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what companies have to do a lot of the time in order to make any changes in the existing system.

I believe the loophole they operate under is that the ability to pick people up randomly on the street in SF requires a license, but picking people up who call ahead is simply a car service and not subject to taxi licensure. The fact that UberCab has made doing the latter effectively as easy and convenient as doing the former is indeed a challenge to the old guard, whom you can bet is working behind the scenes to close the aformentioned loophole as quickly as possible.

Taxi service in SF is truly horrible and is ripe for disruption. I hope these guys win. Go UberCab!

As horrible as it is in San Francisco, it's worse in other cities (Boston, for one).

Ubercab is not a taxi service and does not own or operate limo vehicles. We simply connect consumers with existing Limo Drivers. We do make sure that all limo drivers that connect are properly licensed and have the appropriate insurance.

"Its cars don’t have insurance equivalent to taxis’ insurance" is taken directly from the TC article.

As to the logic of "we are not a taxi service, we just make money putting customers into taxis", I really can't comment on how the law views this.

If the SF Metro Transit Authority withdraws the cease and desist order then please accept my apologies for making bad assumptions, but given the law enforcers say what you are doing is not allowed, I can only assume that it is, indeed, not allowed, regardless of how you word what exactly you do.

Either way, I hope you get it resolved (whether that means them backing down, or you agreeing to whatever they're wanting of you), other than this current situation your service looks pretty great, and I'm sure I'll use you some day when I'm on your side of the pond.

I'm sorry but you're arguing that SF MTA is infallible and you are wrong.

My views have been based on the facts I've been given. I'm not from SF, until I'm given a reason to believe that the MTA isn't actually following the law, I'll keep assuming they are.

Maybe I should have been more specific before: I'll also apologise if the MTA don't withdraw, but are instead shown to be in the wrong.

"but given the law enforcers say what you are doing is not allowed, I can only assume that it is, indeed, not allowed"

The law enforcers so often wrong about what the law does and does not allow that somebody had the foresight leave that judgement up to another branch of government entirely.

I live in SF and am totally on your side - I think you're being punished for the existing firms' failure to think of this first. SFMTA is drastically overdue for reform.

You need to get your users to flex their political muscles. Whether that is text messaging the politicians or what have you, put the fear of god into them and make them realize they'll have a political fight on their hands with thousands of angry citizens on your side.

You have an incredible PR battle to deal with! It is hard to call yourself Ubercab and then claim "Ubercab is not a taxi service."

While you may technically be right, it may not matter in your PR battle.

Ubercab is not a taxi service

It's hard to read that and think of you as anything other than a liar (or perhaps an obnoxious pedant).

That's truly meant as constructive feedback.

edit: seriously. I figured it'd be better somebody tell him that on HN before he says it to a media personality without thinking of how it will be perceived by some.

It's not a taxi service. It's a Limousine/Black car service. And Ubercab only provides the dispatch operations and facilitate payment, not the transportation service itself

Look at their website and blog:

"The cab stand in your hand". Tags of "taxi", "cab" and "taxi stand". A name that includes the word "cab".

They're clearly positioning themselves as a taxi company, then saying "oh, but we are not a taxi company!" when called on it. The whole thing reminds me of Napster when they tried to claim they had nothing to do with all the pirated music available via Napster.

Other apps, like taximagic, avoid the trouble by simply dispatching a taxi instead of playing this limo / taxi licensing game.

I find it fairly offensive that they're trying to complain that they're just too innovative, when the reality is that they entered a heavily regulated market and made a conscious decision to ignore the regulation. Too bad, so sad, deal with it.

Mobile taxi hailing is obviously coming, but I'd back the horse that is smart enough not to piss off the taxi and limousine commissions in the launch city. That seems like an action that's likely to get them extra governmental attention in every new market they address.

How you market your brand doesn't make your company automagically drop out of its sector and join another just because. When you use Ubercab you don't get a beat up yellow taxi cab and a talkative taxi driver with too many stories to tell, you get a black sedan limousine with a professional, licensed, and insured limo driver (and sometimes fresh water bottles!). They comply with all the California regulations and are only available from dispatch and not from street hail.

You could argue that then they are fooling the public, and I'd certainly give you that point, by saying this is a cab service. I understand the reasons for it though, people are used to the idea that limo service is for the rich and famous, when it's not much more expensive in contrast to a cab.

So now how exactly does Taximagic avoid anything by dispatching a taxi? I'll tell you how, by sharing profit with established taxi companies. Both Taximagic and Ubercab do the exact same thing, the difference is Ubercab simply does not want to use taxi companies, and instead use limo services exclusively, not breaking any regulations by doing so.

You know what I find offensive? That the medallion industry is going after Ubercab because they want to get a piece of the pie. It's a perfect way to show the world that this is really a mob in all its glory. It's in a slightly twisted way no different than a mobster sending a payment collector to every store in the neighborhood to get protection money or drive them out of business if they don't pay up. If Ubercab doesn't win this, it's an example of how rottenly corrupt the system is.

PD: Napster and music piracy is no way similar to Ubercab and taxicabs. Pirated music did pass through Napster, but I see no taxi cabs being used by Ubercab.

AdLee is different, in that they actually own all their cars (and lease them to their drivers) and they make guarantees on the quality of the cars, etc.

And while they're cheaper than black cabs, they're more expensive than minicabs (for non-londoners: Black Cabs can be hailed off the street, minicabs you have to call) which is a closer comparison.

What UberCab seem to be doing (I may be wrong as I've never used their service) is aggregating drivers from multiple limo services into an on-demand system. It seems that in SF that limo services have to be pre-booked an hour in advanced, which suggests that UberCab would firstly have to get a taxi service licence and secondly get all of their limo drivers licensed and insured as taxi drivers (as opposed to limo drivers). I imagine the later is the bigger problem than the first.

It seems that in SF that limo services have to be pre-booked an hour in advanced

Actually, did you notice the finesse in the (unattributed but blockquoted) objections TC provides from the 'incumbent taxi industry'? They say, "Limos in U.S. cities usually have to prebook an hour in advance". They don't say "SF requires limos to prebook an hour in advance". Maybe SF hasn't quite locked-out competition as strictly as elsewhere -- perhaps even by mistake. (Industries protected by political favors can get lazy and sloppy, though they're nasty when awoken.)

Ubercab is a great example of disruption of an inefficient, expensive system. The measure of whether something works has never been whether it makes some London official happy. Of course they won't like something that's taking tax revenue out of their pockets.

The conflict was inevitable but as we often see in business, old players use regulation, unions and back room deals to protect their markets. Look at the RIAA, TV and movie industries. The technology is available to bring content to any device, anytime but they use regulation to stop it.

It's bullshit. SF taxis are inefficient and difficult to use. Ubercab solves a problem and calls out just how ridiculous the SF Taxi system is. Instead of fighting to make their business more relevant, the taxi unions fight with regulation.

I use Ubercab a lot. Why? * Because a car comes to me in a few minutes. * I don't have to stand in the rain and wonder if the illuminated taxi light means the taxi will stop or not. * I don't have to wonder if the cab takes cards or if the driver will simply refuse to take them even if his company does. * Most importantly, I don't have to hold on for dear life wondering if I'm going to die before i get where I'm going.

Let's all stand up and say screw you unions. Ubercab is an innovator. SF taxis, be more efficient and you'll win. Otherwise, get out of the way.

This sounds familiar:

    "Ubercab threatens dispatchers’ way of earning a living"

Oh, yeah:

    "[TECHNOLOGY] threatens [PROFESSION]s' way of earning a living"

Not a valid argument.

Yeah, but neither is ignoring the law because you disagree with it.

I think "ignoring the law because you disagree with it" is called civil disobedience. Although the term usually means individuals breaking laws for moral reasons, not companies doing it for efficiency and profit.

Edit: I just wanted to point out that it is sometimes valid to ignore a law because you disagree with it. I'm not saying Ubercab is in the right.

And they people who do it usually plan to be arrested. Not sure that makes for a great business plan, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, but the argument "Companies have the right to ignore the law if doing so increases profits" seems rather...unconventional.

That is twisting my words beyond even the most uncharitable reading.

The charitable reading of your words, if I didn't misunderstand, is "many people think that people are sometimes justified in ignoring the law, depending on the situation." That's more or less a truism.

Edit: Upvoted you back to 1.

I don't think anyone is arguing that - the argument I see is whether or not it is justified to flout the law if the law is unjust, and the flouting thereof is to the benefit of the public.

Which is to say in this case, more convenient, cheaper, easier and more payment options, etc etc.

Assuming that Ubercab's claims of requiring equivalent licensing and insurance from their drivers is true, it seems like the only complaint here is that they're taking business from traditional cab businesses; my only response to this would be "well, tough".

If Ubercab is civil disobedience, taxi drivers can drive without licenses and claim that they are participating in civil disobedience. The medallion cost is a huge component of the cost of a taxi (a NYC medallion is worth over $300K) so this is a big fairness-of-competition issue which needs to be addressed.

>(a NYC medallion is worth over $300K)

$607,000 for individuals, $825,000 for corporate owners.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-06/nyc-taxi-medalli...

>a big fairness-of-competition issue which needs to be addressed.

I think it's transparently obvious that the sole purpose of these regulations is to prevent fairness of competition, to enforce an artificial scarcity that inflates the revenue of cartel members.

>If Ubercab is civil disobedience, taxi drivers can drive without licenses and claim that they are participating in civil disobedience.

Dare I ask, why not?

> Dare I ask, why not?

If you'd like to try this out, you can approach one of the many unlicensed civil-disobedience taxis that hang out around NYC airports, instead of going with a licensed one. The quality and honesty of service is quite spotty though.

To be pedantic, it's not civil disobedience if it's not openly defiant. It's one thing to evade a law, another to defy a law with publicity and challenge the government to prosecute you. Or as Wikipedia defines it: "Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience

Evading a law is a selfish act; civil disobedience is going to jail out of principle, which is selfless.

Not a lawyer, but after a quick look at the regulations as they currently stand, I don't think they are breaking the law. They are offering an alternative to taxi service, and the service they provide doesn't appear to require the kind of permits or satisfy the conditions the SFMTA sets. Of course, I'm guessing since I haven't seen a copy of the order, and there's no record of the administrative proceedings on the public website, apart from a question at a meeting of the Taxi commission in September about whether or not the service is legal.

In any case, you shouldn't assume they've 'ignored' regulations simply because an agency has declared them not to be in compliance. Regulations are often poorly drafted or subject to conflicting interpretations; the applicability of a given regulation can also change over time because of court decisions or changes in other legislation which. Administrative orders are subject to an appeals process and judicial review, and initial determinations about what is or is not legal often turn out to have been made in error; generally, orders that mandate or forbid a given activity are placed on hold during the appeals process. It's unfair to respond as if they had simply thumbed their noses at the law just because proceedings have been initiated.

"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all'."

Using threats of violence against otherwise peaceful adults for engaging in consensual acts -- acts which do not violate the rights of others -- is unjust.

This seems like the perfect business to run from outside of the US. To run a traditional taxi company, you need to have a presence in the area where the taxicabs are. To run a website that connects two people together, you can be anywhere. And you are outside of the legal reach of the City of San Francisco.

Sure, the users will be violating some city regulation, but that, like file sharing, is unprofitable to follow up on. (AirBnB is in a similar situation. No need to give the irritated local governments a legal target.)

Unless they relocate all drivers to live outside the US they're going to have a slight problem, I think...

The drivers are already licensed. They can drive wherever they want to, and pick up whomever they want to.

The specific legal problem that the article mentions is that operating the dispatching company is illegal.

Presumably these two issues would still exist:

  - Its cars don’t have insurance equivalent to taxis’ insurance.
  - Limos in U.S. cities usually have to prebook an hour in advance, by law

The overriding issue is that there is a taxi cartel and the city enforces its quotas:

http://www.medallionholders.com/medallions.html

You can't just pay for insurance and be legal. You're not allowed to compete, period.

OK, fine, I guess. I propose the following revised business model for UberCab: Close up shop, return the money to the investors, and go on welfare instead.

Nobody ever got rich without facing problems. UberCab can either fight the system, or they can do something else.

For a site that caters to people interested in startups, there sure are a lot of defeatist comments here...

i've given up on trying to get a cab in sf.

there's only 1381 highly regulated taxi medallions and a constant shortage. most potential customers have, just like me, given up on ever getting a cab when they need one, so there's not only artificially decreased supply, but also artificially decreased demand.

there's been extensive comparative research into taxi regulation for decades. the reason SF is so much worse even than other cities that restrict the amount of cabs, is that SF doesn't only regulate street pick-up but also dispatch.

google scholar is full of papers on taxi regulation research, and there's http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/ and other pages.

unsurprisingly deregulation is in the interest of the drivers because a competitive market increases customer demand. would you sometimes pay double the fare if you could get a cab _right now_, instead of waiting 25 minutes and praying? hell yeah, if only they let you!

let's hope uber can make on-demand transportation in SF usable again.

This is funny, because having lived in London it's SO much easier to catch cabs here, I assumed SF was pretty good about taxi regulation.

You have not experienced unavailable taxis until you have lived in London, where outside of the city center they literally do not operate.

in vienna, which usually is the worst regulation hell, i could get a cab anywhere in the city within 4 minutes, any hour of any day. and that's a city with 1.75 times the population of SF (not including all the people who commute to SF to work there.

this has been extensively studied. taxi service quality is essentially dependent only on regulation quality (with some delay as customers get used to the fact that they can actually get a cab)

Who actually uses UberCab?

Taxi Magic is a fantastic app that's totally legit. Open the app, use your location to book a cab and within 5 minutes it's there. It's Luxor Cabs who are fully licensed and use computerized dispatch.

I tried UberCab once and it was a nicer car but the experience was no better than Taxi Magic, and significantly more expensive to get around town.

I hate non-metered cabs. Taxis are one place where regulation is good. We all know what it's like to deal with a shady taxi driver. The tendency is to gouge vulnerable travelers, not to set lower prices. The consistency that regulation offers is the most important.

I also can't believe the complaints about the taxis in SF. The cab companies are downright excellent when you actually call, and plentiful on the streets.

I used to be a huge fan of Taxi Magic but the past few months have found it less and less reliable. Basically if the cab is over .2 miles away it will pick up a fare on the street instead. When UberCab tells me that a car is coming, I can trust that it will actually come.

Am I the only one who finds it naive to name a startup UberCAB and then act as if it had nothing to do with taxi dispatching services? It's as if the PayPal founders decided to call it "UberBank."

It might not be seen this way in general, which goes to the PR problem another poster mentioned, but my perception is that when someone markets something as über-, they mean it transcends or supersedes what they're prefixing. So not "cabs" but "better than cabs".

"Taxi dispatchers make money on tips. Ubercab threatens dispatchers’ way of earning a living. Limos have to prebook an hour in advance, only licensed taxis can pick someone up right away by San Francisco law, yet Ubercab picks people up right away, yet doesn’t have a taxi license." Not like you can get a taxi in under an hour in SF anyways ;)

Seriously, this just validates their model and I hope they can figure this out.

Three points:

1. Sounds like UberCab should look into licensing out their platform to existing cab companies. It would mean lower margins, but they can quickly scale throughout the US and beyond much faster.

2. UberCab's blog post is arrogant. Did they really think they can avoid paying expensive licensing fees because they are using black cars instead of yellow cabs? Taxi licenses are very expensive and a lucrative revenue source for every major city. A taxi seat can cost as much as 1 million to purchase in NYC, and I know other cities such as SF and LV are not much cheaper due to the fixed number of licenses. I can only imagine the outrage of other cab drivers losing work to cheaper services (i.e. UberCab) because they are not paying licensing fees.

3. UberCab can easily recover albeit at lower margins. They need aggressive biz dev to quickly secure licenses. I hope they can continue to disrupt city transportation.

I'm putting money on UberCab becoming a members-only service/co-op type system where you have to be a member in order to request a car. I'm not intimately familiar with the taxi laws, but I bet they don't specify what private organizations can do.

> I'm not intimately familiar with the taxi laws, but I bet they don't specify what private organizations can do.

Huh? They have to. They don't let private limo organizations pick you up without a 1-hour reservation, for example, as stated in the article.

Furthermore, Ubercab already is a private organization.

I'm sure I'm missing something, can you explain why it would somehow become legal if it was a members-only organization?

I can open a private, members only club which serves alcohol past the traditional last-call time. In the same way, Ubercab could charge a membership fee, and then only people who are members can be picked up by Ubercab. (I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if this is actually possible, I'm just trying to rephrase tswicegood's argument.)

Yes, in the same way it becomes totally legal to sell cocaine as long as you only sell to members of your private club.

(Note: IANAL.)

It's almost never legal to possess cocaine in the U.S. - it's a schedule II drug. Alcohol is not a controlled substance. AFAIK, I (as a private citizen - not a business) am allowed to serve alcohol to anyone I choose, as long as they are over 21 years of age.

Catching a ride in a car is not a schedule 2 drug, fortunately.

The regulations read that a livery services ride must be "pre-arranged".

We've not seen the hour prior requirement in any law. If it does exist please send it our way, (info@ubercab.com) but we believe that this is opinion not fact.

I was going off the article, I have no idea.

Anyway, I hope it's clear that I wish you the best of luck fighting this nonsense.

I think you should post the C&D order, actually, so as to put the focus on the MTA rather than wasting your time fending off uninformed speculation.

It looks to me as if the $5,000/day fine they're speaking of refers to a modification of the Transportation code creating (among other things) a new offense of 'running a dispatch service without a permit,' which was passed by the SFMTA baord just last Tuesday - although it's still questionable whether or not it would apply to your firm.

Regardless, it has not yet been made law by the Board of Supervisors, nor is it on their legislative agenda for next week's meeting. From what I can see, it can takes months for something to work its way up the Supervisors' calendar. Of course, a lot depends on what sort of lobbying power the Taxi establishment has at City Hall, but it's fair to assume they have years of experience in working the system.

http://www.sfmta.com/cms/cmta/documents/10-19-10calendaritem...

IANAL, mind; just my personal views. I've developed an unhealthy interest in the (dys)function of my local government.

It's my understanding that the hour reservation specifics are basically FUD. Since when can you not call a limo service and say "I need a limo for right NOW! Do you have any?", because I'm pretty sure you can and they will send a limo your way if possible.

>> Ubercab operates much like a cab company but does not have a taxi license.

^ Why is the taxi license process so difficult to go through? Why does it take 10 years or so?

>> Limos in U.S. cities usually have to prebook an hour in advance, by law, while only licensed taxis can pick someone up right away but Ubercab picks people up right away (again without a taxi license).

^What is this but protecting special interests? Viva creative destruction.

I think UberCab will end up needing to change their name (UberCar?) to distance themselves from the "cab" or "taxi" connotation, and position themselves as an alternative to cabs, vs. a kind of cab, more forcefully.

Other than that, I think they now have the moral justification to trash the taxi industry and cartel in their marketing. This can probably end up being a net win for them.

So is ubercab connecting people with "car services" that aren't licensed taxi companies?

Are these the drivers you see often in NYC when arriving at the airport? My understanding is that there are risks to using such services (like if you leave something in the vehicle you're unlikely to recover it whereas a taxi co. can usually track it down). True?

I think it's four or five steps up from the rogue drivers at NYC airports. The drivers are licensed limo drivers, and everything is official/on-the-books.

ubercab could relocate their business to russia.

SF customers and drivers could still pay for the app.

let's see them regulate that

I want to make a taxi dispatcher that is outsourced to an Indian call centre. These dispatchers don't realize how deeply obsolete they are.

> let's see them regulate that

Regulating the dispatchers would be difficult, but they could easily go after the owner/operators of the cars involved in actually transporting folks.

What if they decentralize it even more?

I'm imagining regular drivers (like me) being txt'd when there is a nearby person who wants a ride.

Like hitchhiking but using GPS and money.

The hitchhiker would specify his destination and how much he is willing to pay. The software would know my location as well as destination (optional) and notify me when I'm near him.

Make everyone into a taxi driver.

For added value you could also give individuals special badges and such that certify their driving credentials, and let the buyers decide how much their driving credentials are worth.

Credentials could be on a graded scale: - Confirmed driver's license - Confirmed professional driving certification

Naturally you'd have a reputation system where passengers can rate the quality of the drivers, and drivers could respond to the criticisms.

Decentralized taxi service. The biggest hurdle is reaching critical mass of users, which UberCab has achieved. I want to see them destroy the conventional taxi industry (disruptive technology makes me tingle)

Imagine you get a text from a person who wants a ride. You pick them up, arrange a fee, deliver them to the destination, accept the money, and then get arrested for being an unlicensed cab operator. How many arrests would it take before your services is a dim memory? How long would it take if the law was modified slightly so that the car used in the "criminal enterprise" was impounded as evidence until the case was dealt with by the court?

The risk is entirely upon the driver, who, by the way the service is structured, must risk a large chunk of capital (their car) just to participate.

The point is that there are so many legal grey areas.

Is car pooling now a taxi service, because I pay the driver?

At which point is it illegal for me to give someone a ride?

What if they give me services instead of cash, like an hour of web design?

What if they give me virtual tokens/karma instead?

What if the transportation didn't take place strictly in the city but was half in the city and half outside?

Are you really running a taxi service by giving ONE PERSON a lift, or does it have to be several? Does it have to be publicly advertised?

I actually had this idea when I had dropped out of web design and became a taxi driver for a few years in 2001. It's a natural. However: "Taxi dispatchers make money on tips..." is an incorrect statement. Taxi dispatchers make money on BRIBES. Drivers do not tip out dispatchers. Nor do drivers' tips go to the company. What dispatchers euphemistically refer to as "tips" are actually bribes paid to them by some cab drivers to refer the best fares to those drivers - usually at the expense of the passenger, who has to wait outside longer for their cab because a closer driver was not dispatched. The exact reason why UberCab or similar services ARE such a good idea is that they can improve the customer experience by cutting out dispatcher corruption.

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