Taxi Driver Online

UK cab trade debate and advice
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:13 pm

All times are UTC [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 84 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Author Message
PostPosted: Sun Aug 16, 2020 4:51 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 11:47 pm
Posts: 19110
Location: Stamford Britains prettiest town till SKDC ruined it
Quote:
I'm also told that Autocab have been approached by a number of prospective operators based in areas that don't have Uber working in those areas.


a lot of people think that Uber have huge amounts of work so think that they can massively boost their trade.

The thing is though are uber going to insist that these operators pay them 25 percent of the fares ?

_________________
Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:02 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 7:30 pm
Posts: 53921
Location: 1066 Country
Quote:
The thing is though are uber going to insist that these operators pay them 25 percent of the fares ?

Heard a number of different options are being discussed.

None of them include drivers getting Uber work via Autocab paying more than 10%.

_________________
IDFIMH


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 9:26 am 
Offline

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:05 am
Posts: 145
Sussex wrote:
Quote:
The thing is though are uber going to insist that these operators pay them 25 percent of the fares ?

Heard a number of different options are being discussed.

None of them include drivers getting Uber work via Autocab paying more than 10%.


I'm sure their operator will tack on another 10% for themselves tho.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Aug 18, 2020 7:36 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 7:30 pm
Posts: 53921
Location: 1066 Country
Looks like Uber are looking at the franchise option in the states too.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... uling.html

_________________
IDFIMH


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:12 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 7:30 pm
Posts: 53921
Location: 1066 Country
'We will not get sucked into Uber': Autocab to 'remain independent' as it aims for global growth

In August, Uber announced it was to acquire the firm, in a move which Safa said is part of their ambitions to become the “Amazon of ground transportation”

Despite being acquired by Uber earlier this year, Autocab’s chief executive Safa Alkateb is adamant the firm will “remain independent”.

“We will not get sucked into Uber,” he tells BusinessLive.

“That is important because the world is changing. In the past it would be Uber and these private hire companies being direct competitors but the exciting part is that we can really transform the ground transportation industry worldwide with this by bringing everybody into a single market place.”

Cheadle-based Autocab was founded 30 years ago by Dr Falah Abod, and provides technology for the taxi and private hire industry, connecting them to trips using its iGo platform.

“Over a weekend he wrote a piece of software, put it in a taxi company and said, look, use this and I’m not going to charge you and that taxi company started using it and grew by five to six drivers over a one-week period,” Safa said.

When Dr Falah sadly passed away seven years ago, Safa, his brother-in-law, brought “everything I learned from Silicon Valley and working in America to Cheadle” and he “transitioned the business quite a bit”, from a hardware-based business to a SaaS business with a subscription model.

The firm now has four offices around the world and employs 150 staff, most of whom are based in Cheadle, he says.

In August, Uber announced it was to acquire the firm, in a move which Safa said is part of Uber's ambition to become the “Amazon of ground transportation”.

“They have a new CEO and they have new ambitions to offer all kinds of transportation services all over the world,” he explains.

“For them to do this they recognise they can’t do it all themselves and the part they can’t scale is the drivers.

“Anyone that has anything to sell can be on Amazon, including themselves...so it could be buses, or the London Underground, they’d like all of that to be on their app, including all the taxi and private hire companies around the world.”

“They said for us to really make this a long-term strategy, to work with taxi and private hire companies all over the world, we want to invest in a company so we can invest and help it grow, so it becomes that platform.”

Safa says this will be a similar transition to one that has happened in industries such as the hotel and airline industry.

“This is the transition that happened in other industries that Autocab will now be in the core centre of.”

“From 40 years ago to now we’ve got, pre-Covid, 10 times more airplane seats, 10 times more hotel rooms and they’re all full. A marketplace was created where everybody was working with everybody else, with Expedia and Booking.com.”

Safa says what Autocab is, post-acquisition, doing “exactly the same’’ as pre-acquisition, which is to “provide the best technology to taxi and private hire companies all over the world”.

“We are basically there to help make the connections so Uber can connect into them.”

In the towns and cities where Uber doesn’t operate, the app will come up with an option for a local cab, Safa explains, and where Uber does operate it would give the customer a choice of providers.

“The only thing that changes is a lot more investment for us to take what we do and make it truly global.”

And Safa says the opportunity for growth is “huge”.

“Today there are two million bookings per day in the UK in the taxi and private hire industry but there are 70 million trips happening in private vehicles today.

“There’s already a trend of young people not buying cars, there’s a trend to move trips from private vehicles to a service-oriented approach.

“If we can transition five to six per cent of trips that are taken in private vehicles into service-orientated trips, we can double the size of our industry.”

Safa says he predicts the firm’s headcount will double in the next year to year-and-a-half.

“We have a very strong position here in the UK and we are in 30 countries around the world, but our penetration worldwide isn’t as strong as in the UK.

“Uber one day think it will be - and wants it to be - something that’s global, so we’ve got to ramp up to be a big global company very, very quickly

“We do believe that will happen and we will have the resources to do that.”

_________________
IDFIMH


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2020 6:51 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 11:47 pm
Posts: 19110
Location: Stamford Britains prettiest town till SKDC ruined it
well we are now regularly seeing Uber on the side of cars from a Peterborough PH firm in town looks like they are trying to expand into our area using a firm on the autocab software. :sad:

_________________
Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2020 10:47 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 7:30 pm
Posts: 53921
Location: 1066 Country
That hasn’t been put in place yet, I suspect the Uber work is being despatched from the Peterborough area and the cars are just waiting in the hope of a job in your manor.

In fact they way it will operate once Autocab and Uber do become entwined is that any Uber work in your manor will only go to the Autocab firm, who will only be able to send that work to locally licensed cars.

In effect that will mean no Uber work will go to those Peterborough cars.

_________________
IDFIMH


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:29 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 11:47 pm
Posts: 19110
Location: Stamford Britains prettiest town till SKDC ruined it
it might also be that the car is on a school contract but leaving the door signs on for advertising purposes to see if anyone tries to book an uber locally

_________________
Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:13 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2003 7:30 pm
Posts: 53921
Location: 1066 Country
LPHCA Members vote to terminate commercial relations with Autocab

The LPHCA will terminate its commercial relations with GPC Computer Software Limited (t/a Autocab) upon the conclusion of existing contractual agreements.

Following discussions at a recent Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), followed by a members vote, a clear majority of LPHCA members voted in favour of ceasing the commercial relations, therefore the LPHCA has now been formally mandated to do so.

The LPHCA has a long-standing, publicly stated, position regarding Uber. It reflects the mandated majority view of our membership who object to the LPHCA engaging, directly or indirectly, with Uber.

This decision has no bearing on the support for our members who are Autocab customers, many of whom continue to call us for help and advice.

The LPHCA remains committed to undertaking its important day-to-day work, with its main purpose of supporting all our members, as we always have been.

Sequence of previous events

● Since the announcement of Uber's acquisition of Autocab, the future relationship between the LPHCA and Autocab has been a contentious issue, with a variety of viewpoints from our membership. As some members called for the LPHCA to terminate its relationship with Autocab, we undertook a poll of member's initial views on 10th August 2020.
● Following the poll, we issued the following statement of 28th August 2020: "Feedback, based on responses, does not definitively favour termination at this time". The poll constituted a simple survey and was never intended to be used for the purpose of obtaining a binding mandate.
● Matters being unresolved, the LPHCA sought to present the facts, enhance understanding of the situation, and establish member's wishes for the resolution of this issue. Therefore, an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) was arranged to be held on 30th September 2020. All members were officially invited to attend the EGM in writing and the obligation to give 14 days' notice was met on 15th September 2020. Due to the current constraints of the pandemic, the meeting was then undertaken virtually via video conference call.
● Upon discussion of the current contractual arrangements between the LPHCA and Autocab (at the EGM), there was agreement that the LPHCA should see out its contractual obligations.
● Following the EGM, a delegated Platinum Member’s Committee agreed a mandate proposal, in the form of a binary (yes / no)question, to put to a full membership vote.
● The question put to LPHCA members was as follows: Should the LPHCA cease all commercial relations with GPC Computer Software Limited (t/a Autocab) upon the conclusion of existing contractual agreements?
● All members were written to and votes were limited to one per company/member. Emailed reminders and calls were made to ensure knowledge of the vote.
● Whilst the vote was private it was agreed at the EGM that the outcome would be independently audited and ratified.
● Autocab became an LPHCA Platinum Partner on 27th April 2020 (alongside many other industry product suppliers). For clarity, they have never been an LPHCA Member (something that is only available to Licensed Private Hire Operators).
● Uber are not LPHCA Members, they had previously applied to become a Member of the Association, however their application was refused.

_________________
IDFIMH


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 84 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

All times are UTC [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 66 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group