Taxi Driver Online

This Wired article is interesting, but quite predictable in a way.

No specific mention of the UK outside London, but the piece says Uber wants to integrate HCs in *every* city it operates in by 2025, so that would presumably include the likes of Glasgow and Leeds etc

But it's maybe just another method of expansion without entering new markets, thus a bit like the Autocab-enabled 'local cab' option in the UK.

But, predictably, many in the HC trade hostile to Uber's ambitions. However, like the Autocab thing, there will always be some who sign up.

But, like Autocab, it's maybe a bit of a trojan horse if it helps steer customers away from the ranks and street hails and towards app-bookings, as indeed is stated by the Uber chief in the article.


Uber Squeezed Europe’s Taxi Drivers. Now It Wants to Hire Them

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uber-ta ... tegy-uturn

The ride-sharing giant is trying to end a yearslong battle by offering EU cabbies aggressive financial incentives.

Taxi drivers in Paris rioted back in 2015 to protest the presence of Uber in their city, burning tires, blocking roads, and attacking drivers they suspected of working for the company. Today, seven years later, instead of fighting against the app, 500 taxi drivers in the French capital are logging on to earn extra money, according to Uber.

After spending years as the taxi industry’s nemesis, Uber is trying to reposition itself as its business partner. Across Europe, the company is striking deals with taxi businesses, unions, and individual drivers, persuading them to offer taxi rides on Uber’s app. Paris is just the latest city where Uber says hundreds of taxi drivers have agreed to join forces, meaning users no longer have to step into the street to hail a conventional taxi. Since October 12, they can use Uber to order one instead.

The deals being made in France, Belgium, and Italy are a distinct change from Uber’s original business model, which was designed to allow anyone with a driving license to sign up and become a “rideshare driver.” (The company can’t say their drivers operate “taxis” because Uber exists outside the heavily regulated taxi industry.) Prior to this strategy pivot, Uber made deals with taxi drivers, generally as a last resort, to enter markets such as Greece or Israel, where local laws made it difficult for the rideshare model to work. Now Uber wants to do this as standard. The company plans to integrate taxis in every city where it operates by 2025.

This ambitious three-year deadline is all part of Uber’s grand vision to transform its app into a hub for cities’ different transport options, says Anabel Diaz, head of mobility in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at Uber. Uber already offers public transport and ebike options in some cities in addition to rideshares. “Obviously taxis are part of it,” adds Diaz.

But offering an olive branch to the taxi industry is also a way for Uber to solve more immediate problems the company has been struggling with. Since the pandemic, demand for rides has outstripped the supply of drivers in countries such as France, says Diaz, who explains waiting times have been increasing as a result in some places. “Absolutely, incorporating taxis in the platform will help to solve that gap,” she says. Taxi drivers will benefit from this partnership too, Diaz claims, because they will access extra demand that will translate into additional earnings.

But not all taxi drivers believe these deals are in their best interests. “It would be unthinkable for a taxi to agree to pay a commission to a third party when we are doing very well without them,” says Hubert (not his real name), a taxi driver in Paris, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid problems with Uber or local unions.

After spending five years as an Uber driver before retraining to drive taxis during the pandemic, Hubert does not believe that Uber would give him access to more customers. The clientele using Uber and taxis are completely different, he says. “Uber is a low cost service compared to taxis. Uber customers will not agree to pay more for a taxi knowing they have cheaper rides on the same app.” His wages are also higher now that he drives taxis. Over one year driving for Uber, his hourly pay averaged out at €17 (or $17), he says. Now he makes between $25 and $30 per hour.

Drivers like Hubert might be skeptical of Uber’s deals, but within some unions there is real hostility toward the company. “We don’t expect anything from Uber. It is a predatory multinational that cares little about workers, little about its customers, and tries to impose its rules by force on the states where it operates,” says Karim Asnoun, a former taxi driver and the secretary of labor union CGT Taxis. “It does not respect anything, and the cab is only a pawn in its strategy.” Conditions on platforms like Uber are very unfavorable to drivers because their commissions are very high, he adds.

But Uber is trying to overcome their suspicion by offering aggressive incentives to encourage taxi drivers in Paris to sign up. “Today there is no commission charged for cabs in Paris,” says Asnoun, who adds taxi drivers have been offered a €1,000 (or $1,004) bonus to join the app. Uber declined to provide details about how long these incentives would remain in place. Incentives are a normal part of Uber’s service when launching a new feature, says Diaz. “We obviously incentivize … drivers to get into the app, to try it out and see the benefits it brings for them.”

Those same conditions have not been extended to all the markets where Uber has made deals. In Belgium, where Uber Taxi also launched this month, Uber takes a 10 percent cut of new drivers’ earnings, says Tom Peeters, deputy federal secretary of BTB-ABVV, a road transport and logistics union that struck the EU’s first union deal with Uber in October. Italy’s largest taxi dispatcher IT Taxi, which also struck a deal with Uber in July 2022, did not reply to WIRED’s questions asking what commission their 12,000 drivers pay to Uber or how the deal has affected their earnings.

Taxis can already be ordered using Uber in 225 cities around the world, says Diaz. Since September, New York’s yellow cabs have been available on the app. In the EMEA region, taxis are available in 70 cities in 17 countries, although an Uber spokesperson declines to list which ones. Diaz hopes to keep expanding Uber Taxi into new markets, including in London, the company’s largest European market. “Incorporating black cabs into our app in London would be an ideal scenario for us,” she says.

Yet there is still animosity between the UK capital’s black cabs and Uber, after years of competition and court battles. “Uber tried to destroy us,” says Grant Davis, chairman of the London Cab Drivers Club, who has been a black cab driver for 35 years. “We don’t need Uber, we’ve got other apps such as Free Now, we’ve got Gett, and there’s another new app coming onstream that has no commission and is owned by cab drivers.” These services take around 10 percent commission, he adds.

Fragmented regulation across Europe has always been a problem for Uber, and onboarding taxis will be complicated, especially when many cities, such as London, have strict rules about how much taxis can charge. Although taxi legislation in Belgium changed in October in Uber’s favor, there are still places where legislation curbs the company’s ambitions. In Barcelona, the regulations are still very, very restrictive,” says Diaz. “This is one example of a place in which rules like minimum waiting time are still being applied, and that’s very limiting to create the service that we want to create.” The government in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain, introduced new rules in 2019 that required a 15-minute waiting time between a booking being made and a passenger being picked up. Uber is also bracing for EU-wide regulation, which is expected to introduce new rules about who can be classified as self-employed.

These taxi deals might be a new approach in Uber’s pursuit of global ride-hailing domination. But arguments for and against the company’s integration of taxis into the app feel like the same old fight to command the future of the industry. Diaz argues the future is still leaning in Uber’s favor. “I come from a period in which street-hailing taxis was normal, and I know how to do it,” she says, while new generations “expect things to happen on their phones—immediately, efficiently, sustainably.”

Parisian taxi driver Hubert does not dispute that apps are the future of the taxi industry. Like in London, Uber has competition in the French capital to help taxi drivers reach a wider audience. A French app called G7 increases his wages by 30 percent, he says; he claims the monthly subscription fee of €320 ($321) puts him under less pressure than Uber’s 25 percent commission. “The future will go digital,” Hubert says. But, he adds, it does not necessarily belong to Uber.

Didn't TfL propose a similar measure in a consultation a few years ago at the behest of the London HC trade, which would have in effect killed the convenience of the app stone dead?

Of course, it never happened, and can't see it every happening in the UK, but obviously some overseas jurisdictions still sympathetic to the traditional trade in that regard.

Interesting this article appears a few days before Uber produced their latest numbers.

By adopting this, less confrontational, method Uber is acting like a proper business. Not one prepared to p*** up billion upon billion is the hope of world dominance.

Will it succeed? Maybe. Will it stem the massive losses? Almost certainly.

But is it too late? Possibly.

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IDFIMH

Another Reuters piece from a few weeks ago, that was in my drafts folder, but which I'd forgotten about

Not particularly interesting, maybe, but perhaps indicative of how things might develop in the next few years.

Anyway, the HCDs are signing up in their droves, all over Europe

Or, at least, that's what Uber have told Reuters


Uber executive says European taxis joining platform

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 023-05-29/

AMSTERDAM, May 29 (Reuters) - Uber (UBER.N) is seeing an influx of European taxi drivers joining its platform, an executive told Reuters, a surprising development given the history of tensions between the company and the traditional taxi industry.

In an interview, Uber's Anabel Diaz, who oversees the company's mobility (ride-sharing) business in EMEA, said business is strong in Europe despite lingering uncertainty about gig economy labour rules.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa "are growing fairly nicely with numbers that go from 10% to more than 50% growth in some of our geographies," she said.

Uber's biggest European markets are Britain, France, Germany and Spain.

These have "very solid business performance with a lot of innovation, including development of our taxi solution in all of those countries," she said.

Uber says European taxi drivers' usage of the app has doubled in the year ended April 30, from 5% to 10% of all rides. Taxi drivers who use the app consider it a supplement to their curb-side hailing business. All Uber trips must be booked online.

Conflict between taxis and Uber has lessened due to rules requiring private Uber drivers to have a commercial license.

Diaz said the company had initially struggled with staffing after the COVID-19 pandemic.

"But right now drivers are back on the platform in all-time high numbers, frankly globally, and that's resulting in better service levels," she said.

Uber reports only group-level figures for its traditional ride-sharing business and for its delivery service (Uber Eats) -- each account for roughly half of sales. Europe accounted for $2.1 billion in group revenues in the three months ended March 31, about 24% of the company's total, making it the company's largest market outside the U.S.

Rules over when gig workers must be considered employees remain in flux in Europe, with different models in place in Spain, Germany and Britain. The E.U. countries will try to agree compromise rules at a meeting of the European Council in June.

Uber argues its drivers should be contractors. But "the reality is we will adapt ...(and) business will find a way forward," regardless, Diaz said.