Taxi Driver Online

Uber management have been taking taxis and offering drivers £500 to join them but drivers here know it Would be a short term gain. No pressure from the 3 big companies council have a rule that if you have a meter in your car you must use it so can't do Uber and another company. Uber contacted one MP to ask for help in allowing Aberdeenshire ( no SIT knowledge test ) taxis to work in Aberdeen. The council have agreed to make the test easier.

New test
https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/service ... candidates

Not gonna happen

And, even assuming it did, it would take at least a couple of years to implement, because it would require the Scottish Parliament to amend the legislation. (Not that they've got anything better to do there, but even a fairly straightforward change like that would take a bit of time.)

But the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce et al maybe thought it was like down south of the border, where incoming immigrant drivers could be fast-tracked via Uber and a council like Wolverhampton, and then sent to work hundreds of miles away.

But that's not possible under the Scottish legislation (which Aberdeen Council and Uber have to adhere to), so would require new legislation from Holyrood

And with Labour at Westminster now committed to rolling back the cross-border mess in England because of enforcement and safety concerns, chances of such a system now being introduced up here seem remote, and certainly wouldn't be happening overnight.

Do you think the watered down test will make a difference? Obviously impossible for the rest of us to assess to what extent it's easier to pass than the old one...

Short-term gain about covers it. Uber drivers not happy down here -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9jdyzzdgvo

It's only the first part that has changed it used to be 20 street names down the middle of a sheet of paper and you had to name the street at either end 40 answers and you needed 30 correct to pass. And you had to do all three parts one after another.

Meant to say as well, there's been a roughly parallel process going on to get Uber to Dundee (although not with quite the same relentless propaganda from elite business and media interests), with roughly the same timescale.

However, I don't even think they've even launched in Dundee - certainly haven't seen a peep on the Courier's website, despite numerous P&J-style articles in the run up to the launch (although not nearly as many as on the P&J's website. The Courier and P&J are published by the same newspaper group...).

Haven't heard anything on the streets about it either - we're close enough to Dundee here to have been impacted or at least word reached here through the grapevine, but not a peep in the trade here - anyone in Dundee know what's going on?

I suspect they are concentrating on Aberdeen first and then use the same tactics in Dundee.

I have been pretty active with the uber issues in Aberdeen.

A driver from Aberdeen emailed a MP from NE Scotland and was told that Uber had approached them asked for support on cross border hires. That's all we need to know about Uber.

Aberdeen Inspired, Our Union Street & Aberdeen Chamber of Commerces are all behind this also.

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So busy night tonight??

Without cross border Uber is going to struggle in areas like Aberdeen and Dundee.

If they had any sense they would buy an existing firm in each city and go from there.

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IDFIMH

Doubt any company would sell to them in Aberdeen.

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So busy night tonight??

Why? What do they (think) they stand to gain?

The trade thinks these 3 groups have been promised £££ in return for getting Uber into Aberdeen. The 3 groups think Uber is the saviour of Aberdeen. People will flock into town due to Uber!!

So far Uber have been given airtime by Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, the local press are obsessed by Uber & at a recent business breakfast, uber was given the platform to spin any old [edited by admin] about what they will bring to Aberdeen.

Tonight a friend of mine is up in Aberdeen from Edinburgh (originally from Aberdeen). He shared a few pics of Aberdeen at 22.00 tonight, place is dead.

Uber will make zero difference.

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So busy night tonight??

Mr XH558, there's a direct parallel between Aberdeen and what's happening in Glasgow at the moment - in particular, the 'hospitality' industry is struggling, and business leaders think the shortage of 'taxis' late at night and in the early hours is the problem.

So in Aberdeen the business elites thought Uber would ride to the rescue, but that would mean getting rid of the HC/PH knowledge test etc, and/or allowing cars to work cross-border, as Uber have successfully managed to achieve in England via sausage-machine authorities like Wolverhampton, Sefton and South Glocs, who churn out newly-badged drivers who can then go and work for Uber hundreds of miles away.

But looks like Aberdeen Council have only watered down the knowledge slightly, and the cross-border rules up here won't be changed. But, as I said months ago, obviously the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce et al thought Uber's lobbying clout and access to expensive lawyers would help change things, but it doesn't look like that's going to work either. Alternatively, the Aberdeen business elites were taken in by the usual Uber and 'expert' PR and comms spiel, and thought Uber would reinvent the trade wheel in Aberdeen, and just magic up hundreds of new drivers out of nowhere. Hasn't happened, and wouldn't happen.

And now looks like there's a similar business-led process in Glasgow, which instead of Uberisation hopes to transform things by uncapping HC and PH numbers. But, like even if Uber managed to recruit 100 cars in Aberdeen, that would just be rearranging the furniture slightly, and probably of little help to the wider night-time economy.

Even assuming substantially increasing night-time supply of cars would help the wider night-time economy (which in itself is maybe a bit doubtful - I'd guess there are wider factors at play in that regards, such as permanent changes in habits as a result of lockdown, not to mention the cost-of-living stuff), it looks very unlikely to happen anyway, either in Aberdeen or Glasgow.

I'm impressed that Aberdeen Council doesn't seem to be falling for Uber's Trojan Horse so far. If there's any amenable press/councillors, it might be worth reminding them about the Uber Files -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/id ... 63778e273d

10+ year worldwide track record suggests Uber's only interested in benefit to one thing - Uber. Not to Aberdeen or anything or anyone in it.

Money buy everything in the taxi/PH trade.

But on reflection maybe a tie-up like they used to have with companies in England would do the job.

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IDFIMH