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Uber banned from london

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Black Sheep:
Some decent points made above, but have there been many .... or any ..... criminal cases raised against Uber drivers in London ??

In the same vein, have there been any brought to Black Cab drivers ?? If so, what are the figures for both ??

There has to be some kind of distinction brought to bear, before 'we' start to just dismiss a public service, surely ??

sevenlayermuddle:
It would be interesting to see the geographic distribution of people signing the petition.  Don’t know whether change.org displays that or not, I couldn’t see it anywhere...?

GigabitEthernet:
I'm in two minds about Uber, the way the app is designed and works is excellent and really has changed the game which I think has benefited everyone. On the other hand, they pay next to no tax and there are safety issues reported.

I wish tfl would launch something like Uber but for black cabs. They'd make a killing.

Black Sheep:
Totally agree .......... the app is absolute genius ....... and of course they are always cheaper than black cabs. Yes, I know the reasons why, it's just folk will generally opt for the cheaper fare.

WWWombat:
I always had the impression that London's taxi market worked differently from most of the rest of the country.

That is ... London has always had an antagonistic market between the hail-anywhere black cabs/hackney carriages, and the book-in-advance private hire cabs. The latter "minicabs" (a name that seems to only stick in London) have a subgroup that is seen as rogue, unregulated, cheap, but rather unsafe: Minicab drivers willing to take on hailed fares, and in some cases bypassing safety checks. It has historically taken a lot of work to keep the rogue elements off the streets.

In our smaller cities (I'm thinking about the ~300,000 population places), the focus is much more private hire, with rather fewer hail-anywhere cabs. Much less of an antagonistic nature, and much less of a problem with the rogue element. I suspect people are just used to the "book in advance" nature of private hire.

The bigger cities - Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds - seem to have more hailable cabs, but don't seem to have the antagonistic nature either, and are still lower on the rogue scale.

So what about Uber?

It seems to make private-hire cars into a near-hailing experience, but for less money.

Outside London, that drops it firmly into a competitive environment, but where rogues are not the norm. In London, however, it looks like it feeds directly into the market that the rogue elements used to inhabit. Given the history, I can certainly see why the London councils want to keep it firmly under their thumb. The question is whether the rogues have switched to Uber...

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