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Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

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Re: Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

#11

Post by buro9 »

peteretep wrote: post #2

Dang. Good thing London has Addison Lee. Edit: who are a long-running minicab service who give fixed price bids, have a reasonable app, have their own fleet by dedicated drivers, and are usually price competitive with Uber.

Addison Lee are no better.

In many ways they are much worse. Their own corporate policies and their CEO encouraged drivers to use bus lanes, to ignore cycle super highways (to drive on them), to ignore all parking and stopping restrictions - if fines were issued the company paid for them to encourage drivers to carry on doing so in protest of not having the same access as black cabs (who in return for their training and being regulated to be accessible, etc are granted access to bus lanes and other stopping locations to ensure that accessibility can be fulfilled).

They also fell foul of using drivers without performing full background checks, etc. And their drivers are reasonably famed for not knowing where they are going (at least Uber technology saves their drivers from needing to know anything about London).

Re: Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

#12

Post by dijit »

peteretep wrote: post #2

Dang. Good thing London has Addison Lee. Edit: who are a long-running minicab service who give fixed price bids, have a reasonable app, have their own fleet by dedicated drivers, and are usually price competitive with Uber.

One thing to note is that Addison Lee minicabs are notorious for their dangerous driving and ability to get away with injuring people. Especially cyclists.

This measure of protection is not afforded to uber drivers, nor are they encouraged to drive illegally by their company.

http://road.cc/content/news/56878-tfl-warns-it-will-take-act...

Re: Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

#13

Post by zinckiwi »

buro9 wrote: post #11
peteretep wrote: post #2

Dang. Good thing London has Addison Lee. Edit: who are a long-running minicab service who give fixed price bids, have a reasonable app, have their own fleet by dedicated drivers, and are usually price competitive with Uber.

Addison Lee are no better. In many ways they are much worse. Their own corporate policies and their CEO encouraged drivers to use bus lanes, to ignore cycle super highways (to drive on them), to ignore all parking and stopping restrictions - if fines were issued the company paid for them to encourage drivers to carry on doing so in protest of not having the same access as black cabs (who in return for their training…

Is there much value in "the knowledge" anymore, given the existence of GPS, phones, and map apps with real time traffic and accident information?

Re: Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

#16

Post by alexfoo »

jaymzcampbell wrote: post #8

More from the Guardian here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/22/uber-lice... They have 21 days to appeal and can keep operating until the appeal process itself finishes (Oct 13th then). > [TFL said] Uber’s approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility

> They have 21 days to appeal and can keep operating until the appeal process itself finishes (Oct 13th then).

The 21 days is how long (from now) they have to begin the appeal:-

"The Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 includes provision to appeal a licensing decision within 21 days of it being communicated to the applicant. Uber London Limited can continue to operate until any appeal processes have been exhausted."

[In that press release] There is no specified time limit on the length of the appeal.

Re: Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

#17

Post by buro9 »

zinckiwi wrote: post #13
buro9 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addison Lee are no better. In many ways they are much worse. Their own corporate policies and their CEO encouraged drivers to use bus lanes, to ignore cycle super highways (to drive on them), to ignore all parking and stopping restrictions - if fines were issued the company paid for them to encourage drivers to carry on doing so in protest of not having the same access as black cabs (who in return for their training…

Is there much value in "the knowledge" anymore, given the existence of GPS, phones, and map apps with real time traffic and accident information?

tl;dr No. Google Maps is as-good as the knowledge or better.

Hailo allegedly did a piece of research to try and prove that black cabs were better than a private hire vehicle using Google Maps as Hailo had both at the time and had the data to compare.

The point of this was to enable a marketing campaign to sell Hailo for hailing black cabs because bus lane access and the knowledge meant that black cabs would be faster, etc.

But in reality, all they discovered was that for 99% of the time Google Maps was as good as, if not better than, the black cab.

Only in certain parts of London, at the worst of a rush hour or around some sporting event that has fouled up an area... does the black cab come out better by a small fraction, for a short window of time.

Google Maps is for all intents and purposes on par with a black cab and the knowledge.

Re: Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

#18

Post by davidgerard »

Robadob wrote: post #9
kennydude wrote: post #6

Can't over-rule the law everywhere Uber. (Public transport in London is incredibly good most of the time anyway...)

Expensive relative to other European capitals though (the unions control over TFL in part to blame for that though).

It's a lot more to do with putting off investment for literally decades, then finally having to pay for massive amounts of work on pretty much all the lines.

Re: Uber to Lose Private Hire Licence in London

#20

Post by pjc50 »

boothead wrote: post #10

Well, I can't disagree with the reasons, but as someone who lives outside the M25 this means I lose a really handy way to get home when I've had a drink. Ah well, I'm supposed to have given up anyway :-)

How much does that really cost though? Is that from central London?
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