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Uber London loses licence to operate

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#231

Post by fortythirteen »

sambe wrote: post #16

When I have reported black cab drivers misleading passengers, lying about pricing and regulations or bus drivers driving dangerously and being rude to everyone, TfL are totally uninterested. They give the impression that they know the scams operate and don't care. It's an interesting comparison with my Uber experience, which has been almost flawless and issues are usually fixed by Uber themselves promptly.

The difference is that those companies haven't built software with the express purpose to operate extrajudicially.

Being "innovative" doesn't mean that you have full reign to operate unethically.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#232

Post by mnx »

lmm wrote: post #183
salcoco wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You wanna pay £8 with card? Really?" That's when I stopped using black cabs.

"Yes", or if they make a fuss, report them - you've got their license number on the plate right in front of you, and actual accountability rather than an unaccountable star-review system.

Yeah, except most people won't bother. So it gives in fact less accountability.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#235

Post by dx034 »

Not a lawyer but I find it interesting that they say to "immediately challenge" the decision. Since they can operate in the meantime, shouldn't they file it on the 21st day? They can already announce to appeal but challenging it now could just shorten their life span?

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#236

Post by cholantesh »

kbart wrote: post #202
lotsofpulp wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, I don’t think I’ve ridden in a small, local cab company whose cars didn’t smell like cigarettes and was barely legal to drive, and often had drivers trying to scam you. It was always nice expensive black car service, or shitty local taxi company, which was a super last resort. The transparency and accountability that Uber brought has been preferred by everyone I know, and people are voting with their dolla…

It might be due to the fact that in most parts of Europe there's a cheap and good public transport available, so cabs must compete with it too. In USA, there's not much to choose from, so cabs have local monopolies, hence higher price and lower quality service.

Canada is in the same position. Cab drivers regularly take longer routes than necessary to drive up the meter and often pretend their card machines aren't working to force cash payment.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#237

Post by kofejnik »

kbart wrote: post #202
lotsofpulp wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, I don’t think I’ve ridden in a small, local cab company whose cars didn’t smell like cigarettes and was barely legal to drive, and often had drivers trying to scam you. It was always nice expensive black car service, or shitty local taxi company, which was a super last resort. The transparency and accountability that Uber brought has been preferred by everyone I know, and people are voting with their dolla…

It might be due to the fact that in most parts of Europe there's a cheap and good public transport available, so cabs must compete with it too. In USA, there's not much to choose from, so cabs have local monopolies, hence higher price and lower quality service.

most taxi services in Europe are quite bad and hugely overpriced due to artificial monopoly, to the point that I try to stay away from the countries without Uber

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#238

Post by bsmithers »

Nursie wrote: post #40

If they can't or won't reform then excellent, let's be rid of them. I don't want to give any business to a company that are seeking to become a worldwide cab monopoly, and squirrel away any profits to the US. We have a perfectly healthy cab ecosystem in my city, app-driven and with fare competition and city regulation. Which I suppose is why Uber, though present, hasn't really taken off here. That said, talk of profi…

>We have a perfectly healthy cab ecosystem in my city, app-driven and with fare competition and city regulation

Sure, but that doesn't exist in the majority of cities. The user experience is why I use Uber.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#239

Post by gsnedders »

dx034 wrote: post #221
gsnedders wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI, the regulator had evidence that Uber had used Greyball in some markets (i.e., the known uses), and Uber were unable to convince the regulator that they had not used Greyball in London.

Not even sure how you would convince them. Full code and database audit isn't easy nor cheap and I doubt Uber wants to pay for that. Apart from that, there's no way to detect if Uber runs services to detect regulators.

Oh, I agree it's totally impossible, and the only solution is to not attempt to evade regulators in the first place. Otherwise you end up like Uber:

> We know you've evaded regulators in these cases, in other markets. How should we know whether we don't have evidence of you evading us because you successfully have or because you haven't used it here?

We didn't use it here.

> You said that in the markets where we have clear proof you used that, why should we believe you?

We won't disclose our code/database.

> OK, we'll assume you did use it here.

We didn't use it.

etc.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#240

Post by mittermayr »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #189

Londoner here. The license is not being renewed not because TfL isn't interested in innovation (they actively encourage it), not to retain power for the black cab drivers, and not because London isn't interested in companies like Uber operating here. It's because of the rapes. The Metropolitan Police (the part of the UK police force that polices London), has objected to their license. In 2015 alone, they had to deal…

Well, this is probably not the best point to base an argument on:

"In the entire history of the hackney carriage (black cab) license - going back to 1662 - I know of only one case of a driver having been prosecuted for rape, about 5 years ago."

Anecdotal, and also, "prosecuted" describes a very certain slice of the data.

The following link extends into other companies and crimes, but it hopefully adds to your anecdotal comment a bit.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/over-400-london-cab-dr...

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