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Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

bbc.com

351–360 of 520 posts

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#351

After living for years in London, it’s hard to compare Ubers with black cabs. In the centre of town during the day black cabs are often ubiquitous, immediately available, and skilled at getting you the hell out of dodge. Something for which I’m happy to pay a premium. Anywhere else they can be capricious and scarce. After 11pm this is the case with in fact almost all black cabs anywhere in the city, when a very diffe…

of all the jerks i see causing traffic delays, 90% of them are lyft/uber drivers. next time your in SF and you see someone blocking the bus-lane with their hazards on as if its some excuse, you'll see the uber/lyft tag.

Uber eats is even worse. One neighborhood I fequent will typically have 4 cars lined up blocking the street, cars empty while the drivers go in to pick up someone's food delivery.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bolt is funded by Chinese money. They're heavily subsidizing rides with that money to capture some of the market and they will have to raise prices eventually.

Uber is funded by Saudi money, same deal.

Uber is not free, it's way past the free stage.

I saw few acquaintances trying Bolt (in London) and the main argument is the first rides are free, then the next rides are free too if you refer a friend.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#353
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Black cabbies have had it good for such a long time, cash in hand, monopolising the taxi business in London . I got in a cab booked using a taxi version app and the driver complained about paying % fee to the app and only getting paid once a month. Welcome to the rest of the world where people pay taxes and only get paid at the end of every month.

> Welcome to the rest of the world where people [...] only get paid at the end of every month. Wait, what? You get paid once a month? Is this a UK thing? Every single job I've had over here (Canada) was either once every two weeks, or two times a month.

Once a month is standard for salaried work in the US.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number comes from Cognizant who were hired to conduct an independent review [1]. They found that 43 drivers out of 45,000 drivers skirted Uber's identity checks committing identity fraud. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/78827b06-0f6a-11ea-a225-db2f231cf...

Thanks for posting the raw numbers. London is citing this 14,000 number as if its egregious, but my initial reaction was: "Out of how many total?" Based on the numbers you're posting Uber was literally 99.9% compliant. That's definitely not "unfit." This is politics plain and simple. And not the first time Uber has had to play the game. This same thing played out in 2017. The courts will side with Uber.

The number is actually quoted as "at least 43". I should have quoted more carefully. Sorry for that.

You can google the URL and then click on the link to get through the paywall.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#355
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was a real thing, I'd say building bridges/roads above the city would be the only viable (yet extremely difficult) solution. Maybe underground in some places. Would look pretty dystopian probably

Underground is not possible there due to the amount of underground infrastructure dating back hundreds of years. Look at the upheaval at adding a new tube station and the cost and mayhem that caused (can't remember where the last station added was but I seem to recall a new one on the Central Line last time I was in London a long long long time ago).

Underground road tunnels are certainly possible. London's clay is over 400 feet (120m) deep (deeper as you go east, shallower as you go west) leaving plenty of easily-tunneled space if you go below most of the existing infrastructure.

There is currently a "super sewer" tunnelling project (Thames Tideway Tunnel) which goes down to a depth of about 75m, below other infrastructure.

The Elizabeth line and other tube lines are shallower, for access reasons and because building stations at a great depth is more expensive. But a road tunnel could go deeper, especially if it only permitted zero-emissions vehicles so that ventilation is easier.

Of course, it'd all be very expensive. And there is an argument that building more road relief capacity is not a desirable thing as it just encourages traffic elsewhere.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No, let's look at it from a more philosophically objective point of view. Why do you think that the millions of Londoners who voluntarily chose Uber over traditional taxi services should be denied the freedom to choose what taxi services to use?

[flagged]

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#357

After living for years in London, it’s hard to compare Ubers with black cabs. In the centre of town during the day black cabs are often ubiquitous, immediately available, and skilled at getting you the hell out of dodge. Something for which I’m happy to pay a premium. Anywhere else they can be capricious and scarce. After 11pm this is the case with in fact almost all black cabs anywhere in the city, when a very diffe…

I was in London recently. I took Uber 15 times in 2 weeks. I never had a single issue. The only problem I had is that the culture in London appears to be to give 4s as default instead of 5s. Other than that I felt it was better than SF Bay Area.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#358
For those of us in London who are totally fed up with bullish companies like Uber who refuse to play by the rules and systematically tread on workers' rights, there's a worker's cooperative called TaxiApp (https://www.taxiapp.uk.com) which works on a non-profit basis and attempts to give a similar experience to that of Uber/Lyft/Hailo etc.

Unlike the others, it's operated and owned by the workers - so you know that everyone is getting a fair deal.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#359

have you ever wondered what makes services like Uber affordable? 1) underpaid drivers 2) VC money dropped into an otherwise unsustainable business I'm pretty sure Uber will raise prices the moment it kills the competition

3) Undermining the cartels of some of the most vulnerable sectors of society. 4) Shifting ressources from railway to road transit from the 1920s onwards as well as severe cuts to public transit in the 1960s and 1980s. That last point might seem like a long shot but I think it is accurate considering that the externalities of private transit are being paid by society as a whole.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offence, and I can see that you've been downvoted but how do you actually propose solving this "unnavigable" problem? By bulldozing existing property that is owned by multitudes of private landowners and building new roads or something else?? Honestly, what's your solution?

I doubt there is a good solution to the problem in general but having ridden a motorcycle aimlessly around central London on my own little sight-seeing trips I can certainly get on board with the idea that London has been designed to be minimally navigable without knowing exactly where you are going (or having a GPS which does the same). This is at least partially due to one way streets, turning restrictions, traffic…

Probably because its been "designed" over a couple thousand years and they don't have cars for the majority of that.
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