Uber Lose licence to Operate in London

Mint Sauce

An awful lot of assumptions on this thread, yes Black Cabs are rediculesly expensive, but the mini cabs were and still allot cheaper, unfortunately with Uber mini cabs being cheaper still, this did away with a lot of the mini cab offices, from places other than near to tube stations, and even some of them went. As for the black cabs not taking credit/debit cards, allot of them now do.

Most people I know living in London, use(d) Uber over the traditional mini cab, even using them to book cabs for friends and family, was even tempted to download the app my self for my visits, until I heard the news some time ago that they were on the way out. Seemed their regulation or lack of, for screening, and background checks on their drivers was the ultimate downfall.

ancapailldorcha

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Where do you draw the line on "lawyering the rules"?

Bit of a ridiculous statement imo

A lot of companies do this. I'm not defending it but it happens and it's not unreasonable to expect regulators to keep up.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Not buying it. It's cheap though, everything else be damned.

This was never my point. I wasn't aware of the practices you highlighted above. However, 3.5 million Londoners use Uber and tens of thousands of people drive for them. A functioning transport market requires competition. There must have been an option for dealing with Uber beyond refusing to renew their licence to operate.

whomitconcerns

This is a very bad thing for the cost of transport in London. Where I'm living is 4 miles from London bridge, That's a 40£ taxi journey or a 12£ uber... This will severely detriment or transport options. I'm no uber lover but there isn't any other options.

Billy86

They seem like a great service, but I would advise people to listen to The Dollop podcast on them, very entertaining and good god they're an evil company (their Enron episode is also excellent and covers a lot of stuff others missed out on or overlooked).

whomitconcerns

A Little Pony wrote: »

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Pretty disgusting example of cronyism here to protect the absurdly overpriced Black cabs. Khan is supposed to be a pro-business mayor.

Khan doesn't know what he is doing. He is the worst Mayor of all time. London is a mess with knife crime, thugs on bikes going around terrorizing people, Islamist terrorism is off the charts this year. Do not expect him to be competent on anything.

Just wow..... So much wrong with that sentiment...

Digital Solitude

whomitconcerns wrote: »

This is a very bad thing for the cost of transport in London. Where I'm living is 4 miles from London bridge, That's a 40£ taxi journey or a 12£ uber... This will severely detriment or transport options. I'm no uber lover but there isn't any other options.

Public transport? Kabbee? MyTaxi? Walking? Cycling?

MyTaxi have cut their fares in half, looks like a great thing for prices in London to me

ancapailldorcha

Billy86 wrote: »

They seem like a great service, but I would advise people to listen to The Dollop podcast on them, very entertaining and good god they're an evil company (their Enron episode is also excellent and covers a lot of stuff others missed out on or overlooked).

My concern is for London's transport market. I couldn't care one sniff for Uber or Tavis Kalanick myself, I just don't want to see prices soaring.

Wossack

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Monorail

I hear those things are awfully loud

whomitconcerns

Digital Solitude wrote: »

whomitconcerns wrote: »

This is a very bad thing for the cost of transport in London. Where I'm living is 4 miles from London bridge, That's a 40£ taxi journey or a 12£ uber... This will severely detriment or transport options. I'm no uber lover but there isn't any other options.

Public transport? Kabbee? MyTaxi? Walking? Cycling?

MyTaxi have cut their fares in half, looks like a great thing for prices in London to me

What i said was it cuts options. When you need to get from Paddington to where I live it's 3 tube changes and a bus and takes 75 mins at least. An uber takes 45 mins and is for to door. Kabee and mytaxi cost over 40£ for that journey. Uber was about 23£. Walking and cycling not an option on that journey

Billy86

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

My concern is for London's transport market. I couldn't care one sniff for Uber or Tavis Kalanick myself, I just don't want to see prices soaring.

I fully get that, but prices soaring with no viable competitor is the exact and explicit long term goal of Uber and they've gone to some seriously dodgy lengths to influence politicians and eradicate their competition in certain areas.

chrissb8

I used ubereats in London. For those who don't know it's like deliveroo except anyone can do it. I once accidentally ordered one bottle of coke to my friends place when I was in London recently. I was really high and was blown away that you could get a man in a car to pick up even the smallest of things. Imagine, wanting a packet of crisps and someone will get that one bag of crisps for you. Blew my mind. Sad to see such a vital service go.

ToddyDoody

Probably didn't help that 'uber' is a German word.

ancapailldorcha

Billy86 wrote: »

I fully get that, but prices soaring with no viable competitor is the exact and explicit long term goal of Uber and they've gone to some seriously dodgy lengths to influence politicians and eradicate their competition in certain areas.

I don't think that'd be viable in Europe, thankfully with various anti-trust bodies and regulators.

The Backwards Man

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't think that'd be viable in Europe, thankfully with various anti-trust bodies and regulators.

Such as TfL?

biZrb

Uber works really well in the Greater London area where black cabs are rare and public transport non existent after a certain hour.
If I want to get from Kew to Raynes Park for instance late at night it means night buses which can take a long time and involve walking between certain stops or getting an uber for £15 and it taking only 25 minutes.

Also, with Uber I don't need cash on me to pay for it, its all automatic. I'm not sure if other services offer the same.

I'm really going to miss the cheap, reliable service it provides.

Guy:Incognito

Anyone can provide a service cheaper if they don't have to face the same costs as the competition.

A non rgi registered plumber, not paying for insurance or registration with rgi will be cheaper to get than a properly 8nsured and licensed guy, but which one shoild be fitting your new boiler?

Wossack

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Anyone can provide a service cheaper if they don't have to face the same costs as the competition.

A non rgi registered plumber, not paying for insurance or registration with rgi will be cheaper to get than a properly 8nsured and licensed guy, but which one shoild be fitting your new boiler?

I'd have let Daniel O'Donnell have a look at my boiler tbh

DEFTLEFTHAND

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Pretty disgusting example of cronyism here to protect the absurdly overpriced Black cabs. Khan is supposed to be a pro-business mayor.

I'd imagine the blackcab Union are quite a formidable force in London.

Wouldn't be wise for a Mayor to upset the apple cart so to speak.

Bambi985

whomitconcerns wrote: »

This is a very bad thing for the cost of transport in London. Where I'm living is 4 miles from London bridge, That's a 40£ taxi journey or a 12£ uber... This will severely detriment or transport options. I'm no uber lover but there isn't any other options.

I'm out west in Chiswick and have sporadic client meetings mostly in central around London Bridge/Oxford Circus. Chiswick to London Bridge via uber is about £20, via black cab it's about £60-70, hackneys are somewhere in between. It's incomparable.

Do I give a single fcuk about my driver having to rely on sat nav to get me from A to B versus meeting a true blue cockney geezer who knows the city inside out when it amounts to a hefty £40 price hike on uber? Can't say that I do. Same goes for reliability. I'd never want to be in a rush and relying on a free black cab to roll passed anywhere in central London, especially if it's a relatively busy hour of the day. Even less so if I was south of the river, I lived in SE London for three years and saw about three of them on the road during that time.

philstar

Specialun wrote: »

I know I know..Why should I give a fook about those brits :):) ..but this is big news if you travel to London

and what lovely way to start the thread you should work for the tourist board

Madagascan

Doltanian wrote: »

Saddiqh Khan the Muslim Mayor of London in another disgusting anti-Semitic attack on Uber a company built primarily by Jewish-Americans..

But primarily drove by non Jewish drivers.
Largely Muslim.

mahamageehad

ToddyDoody wrote: »

Probably didn't help that 'uber' is a German word.

:pac: It's banned in Germany though! It was here for a while, way cheaper than MyTaxi which is all that's left now. MyTaxi app is shocking poor too.

I love Uber. Anytime I'm abroad and in a country where it's popular I use it. I travel a lot on my own and I feel safer with uber, knowing it gets me door to door, I can track directions in the app and see ratings in advance, and also know a rough fare and not have to carry cash.

The gig economy is really shaking things up and regulators need to figure something out to balance everything. That said, Uber as a company has some terribly shady practices.

I doubt this is actually going to stop them operating. It appears they were only granted a license in the last few months but when I was visiting friends in London about a year and a half ago they were big into using über and we got one back after the nights out then too.

So if they are around that long without a licence I don't see why they will suddenly go away now that it's revoked.