Just ahead of the end-game in New York, NYC yellow taxis are to be offered for hire under the Uber platform. After this surprising move to partner with New York’s finest, the ride-hailing app has struck similar deals in Spain, Germany, Austria, Turkey, South Korea, Hong Kong and Colombia.
Does anyone know what the rate will be if you ehail a taxi under the Uber platform?
Will they undercut the usual fare just to begin and when people get used to it, gradually raise the price?
So what happens to taxi fare rates when they are offered on Uber?
If they receive the Uber rate, will they simply start to respond only to Uber e-hails and will consumers realise they are way worse off?
The way they use surge pricing in London, you can bet your bottom dollar the customer will lose out.
What’s the purpose of a regulated meter and a historic licensing regime, if a third party booking can take you outside the regulations?
Is Uber’s Project Horizon coming to fruition? Make no mistake, this is the way we are being led by corporate greed, and it’s the way the trade is blindly going.
Uber would love taxis to join their platform because the industry would cede power to them. An ad hoc meter would be the logical next step to full deregulation.
Once the meter is undermined, then it’s game over, £70,000 cabs and cabbies might go the way of Victorian lamplighters.
CabbieBlog 
This uberization of all we do is termed progress. Oh dont get me wrong, progress can also be a spiral downward. By having our brains extended to our hand we can do so much more, like this, chat across thousands of miles, oceans, timezones. But the dependence, that is loss of independence, is worrisome. Having walked blocks and worried I would never find a taxi to pick me up on a quiet bank holiday in London, risking a missed international flight, do I take any comfort in thinking a few taps on my electronic brain would ensure my security? No. Life is getting too complicated for this old traveler, as it feels, some days at least, that the progress of our species and our planet has shifted. But perhaps that is just my grumpy old guy brain, and I just need to get the happy fool app to download. Now, where did I leave that bloody phone?
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Very philosophical. Thanks for the thoughts.
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Would it be up to the PCO to agree to this? First I had heard about it, David.
Best wishes, Pete.
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It gets worse, any cabbie receiving 6 points on their licence, say for holding a mobile phone, will have their bill (cabbie licence) suspended for 7 years. Yes! That’s not a typo. Thanks Pete for the comment.
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