[digbyloftus]

>The California-based private-hire company had urged its users to oppose suggestions that had included a ban on apps being able to show where their nearby available vehicles were.

>a minimum five-minute delay between pick-up confirmations being sent out and drivers being able to collect their passengers

Whoa, that's not even trying to be subtle. That's just straight up trying to legislate a required level of crapiness.

[st3v3ndungan]

>Other rejected measures included:

> a minimum five-minute delay between pick-up confirmations being sent out and drivers being able to collect their passengers

> a requirement that private-hire companies let customers pre-book cars up to seven days in advance

Um. Perhaps it would be better if the black cabs focused their efforts on enhancing their own user experience rather than trying to artificially cap it? :)

Also, this article links to nothing regarding the decision, it's just a single (unnamed) author's quick take, which is disappointing - if he/she is going to write so little, could they please provide a link to a first-hand source (the decision itself?) or a more thorough analysis?

I see from this that there are still several (perhaps minor) measures up in the air, and one measure that will be adopted is a "formal English language requirement[1]."

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/20/uber-tfl-consultation-win...

(P.S. first post - did I link properly?)

[JonFish85]

"Um. Perhaps it would be better if the black cabs focused their efforts on enhancing their own user experience rather than trying to artificially cap it? :)"

That's certainly valid, but on the flip side, shouldn't Uber at least compete on even ground? They basically storm into town, ignoring things like taxi medallions and such. That's why laws like these start to get enforced, so that Uber can't try to sneak past laws by saying "we're not a cab company we're a <something only slightly different>".

[mattlutze]

Uber is competing on even ground. They've apparently designed a system that falls on the legal side of these medallion market protectionist schemes in most/many/a lot of locations. They're operating in the confines of municipal law.

There's a few taxi and black cab app hailing services that make Uber et. al. moot here in southern Germany. TaxiMagic, for example, is great and provides the full core set of capabilities (favorite drivers, estimated costs, time-to-pickup, in-app payments, etc.) and is actually a network of medallion-holding taxi drivers.

Consider that, if taxi companies offered competitive phone-based reservations (removing the convenience market differentiatior), they'd actually end up being the more reliable provider. No surge pricing, more consistent availability of favorite drivers, more predictable trunk/boot sizes ( no worrying if your luggage will fit when all the taxis in the city are ___ cars). etc.

There's a bunch of these app companies champing at the bit to find taxi providers to partner up. Which is to say... incumbent taxi ecosystems can absolutely be competitive and possibly offer a richer/more lucrative range of services beyond the awkward ride-along you get with an occasional Uber driver.

[SilasX]

>Uber is competing on even ground. They've apparently designed a system that falls on the legal side of these medallion market protectionist schemes in most/many/a lot of locations. They're operating in the confines of municipal law.

It seems like that's not true in London, even though it would be trivial to comply. There, (my understanding is) you get to obey fewer regulations if you're offering a pre-booking service, and that exception requires that people be able to make a request for "a car at 3pm".

And IMHO, that's a pretty reasonable requirement; it's not saying customers have to specify a time, and it allows requests of the form "3pm or ASAP". It's also a feature many customers have asked for. But for some reason, Uber has this bizarre insistence on not allowing pre-booking:

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Uber-allow-customers-to-pre...

[mattlutze]

I find that Quora answer interesting. I get the argument that Uber is building for the future, where cars-as-appliances just hang out and pick you up when you call for them. But if I know I'm going to need a car at a particular time, why wouldn't my Uber of the future want to know that it needs to adjust the random distribution of cars-for-hire, or logistically coordinate more rides to end up near me, for that time?

If Uber knows it needs a car at 3pm, it can push work availability notices to drivers near the pick-up location who may not at the moment be working. It would be a benefit to the driver to be able to have the guaranteed fare, and if the driver is late Uber can just give it to a different driver. Pre-booked cars can be priced differently for the driver or passenger to ensure the opportunities are attractive enough for the slight inconvenience of having to drive a bit more to pick up the passenger. And it's more convenient for the passenger to know a car will be there.

Pricing can still do its surge thing, or they could require a pre-booking fee or something.

I don't see how ^ would require a fundamental reengineering of the system.

(And, as a round-about way, I agree allowing pre-booking would be a reasonable requirement, if it's indeed an existing statue.)

[SilasX]

Agree 100%; I made similar points in a reply to that answer:

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Uber-allow-customers-to-pre...

[thesimon]

>Consider that, if taxi companies offered competitive phone-based reservations

And instead, they are suing apps like MyTaxi in Germany. [1] The app allowed you to call cabs and pay via the app. But because MyTaxi promoted their app with discounts - even though MyTaxi paid for these - they sued them. Because f*, we don't need any new customers.

And considering they sued Uber as well, it seems like most taxi driver associations just don't want to improve and hope for the best.

Another example: In Berlin, they went to court over a new law forcing them to accept cards and collect a 1.50€ surcharge for it.

And this is even though a 1.50€ surcharge greatly covers their costs. https://sumup.de for example charges 0.95% for the debit cards that are very popular in Germany, so they make a profit for all payments under 158€ which seem very rare. And SumUp is quite expensive already.

They seriously need to improve their product. "Sorry, no app orders", "Sorry, card machine is broken", "Sorry, xyz"

[1] http://news.newsdirectory2.com/daimler-subsidiary-mytaxi-thr...

[robbrulinski]

Why is it Uber's job to allow other companies to keep up with them?

[daveguy]

It's just uber's job to comply with all regulation. Insurance, training, safety, etc. Generally those laws are in place for a reason. Claiming they are a "ride sharing" app to avoid commercial transport regulations is disingenuous at best.

Edit: Obviously artificial quality reduction legislation is a bad idea, but uber as a company has been pretty adamant about ignoring all regulation. Even if it is a bad regulation you don't ignore it, you lobby to get it changed.

[corobo]

> Um. Perhaps it would be better if the black cabs focused their efforts on enhancing their own user experience rather than trying to artificially cap it? :)

Bingo. For me personally the user experience starts with the price. The reason I tried Uber in the first place was because a black cab trip was £40 or so, the equivalent Uber was around £22 (with a bonus £10 off with a first travel code). I'm also a sucker for all things fancy and arriving in one of Uber's cars, while not exactly a stretch limo affair, just felt more classy than your bog standard cab. I also love the fact you can just move your slider across the more fancy you want your trip to be when booking.

I'm not familiar with London cabs either so I just assumed they were the same as cabs in my local town - Cash only. There were a couple that advertised they accept credit/debit but then you face the issue of picking a cab in the middle of the rank. Will they allow take the fare? Will the cab driver at the front of the queue throw a fit? Is someone going to get in trouble with a union if I just get in? Far easier to just tap in your destination and have a car turn up knowing you're all paid up and good to go.

On a final note it's probably driver specific rather than service specific but the Uber drivers I encountered didn't say a word after the initial greeting while I was riding until prompted by me. For someone that ends the day craving peace and quiet this was a godsend. I strongly dislike the idle chatter conversations you tend to get in taxis on the way home - just let me chill out and drop me off somewhere I can sleep!

It's quite possible you get all of that (minus the type of car) in a cab, but where do you even go to see that? Uber is branded as almost private cars for the everyday person so you go into it expecting a classy affair. Heck it could be that cabs just need a decent rebranding campaign.

[seivan]

In Sweden they've gone full circle with lobbyists and their friends in left-wing "news".

It's hard to explain to a 50 year old marxist/activist lawyer the value of booking a cab with my watch just to grab my wallet (and card) from the restaurant I forgot them in.

I've mentioned this before. No other company with bigger muscle/wallet here has whipped up an API - that's a litmus test.

Tells me the "Dread Pirate" (or his CTO) was on to something... everything should be a service.

[kartan]

I think that this article explains why that is not so good: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/applo...

"There is a place in this world for the sharing economy, and it could be a beautiful thing, but where I live these companies run the show. There are no rules. The apps are breaking the spirit of the law by abusing the independent contractor loophole and actively encourage (e.g., through dubious car placards) actually breaking the law. But it will only ever be the workers, not the companies, who are punished."

The problem with this companies is that they have traditional workers but they are hired as one man companies. So the workers lose all their rights, all their benefits and all their negotiation power. I work on the tech industry, as probably most of the readers, and I understand how apps works. I don't think that the apps are a problem, but removing the rights of thousands of workers is not a good thing. The article that I linked explains it better than I can here.

[caskance]

If those rights were really so important, why shouldn't independent contractors have them too? If the rights are not important when dealing with an interchangeable service provider like a driving contractor, then Uber is right not to grant them.

[kartan]

Each kind of contract makes sense in different situations. There are already laws that cover this situations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misclassification_of_employees... And there are precedents in the UK for this on Uber: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/11/uber-drive... All this app companies that people work for like employees but are classified as contractors are breaking the law. And I think that, as the abuse is growing, this laws should be revised and improved to cover all the cases.

[caskance]

Yes, it should. That's what my entire comment says.

Each kind of contract is used in different kinds of situations. That doesn't mean it makes sense to be that way. Much of that is antiquated tradition. The kind of thinking that gave rise to Uber in the first place.