There’s been much in the media today about the Hackney Cab blockade/strike in London this afternoon, protesting to TfL and Boris Johnson about the licence that TfL have given Uber to set up an app for hailing minicabs.
This isn’t a turf war. It’s much more serious than that, and there are some highly political issues here too that affect anyone who uses a taxi.
I won’t rehearse the cab drivers own concerns – they are much better at expressing that themselves as with today’s Comment is Free piece by Ian Beetlestone at the Guardian.
Here are 6 reasons why I think we ought to be asking questions:
- All the adverts about never using non-registered minicabs for personal safety reasons fly out the window because Uber take no responsibility for minicabs being registered. In the event that an unregistered driver managed to access the App, and a passenger were attacked, they wash their hands of the problem. Minicab drivers do not have to have criminal records checks, unlike Hackney drivers. Would you want your teenage daughter to hail one late at night with no access to a reliable minicab firm taking the booking?
- The fares are unregulated. Uber take 20% of the fare price, but you won’t be paying the TfL regulated rate that Hackneys charge, as – for the first time ever – a deal has been struck allowing them to set their own rates. I’m not aware that this is highlighted to the passenger at the start of the journey.
- Worse than the unregulated fares, Uber are the first non-hackney company to be permitted to set a meter. This is a fundamental part of the regulation of hackneys since they were first licensed in the 19th Century, and there has been no public debate about this key change. And the rate is not regulated, so they can set it at the level that they want.
- The minicabs are not subject to the same vehicle safety checks as hackneys, nor do the drivers have to do “The Knowledge”, so their knowledge of London can be minimal.
- Uber is registered as an offshore company, so, guess what? They will pay as little tax as possible in the UK. Preferably none. Why on earth did TfL not insist that they operate through a UK subsidiary and pay tax locally? This will be a highly profitable business with minimal overheads. Given the high profile of private companies not paying tax, one that is regulated in the public realm should surely be asked to pay taxes.
- And finally, a selfish note. I use a wheelchair, so I can’t risk using it (even if I wanted to most minicabs are saloon cars, and you won’t know until the minicab appears whether it can take you or not. With black cabs you are reassured that 99% have ramps, most of which are built in.
Everywhere that Uber have set up internationally New York, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, San Fransciso etc) there have been issues about them, from the unregulated metering through to a remote and tax avoiding company that won’t take responsibility for its drivers.
I regret that London Hackney Cab drivers have had to go to the lengths of today’s action, but I think it is time that we taxi users also woke up to the major changes, which won’t just affect London. Uber’s intention is to get into every major city that it can. Watch out Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Cardiff. They raised over $300m in 2013 from investors, who clearly see it as highly profitable, and are already talking about going public. Last valuation was about $3bn. Should profit come before safety?
* Baroness Sal Brinton is President of the Liberal Democrats. She is a working Lib Dem peer, and was the candidate for Watford at the 2010 and 2005 General Elections.
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42 Comments
I think that should be “concerned” rather than “convened”?
Haven’t used Uber myself, not being a smartphone owner, but it’s certainly popular in Manchester.
Isn’t the solution to most of this concerns to institute more regulation of the minicab trade rather than ban Uber in order to protect the Hackney cab trade?
Sorry, meant to add: regarding the knowledge. The knowledge was a key element prior to the days of Sat Nav technology but these days it’s little more than a crude barrier to entry that acts to protect the status of hackney cab drivers. Do you really need your driver to know every route when they can simply enter your destination into a box on the dashboard which will tell them the best way and, possibly, re-route automatically based on live traffic information?
Sal,
I recently came to London and used Uber for the first time. I have to say that the experience was fantastic. I think that competition in the minicab market place should absolutely be welcomed and that concerns about Uber are overblown.
Specifically:
1. Personal Safety. When you hail an Uber, you are sent, in the App, the name, a picture and the licence plate of the cab that will come and pick you up. That information is available for you after the ride. Both you and the cab driver both know about each other and that information is also held by Uber. Uber drivers also have to be licensed minicab drivers. Uber complies with local regulations, so if minicabs need to be licensed, they should have a responsibility to get checked. If we are scare mongering, if you hail a black cab, you have to make a note of the cab driver’s name and cab registration if you want to have any redress. With Uber both sides know who each other are and therefore have more security as a result. If the regulations about criminal checks around minicab drivers is an issue, then that is something that can be resolved and will apply to Uber as well as any other minicab drivers working in London. The situation with Uber is considerably better than any other minicab operation in London, and arguably better than the Hackney cabs. Also when did the Lib Dems start assuming anyone with a past criminal record is unsafe and not someone who should be given a second chance after they have served their time?
2. Uber’s fares are published and available immediately from within the App. You can get a quote for your journey from within the app, before you commit to ordering the cab. So there is complete transparency about your costs. If I get in a black cab, is there any way I can estimate before time how much it will cost, without working it out by hand from the rate table? (I can perhaps use Hailo, the black cab’s Uber competitor). My experience was that a minicab from my hotel in Twickenham to central London cost £50. The return journey with Uber cost £22 and the driver looked at me oddly when I offered him a tip. Again, when did Lib Dems become supported of price controls rather than free market pricing? Uber has the power to significantly reduce costs through competition.
3. Meter. Yes this is true. They are allowed to effectively have a meter. Other than the current regulations that were written before the existence of smart phones and apps, why is having a meter a problem? It gives a method of having a set predefined rate fare for the journey and a consistently reliable mechanism for demonstrating that you are not getting overcharged . More to the point, if you have run out of cash, you can get home and the driver will be paid without you having to stop off at a cash machine and the driver has the confidence that he will get paid.
4. They don’t have to do the Knowledge. Neither do other minicab firms in London. And in the age of Sat Navs, this is no longer an issue. Not only can the Uber driver find anywhere via their Sat Navs, with the optimal route, that route will be adjusted for traffic before you hit traffic, unlike a Knowledge guided Hackney cab. Not only that, but the passenger has a smartphone to get the Uber app, which means they can also plot out the route on their phone and know whether the driver is taking the quickest route (and allowing for traffic conditions). In my opinion, the Knowledge is a concept that is now past its sell by date.
5. Off shore. Valid point. Again, that is not an issue with Uber, that is an issue for how we are regulating them. It is completely in our hands to control how Uber operate and we should not be criticising them for complying with local regulation. And of course it is possible that a UK based company could go into competition with them. Oh yes – there already is – Hailo the company set up by black cab drivers for black cab drivers that does exactly the same thing, and operates in lots of international markets, potentially not paying tax there and bringing the revenue back to the UK.
6. Disability. Here you have a strong point, but again it is up to the TfL and local authorities to set the regulations under which Uber works. There are questions about whether Uber are complying with disability regulations in other jurisdictions, but again, I doubt they are operating in any way differently to the other minicab firms
We are in danger of looking like Luddites, desperate to protect a particular group of drivers for sentimental reasons. We should be celebrating consumer focused innovation, not knocking them down. If there are regulatory changes required to accomodate developments in technology and the market, we should be pressing for changes, not blaming Uber for our failure to keep up.
“Everywhere that Uber have set up internationally New York, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, San Fransciso etc) there have been issues about them, from the unregulated metering through to a remote and tax avoiding company that won’t take responsibility for its drivers.”
Or to put it another way, everywhere they have set up their competitors have come up with a load of usually spurious points to try and stop them competing .
The article is very odd because a lot of the points are just(if not more) applicable to mini cabs – disability access, unregulated fares, safety checks, not having to do the knowledge.
This is slightly zany. Most of these arguments apply to minicabs. As for their tax status; it’s a non-sequitur. Are you saying there are no cabbies in London who evade tax?
Damnit. I hate agreeing with Simon McGrath. Look what you made me do?!
Just on point 6 does Uber not have an option for requesting an accessible vehicle? Seems to me that they’re missing an opportunity there if they don’t.
Sal is right we should be asking questions, not just about Uber (and other similar app providers), but about the modern taxi cab business and the regulations that apply, given the technology enabled changes we are seeing.
@Jack 11th Jun ’14 – 1:52pm re: “the knowledge” and Sat Nav’s.
I’ve found that many taxi drivers in Paris rely on their satnav and have no real idea of where they are going, hence I have frequently had to tell the cab driver that their satnav is incorrect, my destination is a further 1km up the road, this is because the satnav is using the mailing address (ie. used for deliveries) and not the address for the visitor reception, I can do this because I regularly visit these clients…
A second example of the value of local knowledge over Satnav, it took nearly five years for my address to appear on satnav maps, although for about three of those years the post code did display in the middle of an empty field.
Finally a third example: it is a simple 10 minute journey by car to the next village, by satnav it can be nearly 30 minutes because satnav’s tend to default to using main roads rather than country lanes…
However, a satnav (with current traffic reports) in the hands of someone with local knowledge can be a very useful tool.
Whilst the issue of safety and the supply of disabled friendly cars are real issues (Uber have tried very hard to address the safety side) it comes across as though cabbies feel they have a god given right to stop any form of competition.
As LibDems, we surely should be encouraging this sort of enterprise but with the proper checks in place to make sure that the Uber vehicles are up to code, their drivers are safe and that end users are protected from being ripped off.
I’ve travelled in many a Hackney that’s tried to pull a fast one with the route so its not as if they are saints…
I worked for the Public Carriage Office processing licence applications and sending out licences. Back in 2006/7, all licensed London minicab drivers were required (among other things) to produce a full enhanced CRB check before their application could be processed.
I believe there have since been changes to the CRB itself, but it is certainly not true to say that minicab drivers are not subject to background checks.
This protest sounds more like the black cabbies trying to protect their privileged position than anything to do with genuine concern for the public. While it may be easy to hail a cab in Central London, out in the suburbs where there aren’t a constant swarm of taxis patrolling the streets, this service looks like being extremely useful for comsumers. It will need keeping an eye on, of course, and it’s probably worth discussing directly with them how they provide for users who use wheelchairs etc. But when Hackney Cabs long ago moved onto the territory of minicabs by being able to be “hailed” by phone, it is hardly surprising or a terrible liberty for an equivalent move onto their “territory” to happen in the other direction.
Ultimately this means more choice and more power for the consumer. What liberal is going to oppose that?
This is a fairly poor article I think.
Here’s the reality: the regulation (i.e. distorted cartel practice) of Hackneycabs needs to be quickly and massively modernised, or the entire system will be brought down by modern competitors like Uber.
This is no different to the recording media industry (i.e. distorted cartel practice) having to modernise massively in the face of internet downloading for the same reasons.
Now, you can either stand with the past, shouting and pointing at how frightening the future is, or you can be part of the future and make it better.
Choose, and do it quickly.
I don’t know about London, but in Oxford a Hackney Carriage Licence would have cost you about £80k about a decade ago, that’s just the value of the artificial permission slip, not the cab itself – now a major investment as more and more cities insist on cabs being less than a certain number of years old, forcing them to fork out for a new one every few years. The licence is pure economic rent created by the artificial scarcity of regulation. In New York medallions are so scarce it is rare for an ordinary cabbie to be able to afford one so they have to pay this artificially created rent to a private investor who often has snapped up several purely as an investment. The rewards of state created scarcity – privilege – being reaped by the best off and best connected from the cabbie’s efforts. I’m a liberal, and I’m against this sort of thing!
Frankly, this is a problem for London only because of its tightly regulated (closed shop?) system of taxis. In most other areas – for example, in most areas of Scotland – it’s relatively simple to get a license and then to operate as a minicab firm, and they’re even allowed to pick up from taxi ranks and be flagged down on the street (Edinburgh is slightly different, but that’s the case with just about everything!)
Sanjay makes many really good points. OK, so Uber allows a firm to operate without a license – but that’s something that can be easily changed and if TfL talked to them maybe they could do something about it. But why is it that, in the day and age of sat nav, there’s still this supposed benefit of “The Knowledge”? How does it benefit, say, a tourist, who doesn’t know London so can’t be sure if he’s being taken the quick way or the profitable way – at least with sat nav on most mobiles, there’s a form of checking. And I can’t say that I’m particularly fussed when a taxi driver pulls over at the “destination” on the sat nav, only for me to have to ask to go a few hundred yards down the street – especially since I usually have to give direction to the door anyway.
All this seems to me to be much ado about nothing, apart from black cab drivers trying to protect their own interests.
I agree with most of the detractors of this article, scaremongering about minicabs should raise a question about the regulation of minicabs, but it is not a defense of the artificial semi-monopoly enjoyed by Hackney cabs.
As a Londoner who is currently touring the UK, it has been brought very much to the forefront of my attention lately that taxi pricing in the UK varies wildly from one town to another. London taxis seem extortionately expensive by the standards of most other places, even if you make some allowance for “London prices”. To my mind, anything that promotes a more transparent market with more information available to the consumer when they are making decisions about where to spend their money is very much to be welcomed.
It saddens me that once again we have a Liberal Democrat parliamentarian coming out in favour of protective practices.
As noted above, the Knowledge is meaningless in the age of modern technology. In fact, this is an excellent example of how disruptive technology is stripping away the costs of doing business. Uber’s savings will boost their profits in the short term, but in the long term the market will force them to pass these savings onto competitors. Considering the high costs of Black Cabs in London, this can only be a good thing.
“Uber’s intention is to get into every major city that it can. Watch out Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Cardiff….” Cheaper, higher quality taxis are coming your way.
Even if Baroness Brinton had really raised any valid points (which she didn’t) then the launch of UberTAXI today has destroyed most of them… http://blog.uber.com/UberTAXI#.U5hqxOyvBEU.twitter
And this is the wider picture from Europe
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/en/blog/my-view-todays-taxi-protests-and-what-it-means-sharing-economy
Keith, just to be clear – Uber does NOT allow minicabs to operate without a licence. London minicab regulations still apply, so all the Uber drivers are licensed minicabs and have to display their licence and identification in the same way. Many work for other companies as well as offering hours of their service to Uber. The regulations that minicab drivers have are less restrictive than black cab drivers, but the rules are the same for Uber drivers or other minicabs.
Interesting to read that the minicab licensing involves CRB checks.
And Thomas is right, Uber has responded magnificently to the protest today by announcing they are opening their service to black cab drivers. So disabled passengers looking for a disabled friendly car will now be able to book a Hackney carriage, get it to come to them, even if it is not where the black cab is driving around looking for pick ups, know when it is going to arrive, know how much it will cost in advance and pay the standard black cab rates.
Member of House of Lords supports people on strike !!!!
Shame it was Black Cab Drivers. I would have much sooner read about Members of the House of Lords supporting those trade union members who recently went on strike to keep open ticket offices on the London Underground.
But I suppose their Lordships (and Ladyships) feel more at home supporting Black Cab Drivers who are well known for their enlightened Liberal views on all things political.
Lib Dems should support strikers when they are right and not when they are wrong. It’s weak to just keep begging for justice.
I would prefer a “liberal” solution to this, such as a bit of deregulation, but sometimes the answer is more regulation or enforcement.
Thank you for the many comments.
Just to make it plain, I am not in favour of restrictive practices (and nor does the article suggest that), and have supported deregulation of taxis where it’s been clear that the taxi business was not responding to local need. And that’s why Jock is right to say that the £80,000 that he quotes as the permission slip price in Oxford was outrageous.
Nor am I having a go at minicabs. My key issue is that TfL have now created a hybrid system, with different sets of standards, practices and regulations. Because TfL have allowed Uber to stray into the hackney market with metering and given them what amounts to an ability to hire (even if it is via an app) the public has not been given a say on whether we want to move to one system using different safety standards and with some being able to set their own fare level, but others not. That is a big step. Do we really want to deregulate fares completely? I suspect people will start to object if fares rise quickly.
Tom – perhaps it is time to remove the Knowledge as a regulatory condition in London, but that is part of the regulatory system, rather than a restrictive practice. TfL and the Mayor should be reviewing the principles of that with the GLA scrutinising it.
Sanjay, I’m not criticising the principle of the App at all. Please let there be more technical advances to make life easier. What I object to is the financial advantage to one party, and the lack of debate about the changing of a system.
I remain concerned about the safety elements of de-regulation. Uber doesn’t just contract with minicab companies, but with individual drivers, and yet takes no responsibility or oversight for their actions, whether it is the roadworthiness of vehicles or probity of drivers. And you are right about Hailo being offshore too… Hailo started off just working with black cabs, but they’ve now expanded to minicabs too, so there’s another example of the hybrid system.
JohnT: Please read what I said! I regret the strike, I don’t support it. And, because I use a wheelchair I also use taxis more than most people, especially when the single space on a bus is already taken. As I use an electric wheelchair, I can’t use the underground, even on step-free platforms because they won’t provide staff to put ramps out. And finally, believe me, I know about the views of taxi drivers, and many are not liberal – goes with the territory. 😉
I’d be interested to find out what taxi deregulation means to you all.
Is it complete, including freedom to charge any fare that the taxi wants, with no safety requirements, or is the current dual system of hackneys and minicabs ok, or somewhere in between?
Sorry, Eddie, I cross posted with you. You’ve just answered my question at the end!
Sorry but this looks like a classic case of Luddism to me. Black Cab drivers would be much better off thinking of ways to handle the extra competition, defining & then promoting their USP. They start with a great reputation which they now seem to be trying to destroy.
The existing regulated market, however imperfectly, attempts to strike a fair balance between the various interested parties. Uber will disrupt that with new technology that has many attractive features. But does that mean that the need for some sort of public regulation – suitably recast to fit the changed technology – disappears?
Matt Stoller makes a series of very convincing arguments that Uber’s technology will enable it to capture the available economic rent, to increase that rent and that it is already moving quickly to do so in the US.
http://mattstoller.tumblr.com/post/82233202309/ubers-algorithmic-monopoly-we-are-not-setting-the
For now, as the new kid on the block and with everyone watching, Uber is constrained to behave somewhat but I see no reason why relative good behaviour would continue if the market fundamentalists get their way. Allowing the public regulation to be swept away by the march of technology doesn’t mean that regulation ceases; it only means that Uber takes over as the regulator, working entirely for private gain and using the powerful network effects that typically accrue to the first mover in software businesses to quickly build an unchallengeable position. Most market fundamentalists are distinctly naïve about how this works or how it’s one of the main forces behind the rapid growth of inequality in recent years.
@Sal Brinton
“3. Worse than the unregulated fares, Uber are the first non-hackney company to be permitted to set a meter. This is a fundamental part of the regulation of hackneys since they were first licensed in the 19th Century, and there has been no public debate about this key change.”
I don’t understand this. Surely when people use a private hire vehicle (which I reckon constitute the majority of “taxi” journeys in my own area) the journey is metered in some way, for example based on the odometer.
Or is it a case of a “finger in the air job”: “How does £40 sound to you, Guv?” “Well, I must say that £15 seems a lot more reasonable to me.”
In fact one of the main private hire companies in my own town promotes itself on the basis of being “10p per mile cheaper than Hackney fares”. If there weren’t some sort of metering, how could anyone say that?
So what are the London cabbies gripping about?
Agree entirely with MBoy and Sanjay Samani.
Uber is a brilliant little app, very much in line with the broad aims of trade liberalisation, helping to knock down price cartels by effectively removing barriers to entry.
Apart from 5, which is primarily a problem which legislators like Sal Brinton have to solve as it relates to business in general rather than a reason to go for this particular business, the other points are just reasons why an individual might make the choice to use a black cab. What is missing is any reason why it should be a collective decision rather than an individual one. For a liberal, there has to be a compelling reason and none is offered. This article is a good example of why not to be a member, when you could be working to elect (or indirectly to have enobled) someone who doesn’t actually understand this.
This is barely worthy of an article. Most of us will never step inside a black cab because we can’t justify the cost when a bus or train or indeed a minicab is available. Everyone is facing change because of mobile internet technology, I don’t see why cab drivers and their patrons should be exempt. Baroness Sal Brinton may be a special case as she uses a wheelchair, but most wheelchair users have what I suspect would be a significantly smaller income, and so have to manage on public transport. Accessibility to public transport, especially outside London, now that’s a subject worthy of an article.
Why does London not just do what other cities in the UK have done and insist that minicabs have meters installed and set minicab rates which are different to hackney carriage rates as they are not allowed (supposedly at least) to do street pick ups. In Leeds all mincabs have meters and have done for years now.
Basically London need to sort out its regulation of minicabs not seek to keep technology at bay
Cab drivers are small businesses and should be part of the liberal family. We should at least listen to them.
I’m not anti Uber by any means, I was just put off by some right wing sneering of striking cab drivers by the Spectator.
To clarify: I wasn’t put off Uber by the sneering, I just don’t like making fun out of strikers.
i think this is called progress, no?
not sure i have the same level of concern about uber…
Thanks to everyone for a lively debate and illuminating many points I would not have considered. Special thanks to Sanjay whose inputs I found especially interesting and with whose views I must say I have to agree. I use black cabs quite a lot when in London but I must say the fare levels are usually eye-watering. (I saw a German TV item on this (as there were taxi strikes there as well yesterday) (as there were in Milan when I was there two weeks ago!) and they gave an example of the equivalent of Uber there (“Wundercar”) charging a fare of EUR 6.00 as against EUR 19.50 by a traditional taxi operator!) I believe technology has caught up with the black cabs* and that its use/growth is inevitable. I also believe, however, that, as has been pointed out, the new technology should not just be allowed to let rip in an unregulated manner but needs careful consideration and implementation balancing consumer advantage with restrictions where these are absolutely essential (only). (*Had a personal experience of this as I asked a London cabbie recently if they still had to undergo the ‘Knowledge’ test and, if so, why as sat navs (which they all seem to use anyway!) had surely rendered this redundant. He was on me straight away and it was obvious I had hit a nerve. The more he went on about how ‘essential’ the test was, however, the more I could not help thinking to myself, “the gentleman doth protest…”!
This is a terrible article. To get home from central London costs me £40 by black cab and £15 in an uber. Unless black cab fares come down to something half-sensible, why would anyone with a choice take one? And most of the objections to uber raised by the author have been demolished by other posters. Except tax – I agree on that!
@Mark – but do you think the tax situation should be sorted on a case by case basis under public pressure as particular companies come into the public eye, or do you think legislators (like Baroness Brinton) should create a system which makes sense? They also need to make sure they are arguing for a system that is symmetrical, so if we want not just VAT but also a share of the corporation tax from the profits created by Uber’s servers overseas because the customers are in the UK, then we also need to be willing to give a share of corporation tax from the profits created by our banks’ computers to the countries where their customers are located.
By the way UK legislators talking about tax evasion is hugely hypocritical because the non-dom exception is one of the best tax havens in the world. As London is a major business, art and cultural centre it is a lot harder for foreign tax offices to argue that moving there is pure tax avoidance and should be disregarded, whereas people moving to Belize have a much harder time.
People seemed to have got hung up on the fact that the Cab trade was protesting yesterday only about the introduction of the Uber app in London.
As Sal mentioned, and the black cab trade have tried to make clear, the protests were more to do with what they perceive to be the failures of Transport for London rather than about the use of new technology. Now I hold no particular brief for the cab trade and in my previous ‘life’ had plenty of run ins with them, but can I recommend people take a look at http://thecabbiescapital.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/totally-failing-london/, a blog written by Richard Cudlip – @cabbiescapital- who is, as his Twitter name implies, a London (and Labour supporting for what it is worth)Taxi driver – which sets out why London’s cab drivers are so unhappy at the moment.
Also worth noting is that Caroline Pidgeon is leading an investigation in to Transport for London’s London Taxi & Private Hire department due to the problems that exist there. For more info on that investigation go to http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/investigations/taxi-and-private-hire-services-in-london
In 15 years of living in London, I’ve only used a black cab once.. because my boss was passing for it!
Now I don’t use minicabs much either (twice in 10 years, both time to go to the airport at an ungodly hour. Living near night bus routes helps of course), both are too expensive, certainly when can’t share, but at least with minicabs you know in advance how much it will cost you, and you can make an informed decision.
As long as the vehicle provided by Uber comply with the same standard the minicabs ( identify drivers for security, and insurance in order), then I don’t see the problem. Though I’d be more tempted to use Kabbee where it seems the pricing is more straightforward.
Only reason I can ever think to use a black cab is if you need to transport something really cumbersome since they’re bigger.
The differentiation between taxi and private hire is one which should have ended within ten years of the introduction of mobile phones. Outside of a handful of city centres, virtually no one ‘hails’ a cab any more. Most people have preferred minicab firms who they ring up and who arrive within minutes.
Much of the misinformation in the Baroness’s post has been addressed previously, but I think she’s still a bit misinformed about certain matters. Essentially Uber in the UK is simply a slight variation on a traditional licensed minicab firm (‘private hire’, to use the legal definition), with the app merely represented a more modern and sophisticated method of hiring a vehicle than the telephone (or mobile phone in voice mode!). Similarly, the app calculates the fare more precisely than the standard minicab method, but even minicab fares have to be quantified somehow!
I can’t understand the point about Uber not being responsible for its drivers. It’s surely just as responsible as any standard minicab firm via its operator’s licence, particularly since it’s a widespread industry model for despatch offices merely being platforms to connect passengers to self-employed drivers using their own vehicle, a la Uber.
Keith Legg, there may be differences between London/Provincial England/Scotland, but the matters you refer to certainly aren’t different between the three regimes. Essentially all three legislative frameworks are similar.
Specifically, it’s as easy to license a private hire vehicle (minicab) between the three regimes, give or take variations in individual licensing authorities. You CAN’T use a minicab to pick up passengers from a rank or hailed in the street, either in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK.
Perhaps you’re thinking of Scottish local authorities which allow standard saloon cars to be licensed as taxis, but that’s no different from the rest of the UK, although London is obviously different in that respect.