Uber Signs A Deal To List All New York City Taxis In The App

The company has agreed to list all New York City taxis in the app. This is a partnership that can alleviate the driver shortage of car-sharing giants, curb high fares, and at the same time direct more business to cab drivers whose livelihoods have been affected by the advent of car-sharing. Share the pandemic with the app.

Uber UBER 4.07% has partnerships with some overseas taxi operators, and riders in some cities in the United States use the app to taxi if the taxi driver chooses to list there. You can book, but the New York City partnership is the first city-wide partnership in New York, USA. For years, one of Uber’s most profitable markets has been the iconic yellow taxi battlefield for companies and the city.

Andrew Macdonald, Uber’s Global Mobility Chief, said: The company plans to launch a service for riders later this spring.

Share your thoughts

How will the Uber-taxi service partnership impact the ride-hailing service industry? Join the conversation below.

As part of the deal, a technology partner licensed by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission will integrate the taxi dispatch app software with Uber’s software. According to Uber, these apps are run by Creative Mobile Technologies and Curb Mobility and are used by about 14,000 taxis in the city. Both companies will allow credit card payments by taxi and will also run screens to show riders the weather, news and advertisements.

According to the company, passengers will pay about the same fares as taking a taxi and taking a UberX. Uber drivers in New York City receive a minimum time and distance fee set by the TLC. According to Uber, drivers usually earn more than that rate. Taxi drivers who agree to carry Uber passengers will be paid in the same way.

Yellow cab meter charges are based on different calculations. This means that taxi drivers can pay less, the same, or more on an Uber ride, depending on the nature of their trip. Unlike New York’s Uber drivers, taxi drivers will be able to see the income expected before the trip and turn down vehicles that they don’t think are worth it for a while, Uber said.

Uber and its taxi partners get discounts on fares. Both companies refused to specify the conditions. Uber’s average global occupancy rate for the fourth quarter was 20%.

After the Wall Street Journal released trading news, Uber shares rose 5.3% in pre-market trading to $ 34.80.

For Uber, the alliance is the starting point. He once vowed to confuse the US taxi industry, but now bets that traditional taxis will spur the next wave of growth. By 2025, Uber wants to see all taxis around the world in the app. “It’s certainly ambitious,” McDonald said, but “I think it’s certainly possible.”

A sparsely populated taxi stopped at LaGuardia Airport in New York last February as Covid-19 put pressure on the business.

Photo: Angela Weiss / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images

Meera Joshi, deputy mayor of New York City, who oversees TLC, said the partnership would provide taxi drivers with financial opportunities “without adding more cars.”

“The word’confused’was almost somehow superficial,” said Joshi, a former TLC commissioner. Uber has modernized the taxi industry, lowering barriers to entry and making passengers accustomed to the service at the push of a button. But it didn’t kill the taxi or change the basic nature of the service, she said.

The taxi group has been fighting Uber for years. In many countries, major taxi company unions and lobbyists were behind a lawsuit banning the app. Regulators have cracked down on the company’s gigworker model. Taxi drivers in major European cities such as London, Paris and Rome have sometimes caused traffic jams in protest of Uber.

The company initially formed a partnership with a taxi to bail out its business in some foreign markets, but doubled its strategy when it became the driving force for growth. Uber’s attempt to attract a taxi was boosted during a pandemic when the driver’s flagship street hailing business was exhausted. According to the company, last year’s app listed more than 122,000 new taxi drivers, four times more than in 2020.

In Barcelona, for example, Uber went out of service after local governments imposed a rule requiring ride-sharing drivers to wait 15 minutes before welcoming passengers. After a two-year hiatus, Uber returned to the city with hundreds of taxis on the app after using the model in Madrid last year.

In Austria, Uber turned to taxi adoption when last year’s rules restricted businesses by requiring drivers to obtain taxi licenses. According to the company, the promotion of recruitment has registered more than 2,000 taxi drivers in the country, making it one of Uber’s largest overseas taxi markets.

The average Uber or Lyft fare this summer is 50% higher than it was before the pandemic. But even before the blockade began, prices were rising. This is why rideshare prices have skyrocketed and how companies are working to get them back. Composite Photo: David Fang / WSJ (Video from 9/8/21)

In Hong Kong, where taxis are a cheaper and more convenient option for commuters, Uber bought a popular taxi dispatch app last year, bringing thousands of city taxis to the spot.

Uber is in a position to profit beyond the vehicle business. McDonald’s said that 35% of people who started using the app to call a taxi continued to use other Uber products such as food delivery services.

The pandemic has hit the taxi industry, and drivers want to maximize revenue to make up for these losses, Ron Sherman, CEO of Creative Mobile Technologies, one of Uber’s partners in New York City. Says.

The Uber partnership gives drivers the opportunity to secure return passengers on their trips outside Manhattan. It is painful when they frequently return to the sky, especially because gas prices soar. Sherman’s company has a taxi dispatch app called Alo, but his user base isn’t comparable to that of Uber, he said.

Uber, on the other hand, lacks enough gig drivers in the United States. During the health crisis, they took up other jobs such as groceries and grocery delivery, and the resulting shortages led to record ride prices last year. Drivers are slowly returning, but riders are returning faster, says Uber and rival Lyft Inc. According to market research firm Yipit Data, fare has fallen from last year’s highs, but last month was on average 17% higher than in January 2021.

“They have demand and we have supply,” Sherman said. “It makes sense to start talking about partnerships because we needed more supply,” Uber said.

Last year, Uber contacted Sherman’s company about advertising on the roof of a taxi. In recent years, Uber has begun installing in-vehicle tablets and rooftop TVs to broadcast a variety of advertisements.

— Sam Schechner contributed to this article.

Write to Preetika Rana ([email protected])