Yea, like complaining about other country's problems is sacrosanct in the USA.
Taxi drivers in Europe have to pay exorbitant amounts of money and go thru a gauntlet to be able to make a living.
Uber, imho, steals that living away in a very real way...
I'm all for Uber, I used UberPOP a few times to come back home late (5am), but not late enough (so the public transportation was not yet available) and there were not enough regular taxis (or they were overpriced.)
So Uber fills a need. They'd need to work with the local government but I'm pretty sure we will be the last to allow them; France is way to conservative and protective of the local guild-like organizations (like taxi drivers.) In the meantime I'll keep seeing drunk/high people driving home.
First, in France, even if you're not a taxi, there's a special driving license for "transport de personnes" ("people transportation" ?) which is required if you want to use a vehicle with more than 9 (IIRC) passengers, eg. bus drivers. There's also the matter of insurance. I think we can agree that establishing clear responsibilities and ensuring everyone is properly covered by an insurance in case of an accident is a good thing.
Then there's the taxi license. In France (as in other countries) their number per city is limited. Therefore at the end of their career, taxi drivers sell them and recoup the cost of their acquisition. That's a sum of money they don't want to lose. Those license can get very expensive in major cities like Paris.
Finally there are also some kind of regulations about the car itself (like you have to have a standardized indicator on the roof of the car, a taximeter, etc.)
IMHO we need some reforms to make sure every Uber driver has at least the right insurance and perhaps has followed some kind of course to be able to transport people. As for the taxi licenses, it's kind of an artificially created scarcity. If removed, there are some costs (existing drivers will want to get a refund, then they may want to change occupation, etc.) Finally, as for the car requirements, Uber takes care of the indicator/taximeter. They also have some rules about the cars.
In conclusion, Uber is not trying to disrupt a market, they're going against an existing institution with clear rules and regulations in a lot of countries.
Becoming a taxi driver here in Edinburgh appears to cost £165 - which includes a test which appears to be pretty straightforward to pass.
Is that really an "exorbitant amounts of money"?
[NB I appreciate that Edinburgh may be the exception - but Europe is rather large and diverse so making such a generalisation about an entire continent seems rather unwise].
Which is legally what uber is.
Uber just didn’t want to pay insurance fees.
It appears that the licensing process is set to only accept a very small amount of the total applicants. That way politicians and taxi owners have something to point to about how it's a level playing field, and they leave things to a black box bureaucratic process to actually stifle competition.
Uber does not operate as taxi, but, as they can be not directly hailed from the street, they act as chauffeur for hire.
Both require an appropriate licence from the City Council, and the licence requires appropriate insurance. Charges for the licences do not appear to be huge [2], but there is a moratorium in operation on the granting of Hackney licences at present [3].
Many of the Private Hire cars have both the local operator and an Uber sticker on the car. As an older gent with a Blackberry, I shall continue to phone seven sevens when I need to book a taxi. Younger people with smart phones appear to be using the Uber app, but there are also apps for the various Private Hire operators and for the TOA. One wonders if there is an opportunity for a 'meta-app' that can price a journey using all three apps and then suggest the cheapest.
I am not aware of any UberPop style activity. I suspect that carrying passengers for money in the UK is quite regulated and that trying to get round that would lead to difficulties. Buses/trains/metro are OK for most of what I do except for returning from convivial social gatherings late at night where I will prefer to use a taxi.
[1] http://www.toataxis.co.uk/
[2] http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite?c=Page&childpagena...
Central Taxis 0131 229 2468
Same thing used to happen in NYC - but with the onset of Uber, the value of licenses (which were steadily climbing) has flatlined or even dropped.
It's unfortunate for the last set of drivers with these licenses, but it's a horrible way to run a much-needed service.
Insurance, training - absolutely. But forcing investment in super expensive legacy licenses is very inefficient.
Not the case in Ireland. Taxis were deregulated 10+ years ago.