Andy Peters
Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association
info@bhcta.co.uk www.bhcta.co.uk
IS THERE A TINY CRACK IN UBER APPEARING?
Let’s hope so….well it is nearly Christmas!
‘Uber Local’ arrived a couple of years ago in a fanfare of its next stage of world domination with boasts of continuous expansion of local cab companies getting into bed with Uber and selling their souls (my opinion) in the process to become ‘Uber Local Partners’.
I am absolutely sure that shrewd cab company bosses must have done their homework and were rubbing their hands with glee about becoming subservient to a global organisation as an ‘Uber Local Partner’. Or was it a case of thinking if they didn’t jump on board then Joe’s Cabs up the road will, and they will then lose out so they had no choice. I think it was probably the latter. But, being a simple cab driver myself I could never work out why a local cab company boss would even think that being associated with Uber would be a good business plan?
But what do I know.
My immediate consideration at the time questioned the high probability of the business being devalued once there is a reliance on a third-party supplying work? I mean how do you eventually sell your business when you have less control over it? As well as the simple blatant fact that Uber would be selling the work back to that local company that the company would, or should have had in the first place, which was so blinking obvious.
However, looking at a typical screen shot of the Uber app, the ‘Uber Local’ option always seemed to have been a much higher fare than the normal Uber one which I have been told is the case wherever ‘Uber Local’ operated. So why would the average Uber customer who is looking for a cheap ride go for the ‘Uber Local’ option where the fare is showing as being higher? Is that the reason why it has all come tumbling down? Too much effort for very little take-up?
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Of course we will probably never know the real reason why Uber sent out a note to all of its ‘Uber Local Partners’ telling them the joint operations would cease in December.
But I am pretty sure that all those ‘Partners’ must have been as shocked as the rest of us. In my view, however, I think any ‘Uber Local Partner’ has had a lucky escape.
But what do I know.
However, if you look back in the August 2019 issue of PHTM on page 30 in the feature: ‘Why You Shouldn’t Use Uber’, you will see the following statements:
“Less support for the local economy”. Along with: “Uber can’t deal with trip complexity”. And ironically: “Local taxis are building for the future”.
The last quote is the best: “So if your customer starts questioning whether they should be using Uber, you now have all the information you need to explain why booking via a local taxi firm is the better option.”
I’ll leave it to you to see who made those statements, but the clue is that it came from a specific dispatch system company.
It is interesting to recap what Uber stated when it f irst announced its ‘Uber Local Partner’ scheme; it sent the following message to all those companies on that particular cab dispatch company that it bought in to:
DECEMBER 2023 PHTM
Additionally, looking at various online trade forums there has been complaints that such higher ‘Uber Local’ fares gave a false representation of what the general ‘local’ fares really were as charged by local cab firms.
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