UBER UPDATE INTL
UBER DRIVEN OUT OF BARCELONA AGAIN
Uber has suspended its professional taxi service in Barcelona almost a year after it re-entered the Cata- lan capital. The move on Friday 1 February follows the regional government agreeing new regula- tions for the vehicle for hire (VTC) sector aimed at making sure they do not compete directly with taxis. “The new restrictions approved by the Catalan Government leave us with no choice but to suspend UberX while we assess our future in Barcelona. We are committed to being a long term partner to Spanish cities and hope to work with the Catalan Government and the City Council on fair regulation for all,” an Uber spokesman told TechCrunch. Reuters reports that Cabify also withdrew its service, quoting a statement from the company in which it accuses the government of having “given in to the demands of the taxi sector, seriously hurting citizens’ interests”. The company claims to have a million users in Barcelona. The new regional VTC rules, which also came into force across Cat- alonia on 1 February, require a minimum 15-minute wait between a booking being made and a passenger being picked up. The decree also bans VTCs from circulating in the streets between jobs, requiring they go back to a base such as a parking lot or garage to wait for the next pick-up. They are also prohibited from displaying the real-time location of bookable vehicles prior to a reservation being made. Achieving compliance would clearly require major changes to the way in which ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Cabify oper- ate. The decree also provides for fines of up to €1,400 (£1,200) for any VTC drivers caught infringing the provisions. So Uber’s announcement of a service suspension is not a surprise. The company does not appear prepared to return unless the decree is reversed, saying it needs a “fair” regulation - echoing its message when it pulled out of Denmark back in 2017. “The obligation to wait 15 minutes to travel in a VTC does not exist anywhere in Europe and is totally incompatible with the immediacy of on-demand services, such as UberX,” it writes in a blog post enti- tled ‘see you later, Barcelona’. “Barcelona, we hope to see you soon,” it adds, claiming the relaunched service was used by more than half a million people over its run, relying on “thousands” of drivers to deliver it. Uber’s original p2p service was also forced out of Barcelona, back in 2014, following legal challenges from the taxi sector that eventu- ally went all the way up to Europe’s top court. At the end of 2017 the court judged Uber to be a transport company, not a neutral platform - enforcing compliance with local VTC rules and rendering Uber’s early regulation-dodging playbook a dud in Europe. Since then, taxi associations in Barcelona and other major Spanish cities have been keeping up the pressure for regulation on the VTC sector by holding a series of strikes in January in which some strik- ers were caught on camera attacking a Cabify driver’s car. An ‘indefinite strike’ was also called last summer and only ended after the Spanish government agreed to devolve regulatory power to autonomous regions and local authorities.
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Uber and Cabify temporarily paused services in Barcelona during that strike after reports of violence, including attacks on drivers; although taxi associations organising the protests were quick to distance themselves from any violent acts, urging their members to protest peacefully. The most recent strike in Barcelona also saw some VTC drivers take to the streets to try to apply the brake to regulation, parking their vehicles along a major road and demonstrating outside parliament. There’s still a chance that the Catalan parliament could refuse to back the decree, though the current regional government is com- mitted to a full restructuring of the law to ensure VTCs and taxis do not compete for the same work.
MADRID TAXI DRIVERS CALL OFF ANTI-UBER STRIKE, VOW TO FIGHT ON
Taxi drivers in Madrid seeking tighter regulation of Uber and other ride-hailing services called off their indefinite strike on 5 February after 16 days during which they obtained no concessions from the Madrid regional government. Madrid’s refusal to accept drivers’ demands came after ride-hailing companies Uber and Cabify said that they were suspending their services in Barcelona in response to the regional government’s imposition of limits on how they operate in the city. Union representatives in Madrid said the strike had demonstrated the unity and power of the drivers, which would help them continue the fight for their demands. “It is a long war, in which you can lose battles, but in the end I’m sure we can win,” Julio Sanz, head of the Taxi Federation union, told Reuters reporters. Last month, riot police backed by a fleet of tow trucks had to clear hundreds of vehicles blocking the capital’s Paseo de la Castellana thoroughfare. In September, Spain’s government gave ride-hailing companies four years to comply with regulations granting them just one new licence for every 30 taxi licences. The cab drivers are demanding stricter regulations now.
UBER DRIVER WHO SHOT SIX IS SENTENCED TO LIFE
Nearly three years after driving an Uber around Kalamazoo, Michi- gan, and randomly shooting and killing six people, Jason Dalton was sentenced on Tuesday 5 February to life in prison without parole. Dalton, 48, pleaded guilty to killing six people and wounding two others in a series of random shootings around the southern Michigan city over five hours on February 20, 2016. In between the shootings, he picked up and dropped off passengers as an Uber driver. The shootings occurred on a Saturday evening in three different parts of Kalamazoo. He first shot Tiana Carruthers, then 25, in front of her children in an apartment complex parking lot. Four hours later, he killed Richard Smith, 53, and his son Tyler Smith, 17, at a car dealership. He then opened fire in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant, killing Barbara Hawthorne, 68, Mary Lou Nye, 62, Mary Jo Nye, 60, and Dorothy Brown, 74, and wound- ing a 14-year-old girl.
MARCH 2019
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