Starting this spring, New York City residents will be able to catch a yellow taxi from their Uber app. Uber on Thursday announced a partnership that would make taxi rides available from its app, leading to a one-hit enemy in place as the tech company struggles with driver shortages.
The partnership is expected to increase the number of trips available to Uber while giving the city’s 14,000 yellow taxi drivers access to a large group of Uber-dependent travelers currently on their phones, Uber said.
The delivery company, which was founded in 2009 as a way to “disrupt” the taxi industry, has been struggling to attract delivery workers to its platform. The shortage has been exacerbated by rising petrol prices, which reduce drivers’ salaries.
In New York City, Uber customers will pay approximately the same amount for taxi rides as for UberX trips, spokesman Conor Ferguson told Getty Photo Service. Taxi drivers will be able to see what they will pay for a trip before deciding whether to accept it, which Uber drivers in New York cannot do.
A beta version for taxis will be released this spring and will reach the general public this summer, according to Creative Mobile Technologies, one of Uber’s two technology partners in the project. Creative Mobile said the measure would allow taxi drivers in its app to see a larger volume of trips and increase revenue.
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents taxi drivers, criticized the deal, saying it would reduce taxi drivers’ salaries from what they currently earn with meters. It plans to negotiate rates with Uber, the group said.
“[T]The fare structure, which is not enough for Uber drivers, will not be enough for yellow taxi drivers who have higher expenses, such as paying the medallion and higher car costs, “said the NYTWA chief executive. Bhairavi Desai, in a statement.
History of the battles
New York is Uber’s largest U.S. marketplace and a key battleground with city regulators and workers.
“It’s bigger and bolder than anything we’ve done,” Andrew Macdonald, senior vice president of mobility and business operations at Uber, told the Wall Street Journal.
The deal announced Thursday comes in the context of more cities moving to regulate the explosive growth of Uber and other application-based travel services. New York temporarily put a lid on on new licenses for public transportation in 2018. It was also the first city in the United States to be established minimum wage levels for drivers after a series of driver suicides led the city to move to improve working conditions for drivers.
Worldwide, Uber Technologies Inc. has been incorporating taxi drivers into its system for the past few years. In Spain, the company has integrated taxis in Madrid, Malaga, Valencia and Barcelona. In Colombia, it has joined TaxExpress, which has more than 2,300 active drivers and accounts for half of all Uber taxi trips in Latin America. Uber also has relationships with taxi software and fleet operators in Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, Turkey and South Korea, the Associated Press reports.
There had been indications that tensions between Uber and taxi services had begun to thaw as Uber aggressively expanded into the highly lucrative food delivery business and needed a growing supply of dealers.
During the pandemic, Uber’s food deliveries outpaced passenger travel as millions took refuge at home. Uber’s gross book service deliveries reached $ 13.4 billion in the last quarter of 2021, compared to $ 11.3 billion in Uber’s travel.
How the partnership will work
Under the New York City agreement, anyone with the Uber app will have access to thousands of yellow taxis operating on the CMT / Arro platform, according to the AP. Taxi drivers will see Uber-sourced fares on their drivers’ monitors, which they already use to service email from the Arro taxi app.
Curb, Uber’s other partner in New York City, offers a licensed taxi and rental travel app in North America. Although its partnership with Uber will begin in New York City, Curb said the partnership will expand to its national network over the coming months.
The Associated Press contributed to the information.
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