All hail Uber! But what about the black cabs?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/17/all-hail-uber-but-what-about-black-cabs

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I had mixed feelings about Uber, the global “app-based transportation network” (translation: cabs you get with your phone). Then I got an Uber account and now my feelings are more mixed still. Black cabs hate them. “Don’t make this about us against Uber,” said Kevin, 52, a black-cab driver. “It’s us against TfL. They have the strictest regulations in the world, but we’re the only ones who have to abide by them.”

Black cabs, anecdotally speaking so far, are really suffering. Kevin said this had been his quietest start to the year in a quarter of a century. At the end of last month, a black cab even offered to take me home from a bus stop for free, because he was bored.

From that point of view, Uber represents the classic red squirrel, grey squirrel story: the independent, sometimes fairly scarce, iconic native car-hire species edged out by a wave of sturdier, stronger, similar, creatures. So far, so bad – plus, I share some sympathy with the view that the Uber rating system, which sees both driver and passenger mark each other out of five at the end of the journey, reduces a human moment to a rateable transaction.

But then Humphrey, 51, took me to the dentist, through Vauxhall roadworks, round a byzantine one-way, for £10.04, and said: “Me, I’m a talker. You’re such a talkative lady, I’ll give you a five-star.” It might not have been the best reflection of my personality, since I was interviewing him. But I got my five-star rating and that made me feel pretty human.

All of the five drivers I spoke to had left minicab firms to join Uber, including one, Riz, 36, who had left Addison Lee, and they all felt that they were now being treated better. Way better; better to the extent that they laughed when they heard the question.

Uber has 15,000 registered drivers in the UK, in London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham – they launched in Newcastle on Friday. The rumour is that Addison Lee has lost 1,000 drivers; the company rejects this, saying that only 8% of their business overlaps with Uber.

“I was one of these that left,” Riz said. “They were a good company when they were owned by a cabbie, but since [Carlyle, the private equity owners] took over … I’d do 70-80 hours a week just to survive and that meant not putting my daughters to bed, not having the energy I need to be a father or a husband. Since I finished it’s been smiles all the way.”

Jo Bertram, the London general manager at Uber, said: “We had drivers, I remember, the first Christmas bringing us presents because that’s what you used to have to do with your dispatcher. That’s how they’d give you the good airport slots. We had to say, ‘you don’t have to do this. We’re just going to give you the information about where the work is, you decide what you want to do’.”

Riz was recommended to me by the company, but none of the other drivers knew whether Uber wanted them to talk or had to check. They all said the same. Mehari, who took me back from the dentist for £9.32, said: “Uber might not pay tax in the UK. [Its operating firm is Dutch.] Black cabs don’t want them because they’re taking their jobs [Riz said a black-cab driver emptied his urine bottle on to Riz’s car bonnet]. But the work doesn’t stop – as much as you want, as much as you can do. Sometimes we can make £400 in a day.”

Mehari does it because he loves to travel – since he came to the UK from Eritrea, escaping the national service there which is, in effect, limitless servitude to the government with pocket money, he’s been everywhere. He really likes Switzerland, for some reason that it would have taken longer than our 17-minute journey to make out.

Salih, who took me and my kid to a different dentist (this journey, at £6.27, is probably the cheapest taxi ride I’ve had for years), said: “For me, it’s not the money so much as the peace of mind. You don’t get any hassle because there isn’t any cash. I used to hate it when people tried to haggle.”

Is this the main thing, from a passenger point of view? That the act of spending is now severed from the handing over of cash – the way it was with consumables, decades ago – and so all the anxiety of getting a taxi is rubbed away? (Until you get a credit-card bill.)

Kevin, the black-cab driver, thinks that’s only part of it. “Even with Hailo [an app that calls black cabs and delivers them to you, kerbside] people are using their phones when they don’t need to, there are cabs going past them. Everyone does everything by their phone.”

I love Uber; I love the way you can track your car as it approaches the thrill when you get five stars and the sensation of going back to the 70s, the last time the cost went up in 7p increments. But then, I hate conglomerates and I love black cabs. As I say, mixed. I’m going to have to stay in until I get some moral resolution.