Two different, both contradictory and interesting, new messages related to Uber in London. Both messages reached the news approximately a month ago. In September, London announced that Uber’s request for a new license in the capital city of England has been rejected by The Transport of London because of the following reason: ‘Uber is not a fit and proper private car operator’ (Butler, S. & Topham, G. 2017). Uber currently has 3.5 million users in London and 40.000 licensed drivers. Uber can still continue their services until it has exhausted the appeals process, which could take months. This is case since Uber’s chief executive announced that the company would appeal against this decision of The Transport of London. He stated the following as a reaction on this occurrence: “The truth is that there is a high cost to a bad reputation and thus really matters what people think of us, especially in a global business like ours” (Solon, O. 2017). Uber itself also posted tweets with the request to sign a petition to ensure London with more, not fewer, transportation options (Uber, 2017).
Contradictory to above described rejection is Uber’s own announcement, in September as well. Uber decided that Uber drivers will be banned from using cars that are not hybrid or fully electric in London from 2020 (Vaughan, A. 2017). According to Vaughan, A. (2017) London has been selected for this plan since the dirty air causes almost 9.500 deaths a year there. Uber also announced that this will most likely be mandatory for all Uber drivers in whole England as well before 2025. Uber’s 40,000 licensed drivers in London can receive a financial assistance from Uber to switch to a fully electric or hybrid car of up to £5,000 what in my opinion reflects how important this decision is for Uber.
Shall above two described news messages be pure coincidence or is it possibly related to each it? In my opinion Uber hopes to increase their chance of getting a new license in London by this decision (i.e. goodwill).
- Butler, S. & Topham, G. (2017) ‘Uber stripped of London licence due to lack of corporate responsibility’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/22/uber-licence-transport-for-london-tfl
- Solon, O. (2017) ‘New Uber CEO meets staff as emotional Travis Kalanick gets standing ovation’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/30/uber-new-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-all-staff-meeting
- Uber (2017) Uber Twitter account. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/Uber/status/911366169310896128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2017%2Fsep%2F22%2Fuber-licence-transport-for-london-tfl
- Vaughan, A. (2017) ‘Uber: London drivers must use hybrid or fully electric cars from 2020’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/08/uber-london-hybrid-fully-electric-cars-2020-vehicles
Hi Brend,
Interesting blog you wrote. In response to your question, I do agree with you that those two messages are related to each other. With 40,000 drives in London there is a lot of revenue to be made there, so getting some goodwill this way could, in their eyes, prevent their license from getting revoked. The only problem is that I do not believe that polution is really the reason why their license is getting revoked in the first place.
The main issue I think is the lack of reporting serious crimes to the proper authorities. According to the Press Association (2017) of The Guardian, there is currently speculation going on that Uber is deciding what matters to pass on to the police based on what is less damaging to their reputation. The result is that Uber failed to report sexual assaults, and a driver using pepper spray, to the police. Whether the increase in goodwill from financial assistance is enough for their license not to be revoked I do not know.
Reference
Press Association. (2017, August 13). Uber failing to report sex attacks by drivers, says Met police. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/13/uber-failing-to-report-sex-attacks-by-drivers-says-met-police
Hi Brend,
Thank you for the blog post! And very interesting take on why Uber was banned in London. I’m curious whether crimes by drivers as mentioned by Menno and environmental effects may be substantial enough though to ban the widely popular app and deny the benefits of jobs created for Uber drivers. Í’m also curious whether this ban was specific to the standards of taxi drivers in London specifically. Surely this problem with pollution and sexual assaults exist outside of London as well. There is a very long and prestigious history of the training and testing involved in becoming a London cab driver. London is very much known for their black hearse like cabs with taxi drivers who are said to have an amazing knowledge of London’s complex roads. Perhaps this ban was also a reflection of London wanting to maintain that time-honored tradition and maintain the quality of their drivers and is actually more a form of protectionism than anything?