Boston Cabbies Battle Apps; Sue Uber & Lyft

Smartphone-based car services like Uber and Lyft are allowed to operate in Boston without the same oversight traditional taxi companies and drivers face, according to federal lawsuit brought by taxi drivers and owners.

The Boston Taxi Owners Association filed the Jan. 16 complaint along with Raphael Ophir and Joseph Pierre, two Massachusetts-based owners of taxicab medallions, taking aim at the city, Massachusetts and various public officials, according to Courthouse News and various reports:

Taxi medallions can cost in the neighborhood of $700,000, and are mandatory for traditional taxi companies to operate in the city, but the Internet-based ride services, described in the complaint as "Transportation Network Companies," are not required to pay or apply for such documents. Shift drivers pay medallion owners rent, upwards of $500 per week, to drive their cabs.

“The City has . . . permitted the de facto taxi companies to flout the law with open impunity by deploying an invasion of unlicensed cars and drivers with no requirement of any medallion” or other city taxi regulations, the lawsuit said, as quoted by the Boston Globe.

The taxi owners say the city is violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because ride-hailing operations provide the same services as their companies, but are treated differently.

South Carolina bans Uber, but Gov shows Luv

The Uber taxi service has been ordered by South Carolina regulators to cease operations in the state. But it says it is the process of seeking permission to legally do business there.

"We have challenged the order and remain committed to providing South Carolinians with greater opportunity and choice," the company said. Meanwhile, Gov. Nikki Haley called for the order to be lifted, saying Uber provides economic opportunities and consumer choice to people of South Carolina.

A.P. Says 'Ride-sharing' it Ain't!

Companies like Uber and Lyft have often referred to their services as "ride-sharing."  But the Associated Press now has banned the term as inaccurate. Uber-like services, AP says, should be called "ride-hailing."

Why not just call them car services?  After all, the rides are not shared, they are paid for, like all other taxis. So you could call Uber cars taxis.

Uber hires

Yahoo News reports that Uber is adding to its roster of ex-public officials. The taxi app service has just hired Michael Allegretti, a one-time congressional candidate, political consultant and Manhattan Institute scholar.  Locally, Allegretti joins Matthew Wing, previously Governor Anthony Cuomo’s press secretary, and former TLC official Ashwini Chhabra, whose hiring last fall seems to be under investigation by the city based on suspicions that he had been secretly reporting to Uber while still working for the commission.

China Bans Uber

Associated Press in Beijing

Friday 9 January 201510.44 EST

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Google+

Shares

173

China has banned drivers of private cars from offering services through ride-hailing apps, according to the Guardian and other reports.

Only licensed taxis may use ride-hailing apps, the ministry of transport announced on Friday. Such apps are hugely popular in China, and the ministry said it needed to protect passengers as well as, it seems, licensed taxi drivers.

“While we encourage innovation, we prohibit private cars from using platforms to participate in the ’hired car’ business,” said a ministry announcement. It said companies that operate ride-hailing apps will be required to make sure no unlicensed drivers use them.

The ruling could be a setback for Uber, the Guardian says, noting that the company faces bans of other challenges in South Korea, India, Europe, California and other markets for using drivers who lack taxi licenses.

Fast Company reports that Uber's operations are facing suspension in cities around the world, including in France, India and Spain, as well as New York City-- to name just a few. The company is marshaling a small army of policy staffers to do battle with local authorities, Fast Company says.

Uber, however, has a pattern of coming into markets without licenses, establishing a demand for its services, and then, if necessary, extracting concessions from regulators allowing it to operate lawfully, but close to its own terms.

China, the Guardia says, already has ride hailing apps like Didi Dache, backed by internet giant Tencent, and Kuaidi Dache, backed by rival Alibaba Group. Those services are used mostly by taxi companies.

A Shut and Open Case

The NYC TLC has suspended five of the six Uber-owned dispatch bases in the City. But just as quickly, it lifted the suspension when Uber appealed (or perhaps simply said it would appeal).  


Two days ago the TLC suspended the bases after the company refused to submit their electronic trip records to the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Uber has refused to comply with a TLC directive that it turn over the data, saying it would violate their constitutional rights and share trade secrets. The agency needs the data to make decisions that will affect the taxi industry, as well as investigate passenger complaints.

According to TLC flak Allan Fromberg, as quoted by New York Business Journal: "The suspension wasn't technically lifted, but I'm now told that Uber submitted an appeal request very late yesterday, and our policy is to issue them a temporary permit allowing them to operate until the appeal is decided.... We had mentioned that this would be the case if they appealed the ... decision."


One Uber base remained open which apparently allowing Uber operations to continue unaffected in the meantime.

The Great Medallion Crash of 2014

Taxi medallion prices, after rising continually for many years, are continuing to fall, with app-based hailing services like Uber taking the blame. The New York Times reports that in NYC individual taxi medallions, whose owners must drive a taxi for roughly 180 shifts per year, fell to $805,000, down 23 percent from 2013’s peak of $1.05 million. Corporate medallions, which may be owned in fleets, traded on average at $950,000, down 28 percent from their peak.

In New York, yellow taxi business has been cut not just by Uber but by the green or outer borough taxis.  There is a strong feeling among owners of yellow medallions that the TLC is failing to enforce rules that protect their traditional and investment-backed expectation that they will have the exclusive right to street hails, at least in Manhattan.  

The Times reports that medallions are barely selling at all in Chicago and Boston as financing has dried up.