
Uber services suspended in Barcelona - ZeljkoS
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47071710
======
tluyben2
Uber is definitely not perfect as a business but the taxi companies are
horrible all over the place. If taxi companies would just enter the 21st
century, I would maybe never use Uber but the thing is, they don't. We see a
LOT of rivaling apps by/for the taxi companies or just by a regional company
because they don't want to give their money to a US company, but most of them
are absolutely awful. The ones I tried in Barcelona were unusable, unreliable
and just generally crap (disclaimer; I did not try Cabify yet). There are many
in many countries but most of them, especially if they are created by a cap
company, let you enter all kinds of info only to get to a screen says 'when do
you need your ride?' and you can pick 24 hous from now or more. What is that?
The GPS/Map feature looks generally untested and not working or not even
there.

Besides the apps, most cabs are far more crappy than the Uber cars. I feel
unsafe in a lot of them even though the cab companies insist they conform
better to safety regulations; in Thailand, China or Hong Kong, cabs are mostly
such garbage; smelly, usually missing seat belts, horrible suspension, drivers
rude and not very good. Why would you go with them if there is an alternative?
(Having said that, Barcelona is a notable exception; the cabs I was in seemed
new and clean and the drivers friendly; not so in Malaga, Madrid or Faro for
instance).

Then there is pricing; in a lot of places cabs are slightly cheaper for short
distances than Uber, but long distance... I have had quotes of 400 GBP for a
cab (and multiple companies) vs < 100 GBP for Uber for long distance.

If they would up their game instead of just whine and long for the olden days,
then I would use them instead of Uber, but I cannot see it happen soon.

~~~
onion2k
_I have had quotes of 400 GBP for a cab (and multiple companies) vs < 100 GBP
for Uber for long distance._

Is this because the cost of the taxi includes milage for the return to a base
location? Taxis have been doing this sort of thing for a long time, so they
include all the costs in their pricing models. Uber is designed for short hops
around a city where there are rides to pick up in lots of locations. I
strongly suspect that means the cost of the Uber doesn't include anything for
the return trip so the driver will just have to suck up that cost. If taking
long trips in an Uber gets popular you'll either see the cost go up or you'll
never get a driver to accept the ride.

~~~
toth
This is definitely wrong. In multiple conversations with Uber drivers, they
prefer the longer trips as it makes them more money. They are able to not take
long trips if they prefer (although they don't know the exact destination
before accepting a trip, they are told if it is long one), and choose to do
so.

~~~
dominicr
Also Uber allows the drivers to get customers wherever they are. After a long
trip they can work that area for a while and maybe make their way back home.
With a local taxi company if a driver is out of the area they serve then they
have no customers.

~~~
tluyben2
Yep, this is very nice of Uber actually; I usually have to travel (for work)
to a remote area where there is no Uber (and normal cabs are always full); if
you pay attention, you will find an Uber driving back to London passing by and
just take that one.

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m0skit0
I live in Madrid and this issue is fairly complex.

\- Taxi is a public service that is performed by private entrepreneurs. As
such, it is strongly regulated by law (fares, working days/hours, etc...). On
the other hand, VTCs (spanish acronym for Transport Vehicle with Driver,
Vehículo de Transporte con Conductor) are not regulated by any special laws
(except labour laws of course).

\- Taxi drivers were always strongly organized but more of a guild kind of
organization rather than a union kind. Most VTC drivers are not organized in
any way.

\- The price of a taxi license is quite expensive (150,000+€ in Madrid),
however a VTC license (private transport license) is way cheaper.

\- Most taxi licenses are owned by individuals, not companies. There are very
few people that have more than one taxi license. On the other hand, most VTC
licenses are concentrated in very few hands (mainly Uber and Cabify).

\- The agreements between taxi drivers and government was that he ratio
between VTC licenses and taxi licenses is to be 1:30. Currently it is 1:5,
hence the strikes.

~~~
jrvidal
* How much is "way cheaper"? I've heard that VTC licenses are getting more and more expensive, around ~50K € (if I remember correctly).

* What do you mean by "concentrated in very few hands (mainly Uber and Cabify)"? Surely Uber and Cabify don't directly own those licenses, right?

~~~
m0skit0
* You can find VTC licenses for ~60,000€.

* Uber and Cabify don't own those licenses directly but their CEOs and investors do ([https://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2018/08/05/5b659a44468aeb9a29...](https://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2018/08/05/5b659a44468aeb9a298b457c.html)).

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intothemild
> A rival service, Spain's Cabify, has followed Uber's example.

This is what happened here in Oslo, Norway. Basically Uber left after a lot of
difficulty, and the local cab company created it's own app that does what
Uber's app mostly does.

I think the greatest gift Uber will have given us is getting the Cab companies
to join the modern era. Honestly it was only a few years ago when you would
have to make a phone call to order a cab, OR be within visual proximity of an
available cab.

~~~
dominicr
I would say that what enabled this in Oslo and similar local apps was a
(relatively) respectable taxi industry. Taxi drivers had to agree to be honest
about pricing and practices to standardize on an app and there are still
plenty of places where they're more interested in profiteering from bad
practices than being honest competitors.

I used to spend time in the south of France for work and the taxi drivers
there were awful rip-off artists. They'd try to scam tourists for over twice
the standard price. We used other known taxi firms and Uber moved in to save
the tourists. The taxi drivers went on strike and rioted but being honest
would have been better.

Uber is a distributed & centralized taxi company with software that isn't
overly complex to copy on a local level. It had first mover advantage but is
very susceptible to local competition, especially when local laws come into
play (even if they're not obvious anti-competition laws).

In the end the main aim should be the drivers earning a decent wage, which is
something Uber hasn't always been good at.

~~~
intothemild
> I would say that what enabled this in Oslo and similar local apps was a
> (relatively) respectable taxi industry.

Yes.. absolutely that is a factor.

------
telesilla
My friends in Barcelona are furious that this also includes Cabify. While
taxis are generally plentiful, if you don't live near a major street, are in
the suburbs or need to get an urgent taxi there are few options. I think
MyTaxi still works though? Are all taxis across the board subject to the 15
minute delay? What a weird thing to impose and not just demand that taxi
drivers are subject to certain labour laws that are beneficial to them.

Apparently the taxis demanded a 24 hour wait..

~~~
tecleandor
The 15 minute delay is only for VTCs, that is, vehicles with a driver which
are not taxis. MyTaxi should work as usual (except when there's a strike going
on, of course).

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Neracked
> The decision comes after the Catalan government insisted on imposing a
> 15-minute delay before passengers could be picked up.

I agree that the Uber model is problematic but making the taxi service worse
for everyone (harder to order a cab for right where you are / right now) to
level the field seems really shortsighted.

~~~
point78
The 15 minute delay was only for Uber

~~~
zavi
This seems irrational. What's the argument behind such requirement?

~~~
ptmvp
It is rational from a self-serving standpoint from the taxist point of
reference. The rational is to hurt Uber and consumers and by doing so giving
Taxis an advantage (ie, they can now reach you faster than a Uber).

It is a huge loss if you look at it from a societal welfare point of view.

~~~
mulmen
I think the social welfare math is more complicated than you suggest. The cab
driver jobs saved may offset the inconvenience for example.

Certainly from a car-hailing-rider perspective the Uber wait is worse but
social welfare is much more complex.

~~~
ptmvp
I agree it is more complicated than what I outlined above, but I do think the
aggregate welfare lost from the detriment in service quality of car-hailing
multiplied by the number of potential consumers hurt represents a bigger loss
than any gain cab-drivers could obtain with this measure.

I find the measure exactly the wrong type of regulation, the one that hurts a
large segment of society to protect a small group (which had already benefited
from a decades-long state imposed monopoly and became stagnant and comformist
as a result).

As a small disclaimer, I do admit I have a bias against cab-drivers in
general, but I do not think it clouds my judgement in this case.

~~~
mulmen
I agree it is a bad form of regulation. Uber has benefits to _consumers_ but
it’s unclear to me what other benefits they offer to society as a whole.

The regulatory structures need to catch up but I don’t think Uber as it exists
in 2019 is a viable long term solution.

------
gppk
Apart from "The taxi model has worked for decades, don't take our livelihoods
away" are there any articles on why Uber is actually detrimental?

I find it way easier to use Uber than get Taxis mostly due to the app based
"click and collect" model, I would still use that even if it was the same
price as a regular taxi. It annoys me that there seems to be lots of
"crackdown" on Uber but I don't feel informed enough to know why.

~~~
kkleindev
> I find it way easier to use Uber than get Taxis mostly due to the app based
> "click and collect" model

mytaxi.com does just that.

~~~
gppk
Wow that it does, I hadn't heard of that. Thanks.

------
have_faith
If Taxi's just copied Uber's UX I would use them all the time. If I can get
quoted on my journey ahead of time, and the money is taken out of my account
with no money exchanging hands between me and the driver then I would be fine
with them.

In the UK you can get quotes for journeys but it doesn't mean anything because
they just put you on a meter, no-one knows how the meters work. You get in the
back and they press some buttons, the numbers change, the price for the same
journey is vastly different every time, their card machine is never working
despite it being the law to accept cards now so they take you to an ATM, they
keep the meter running while you wait behind someone to get cash out, and so
on. I have no sympathy for taxi company's anymore. As others have mentioned,
if they modernised I would support them.

------
CloudNetworking
FWIW I've used Uber like 4 times, never in Europe (twice in Seattle, twice in
Buenos Aires). I got mixed results, including several drivers in BA cancelling
on me after asking me where I'm going (??) and if I'm paying cash (I wasn't).
It is annoying to book the service, wait about 10 minutes for the car to
finish their previous run, get the driver on the chat asking you that then
cancelling on you. It turned a 30 minutes drive in a 60 minutes trip because I
had various cancellations.

On the other hand I can see how Uber might appeal to certain folks that like
to be treated as royalty despite being working class like the majority of us
are.

And no, the "technological advances" (sic) of Uber are not a difference. I can
book cabs the same way with an app pretty much in any big city these days.

------
martimarkov
If Taxi companies were actually capable of doing the job Uber did then maybe
I’d consider using them.

I normally go out of my way in order to do the “right” thing... But I’ve never
seen an adequate taxi company in the EU. Everywhere they charge more than
Uber, expect me to download a specific app for their service, rarely support
card payments and my personal favourite is when they round up the amount owed
because they either don’t have change or you know convenience.

Also why don’t taxi companies have their own global app. Yeah sure it’s hard
to build but welcome to the competitive market guys... you can’t just go on
strike because the consumers prefer your competitors based on quality of
service and pricing. How is this even a government issue? Actually why is it a
government issue? Just allow competition between taxis and ride hailing
companies. Let them figure it out.

I feel the biggest problem is that politicians who bow down to the taxi
drivers only do it for the votes and not because it’s better for the general
public.

/stop rant

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tasubotadas
I think that PG was completely right on this
[https://twitter.com/paulg/status/222462460978937856?lang=en](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/222462460978937856?lang=en)

~~~
jahaja
That's such a shallow take. To bypass local labour laws as a business idea and
effectively go back ~100 years in history is not objectively good. But perhaps
it looks like it from the view of the upper middle-class who's at the
benefiting end.

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mrbanks
I recently worked in a smaller German city without Uber. It was like stepping
back into the stone age.

'MyTaxi' app would only produce an available driver 1 in 20 times I tried.

The only way to get a taxi is to walk out into the freezing street and wait
like a penguin, or find one of those random locations Taxis like to park at.

Sucks for the customer. I hope Uber takes over the planet.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> The only way to get a taxi is to walk out into the freezing street

Isn't the obvious way to get a taxi in a suburban/rural setting to (1) google
"placename taxi" or ask around to find the phone number of local taxi firm (2)
give them a call and wait inside for the cab?

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alphadelphi
it's a pity that we are losing good services cause we are unable to create a
fair form of regulation

~~~
raiyu
What is government for $500 Alex ;)

