Private car-hire services suffered a legal setback today as the European Union’s top court backed the exclusive right of London’s iconic black cabs to share some traffic lanes with buses.
Judges at the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg said rules favoring the black cabs are legal because of differences between the services, including black cabs’ ability to pick up passengers that hail them without a booking. The ruling will be a blow to the Addison Lee Ltd. unit that brought the challenge and other black-cab rivals, such as Uber Technologies Inc.
Private car-hire services face a range of hurdles around the globe as they seek to compete with traditional taxis. China’s Ministry of Transport earlier this month banned private cars from offering unlicensed taxi services via mobile-phone apps, even as it endorsed the software as having a “positive role” for licensed vehicles and chauffeurs.
“Today’s decision is yet another bad news story for private-hire vehicles this week, with Uber being banned in Beijing and now the ECJ endorsing the status quo in London,” Simon Neill, a lawyer atOsborne Clarke, said in a statement.
A unit of Addison Lee, which operates more than 4,800 cars in central London, filed the lawsuit in today’s case seeking the right of its drivers to also get access to the fast-track routes, which only buses and licensed black cabs can use.
Addison Lee and Uber declined to comment on today’s ruling. Transport for London, the city’s transport agency, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Illegal Aid
A London court sought the EU tribunal’s view on whether excluding private hire companies from using the lanes is illegal state aid. The Addison Lee unit sued in London after some of their drivers were fined for using bus lanes, arguing the prohibition violated the freedom to provide services and was illegal state aid to black cabs.
The EU ruling will be reviewed by London judges before the U.K. court issues a final decision in the case.
Since black cabs are in a factual and legal situation which is distinct from that of private-hire vehicles, exclusive access to bus lanes “does not appear to be such as to confer, through state resources, a selective economic advantage,” the EU Court of Justice said in statement after today’s ruling.
“This issue isn’t going to go away,” said Neill. “By failing to evolve, legal and regulatory frameworks threaten to stifle progress and investment in smarter cities.”
The case is: C-518/13, The Queen on the application of Eventech Ltd v. The Parking Adjudicator.
The current London cab is one of the few purpose-built taxis in the world but its design is over 20 years old and in need of modernisation.
RCA Vehicle Design and the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design are working jointly on this major design project with Studio Hexagon and vehicle maker Karsan, both based in Turkey. The aim is to develop a low- emission London taxi that meets the needs and aspirations of drivers and passengers of all ages and abilities.
The starting point for the project was Karsan’s Concept V1, a prototype taxi with a large, airy interior that is lightweight in construction. An inclusive design approach was used to underpin research and development. Central to the study was the use of co-creation workshops and events with Londoners.
The project focuses on five areas: driver space (increasing comfort); passenger environment (more flexibility); driver interface (using new technology); iconic look (important for London) and door aperture (to ease access). Design studies and models shown here were first unveiled at the Mayor of London’s Zero Emission event earlier this year.
Critics say the camouflaged digital cameras are designed to raise income through fines and not improve road safety
The stealth cameras have already been tested on the M25 and have caught out 700 drivers
Camouflaged digital ‘stealth cameras’ are to be rolled out on some of the UK’s busiest motorways in an attempt to catch out drivers breaking the 70mph speed limit.
The cameras – which are painted grey to make them tricky to spot, instead of the standard yellow – have already been tested on the M25, where they have caught out 700 drivers in two months.
Most of those – 520 – were braking the 70mph limit, but 148 of them were drivers breaking the variable speed limits of between 40mph and 60mph imposed to ease traffic flow.
The cameras – positioned to the edges of gantries on motorways – can scan four lanes at a time and use front and back cameras to verify speeds.
They automatically adjust depending on which speed limit has been imposed across the lanes.
The plan is to expand the technology to motorways around the UK soon – including the M1, M3 and M60.
Drivers identified by the technology would face fines of at least £100, leading to accusations that the cameras are designed to raise income instead of improving road safety.
The cameras form part of the Highway Agency’s mission to create “smart” motorwaysthat use a range of technologies to ease the flow of traffic and enforce the 70mph limit.
Other tactics include using the hard shoulder as an extra lane when needed.
Taxi Leaks has over the last three years been warning about a rise in third party companies which take bookings for private hire journeys, without the necessary TfL license.
How do they get away with this:
It’s simple, they advertise cheap rate journeys and farm out the bookings to licensed operators. They get away with wild claims about service and calling themselves Taxis and Cabs (contra to the London Cab Act 1968 section 4 subsection 2), simply because they are not licensed so don’t come under TfL.
They are acting as private hire operators without a licence and TfL have refused point blank to do anything about this. It’s an enforcement matter that should be dealt with by Cab Enforcement.
These company’s have free phone facilities in hospital, hotels and even tube stations. They advertise in the press as a Taxi and they get away with it because no ones doing anything about it.
It’s only a matter of time before Uber has it’s licence revoked, but it won’t make any difference to their operation. Like in other cities where they have been banned, they will just keep operating.
Uber London have stated on many occasions they don’t see themselves as an operator, but a technology company that puts customers in direct connection with private hire drivers. This is actually in contravention to the private hire act 1998 which clearly states all private hire bookings must be pre booked with a third party operator.
They further state that because this technology wasn’t around when the legislation was laid down, they don’t come under the licensing regulations. In virtually all cities they’ve been banned, they have just carried on regardless.
A very dangerous precedent has been set. The fact that TfL have sat back and done nothing about this type of operation in the past, will not sit well with any action taken against a Uber operating without a licence.
Latest company to offer Taxi/Cab cut price journeys is CabPal and SplitCab. Advertising Cab sharing to Heathrow for as little as £10 a head. On their website they advertise cab, cabs, cab journey, cab fare and cab share. The words Taxi, Cab and their plurals are restricted to Licensed Hackney Carriage only.
This issue is extremely serious.
We need TfL to take action now, before Uber are revoked. That way Uber’s defence would not be able to point to the lack of case law.
TfL have failed to uphold the PH act and have been labeled by the GLA as woefully inadequate.
By doing nothing, TfL are seen to be condoning these companies. As TfL are seen as letting Uber run-amuck, discarding private hire legislation, the problem is now escalating rapidly.
(Reuters) : Germany’s highest court has declined to hear a complaint brought by online taxi service Uber over a ban on its activity in the city of Hamburg, dealing a blow to the company.
The Federal Constitutional Court said the complaint was “not accepted for a decision due to lack of admissibility,” a spokesman for the court said on Friday, adding that the court had given no further justification for its position.
Hamburg’s transport office sent Uber an injunction in July last year that said its drivers needed special licences to transport passengers. An administrative court in Hamburg subsequently rejected Uber’s urgent motion against the ban.
Uber customers order and pay for a car with its application on their smartphones. Instead of having taxis prowl city streets looking for customers, Uber allows smartphone users to summon a nearby car to pick them up.
Uber had argued its service did not involve professional drivers but rather private persons who did not require a special licence.
San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc, valued at about $40 billion in its latest fundraising, has touched a raw nerve in many countries by threatening to open up an often tightly controlled and licensed market.
The firm, backed by investors including Goldman Sachs and Google, rebuts the criticism and argues it complies with local regulations.
The Constitutional Court’s decisions cannot be appealed in Germany and it was not clear what further action Uber could take.
“We take note of the court’s decision and decline further comment,” an Uber spokesman said.
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