Councillors have called on Uber to update its ride-hailing app after hearing claims that it could be operating “unlawfully” in one district.
Thurrock Council heard the app told Uber drivers the Essex borough was part of Greater London, where they were licensed to operate.
Councillors agreed to call on Uber to change its “geofence”, the virtual boundary used by the app.
Uber said it used “proactive” boundaries to help local authorities.
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, John Kent, leader of Thurrock’s opposition Labour group, told a full council meeting: “A driver licensed by Thurrock Council can’t simply get in their cab on morning and go and rank up in Upminster [in the London Borough of Havering].
“The issue is that the Uber Greater London geofence includes Thurrock. That allows their vehicles and drivers, who are not licensed by Thurrock, to in effect operate from here as though they were in Greater London.
“This is wrong and we need to take steps to encourage Uber to redraw their geofence to create a level playing field in Thurrock.”
A representative of the Thurrock Taxi Drivers Association told the meeting that Uber’s operation in Thurrock was “unlawful”.
Conservative councillor James Halden said: “It doesn’t matter if the geofence boundary is Thurrock or the entire nation. If there is an allegation of illegality, we should investigate that fully.”
In response, Uber confirmed that its Greater London region included Thurrock, as well as Luton and Gatwick airports and some towns and cities to the west of London.
After announcing plans to add electric scooters to their portfolio a month ago, MyTaxi revealed the location of their pilot as Lisbon. Customers in the Portuguese capital can rent a scooter from a fleet of hundreds. For Daimler, this may open a whole new venture labelled Hive.
For now they run the kick scooters under a new label, Hive, and Daimler embedded the service in a dedicated app of the same name. Yet Mytaxi CEO Eckart Diepenhorst told German media that this model will either kick-start a new service via Hive or else they may integrate it into the existing MyTaxi ride-hailing offer.
The pilot is new territory for Daimler and the CEO confirmed as much. While they use electric scooters made by Segway in Lisbon, Diepenhorst stressed that it would be “crucial to develop our own hardware” especially when moving into regions with more adverse weather conditions.
Indeed Hive may expand as early as next year depending on the market and the experiences they are making just now. The MyTaxi CEO also pointed to the importance of a good working relation with the respective city. He added it had been a decisive factor when opting for Portugal.
To rent an electric scooter via the Hive app comes at the cost of a one euro base fee and 15 cent per minute afterwards. Half an hour thus adds up to almost 5 euros. This is the normal market rate and the same Lime in Paris is asking. The electric scooters of both Lime or Hive can be left anywhere.
MyTaxi will consider to rolling out their Hive fleet of electric scooters across Europe if things work out in Lisbon.
We are not sure if Hive is the right choice of names for this venture given the popularity of the Hive smart home devices!
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