"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 11:05:13 on Fri, 16 Oct
2015, Someone Somewhere remarked:

According to various reports on the High Court ruling this morning
including:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34549700

"The court had been asked to decide whether the company's smartphones were
considered meters, which are outlawed for private hire vehicles."

Do they mean "in London"?

Yep

Seems to the a required differentiator between a hackney cab and a minicab
in the metropolis.

And I have to say that I have gone off Uber now that I understand this part
of their model.

I thought their MO was that they charged you a known-up-front-fare, just
like minicabs.

This determination of the fare based upon the real time analysis of the
actual journey, leads to all sorts of opportunities for dispute.

(and FWIW I do think that this ruling is a very narrow, right on the law,
but wrong in principle, due to the legislation not being technology
agnostic - which of course, most legislation from 30 years ago wasn't. The
intention of the law was surely meant to define a taxi meter as "something
that provided real time capture of the time travelled/distance travelled"
not "a box in the car". Presumably the written legislation says "box in a
car", because 30 years ago no-one could possibly foresee any alternative
method)

tim