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

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"?

Private hire vehicles in Cambridge have meters, as do the ones in Notts.
--
Roland Perry

On 16/10/2015 11:11, Roland Perry wrote:
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"?

Private hire vehicles in Cambridge have meters, as do the ones in Notts.

Are you in some way incentivised to ensure that Cambridge and/or Notts
are mentioned as soon as possible in any thread?

In message , at 11:36:39 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"?

Private hire vehicles in Cambridge have meters, as do the ones in Notts.

Are you in some way incentivised to ensure that Cambridge and/or Notts
are mentioned as soon as possible in any thread?

No, but I make it a general rule to only post about things which I have
direct personal experience of, and therefore for some subjects a
built-in bias towards places I live, or have recently lived, tends to
arise.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 11:41:37 on
Fri, 16 Oct 2015, Paul Corfield remarked:

Haven't you been introduced to Mr R Perry, Honourable Member for all
things Nottingham, Ely and Cambridgeshire? :-))))

I can do urban transport in some detail in Geneva and Amsterdam too (as
well as London of course).

Never taken a private hire in Ely, so I have no idea if they have meters
or not. The cars in the rank at the station are [East Cambs] Hackneys.
--
Roland Perry

The court case was instigated by TfL who, very wisely,
wanted legal backing for their opinion that the app used by
Uber drivers and customers was not a taxi meter, as so
idiotically claimed by various Hackney Cab drivers. It had
therefore a London only relevance, although the ramifications
may spread much more widely.

I caught part of a discussion on Venessa Feltz's radio show
on this subject. (Venessa is so vastly better than James O'Brien
at hosting a phone-in programme) There were a few callers
propagating FUD - Uber drivers are not insured, not CRB checked
etc - but most callers were pretty sensible. One Hackney Cab driver
said he would be looking for a new job after Christmas; another
pointed out that the huge increase in Private Hire drivers had
implications for London's air quality; a third, a mere 45 years as
a taxi driver, said the underlying problem was that TfL were
primarily civil servants who did not understand London's taxi and
private hire markets. A fourth suggested that minicab firms too
will soon go under (my own belief) and that Uber will then raise
their charges enormously.

One woman said that she had been pleased with Uber at first
but that the quality of the drivers had recently deteriorated
and many now had no idea how to drive around London. She
had been caught by "surge pricing" and was not happy: £30.00
from Chelsea to St. James. (I wouldn't be happy either!)

One thought which has not been aired anywhere to my knowledge
should not be totally ignored: Google is a major invester in Uber.
Google has invented software which can make a vehicle move
without a driver. Who would buy such a vehicle? Not I. I enjoy
driving and have zero interest in owning a driverless car. So, to
whom do Google expect to sell this driverless vehicle? How about
Uber? No need to pay the drivers anything! All revenue retained by
Uber! How very attractive! Google aren't fools. They had a good
reason for investing in Uber.

"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

On 16/10/2015 20:02, tim..... wrote:


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.


Why? You know when you got in, and when you got out and they helpfully
e-mail you a map of the journey taken. If there are glaring problems
with it, you can e-mail them (Uber in general, not the driver) and they
will assess the situation and if necessary refund you some or all of your
fare. The times allow you to work out the time portion of the fare, and
the map can give you a good guess at the distance.

The biggest problem I've found is that drivers can far to easily press
the button saying the journey is completed and then there's a palavar to
get it re-started as everything is controlled through the back end.

"Someone Somewhere" wrote in message
...
On 16/10/2015 20:02, tim..... wrote:


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.


Why?

cos - as the rest of your post explains for me

it's all a bit of a faff!

You know when you got in, and when you got out and they helpfully
e-mail you a map of the journey taken. If there are glaring problems
with it, you can e-mail them (Uber in general, not the driver) and they
will assess the situation and if necessary refund you some or all of your
fare. The times allow you to work out the time portion of the fare, and
the map can give you a good guess at the distance.

The biggest problem I've found is that drivers can far to easily press the
button saying the journey is completed and then there's a palavar to get
it re-started as everything is controlled through the back end.

tim

Robin9 wrote:


One thought which has not been aired anywhere to my knowledge
should not be totally ignored: Google is a major invester in Uber.
Google has invented software which can make a vehicle move
without a driver. Who would buy such a vehicle? Not I. I enjoy
driving and have zero interest in owning a driverless car. So, to
whom do Google expect to sell this driverless vehicle? How about
Uber? No need to pay the drivers anything! All revenue retained by
Uber! How very attractive! Google aren't fools. They had a good
reason for investing in Uber.

I think using Google cars as self-driving minicabs was always a stated aim.