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November 25th, 2014 
David Schulberg 
London’s taxi drivers have been hiring private detectives in their war on controversial cab-booking application Uber which has been hoovering up business in London because of the competitive prices it offers.
The Licensed Taxi
Drivers Association (LTDA) has been dispatching private eyes to
research how the app’s operators calculate their prices, reported
the Sunday Times.
Uber is a San-Francisco based firm, valued at approximately $18
billion, and operates across some 45 countries worldwide.
The app allows people to located the nearest available taxi via
GPS. Drivers, who use Uber-issued iPhones, take 80 percent of the
fare, while Uber takes 20 percent. It can undercut the famous
black London cabs by 50 percent in some cases.
However, the fresh criticism levied against the company has been
on account of accusations of “surge pricing” – letting
fares spike during periods of high demand – apparently including
during rainy spells.
“Literally as soon as I got the first drops on my windscreen
the surge is on. It’s unbelievable,” one former Uber driver
told the paper.
There have also been accusations of drivers claiming to have
arrived before they have actually done so, meaning that the 10
minute slot before they can declare their passenger a “no
show” is over far more quickly. The passenger must then pay
a cancellation fee of between five and ten pounds.
The LTDA has accused Uber of using a meter-based system, which
legally can only be used in black cabs. It has utilized evidence
gathered by private investigators posing as passengers for a case
against the company.
“In order to prosecute them, we obviously had to get the
evidence and ride in the cars and private detectives and all of
that,” said LTDA general secretary Steve McNamara. A civil
case is now being launched. LTDA says that the use of the iPhone
constitutes the illegal use of a meter.
But Uber’s regional manager for the UK, Jo Bertram, denied the
accusations.
“It depends on demand and supply. Not every consumer may want
to travel at those prices but at least they have the
option,” Bertram told the Sunday Times.
She also stated that it makes no sense to falsely record arrival
time. “The cancellation fee is the same as the minimum fare,
so if you’ve driven five minutes to go and pick someone up and
waited a few minutes you are better off to take that trip than to
try and game it and cancel.”
The Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 defines a taximeter
as “a device for calculating the fare to be charged in
respect of any journey by reference to the distance travelled or
time elapsed since the start…or both.”
While the issue of using smartphones as taximeters has been taken
to the High Court in London – Uber has faced a series of legal
challenges on a global level.
There have been a variety of cases spanning Orlando, Atlanta,
Chicago and San Francisco for a variety of reasons including not
paying airport fees and operating as a taxi service without a
license, among other things.
Source Article from http://rt.com/news/208463-uber-london-taxi-war/
London cab drivers enlist private detectives in Uber taxi wars
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