Uber’s London License Was Denied AGAIN, Should You Start Hailing Cabs the Old-Fashioned Way Now?

You just got off work at 6 p.m. after rushing a presentation on a Friday. You hurriedly make your way down the building, carrying your heavy bag that’s full of papers. Finally, you’re on the streets waiving your hand tirelessly, hoping to score a cab. Oops, you just check the time and it’s already the rush hour. To your left and the other side of the street are hailers, too. What a horrendous sight, indeed!

People used to wave their arms to hail vacant taxis

Now, that was a thing of the past, thanks to cab-hailing companies, one of the most popular of which is Uber. No longer will passengers itching to go home have to fight others who are waiting for their taxis because, through these services, everything happens at the touch of the fingertip.

See how you don’t even have to wave your hand? You can book a ride through the app, monitor where your driver is, and finally get picked up on the same spot you booked.

First Time

As much as it makes things easier for commuters, not everyone agrees that Uber should still operate. Like history repeating itself, the company’s request for a license in London was declined anew by regulator Transport for London, which had been granting the extensions for the ride service to still operate in the capital.

It became hard to monitor Uber

Uber’s license got suspended in 2017 because, according to TfL, there were a lot of issues that could bring about serious security and public safety concerns. It also noted the app’s usage of the Greyball software that made it hard to police it.

Second Try

Now, TfL is being hard again on the company by not renewing its license for the second time that it asked. The regulator said the decision was because of a series of failures that may still put a lot of people in danger. It noted that although some issues initially raised were addressed, the government body still has no assurance that these problems won’t happen again in the future.

Mayor Sadiq Khan seconded TfL’s decision

TfL particularly noted how an unauthorized person could upload his/her photo into an Uber driver’s account – incidences of which ballooned to 14,000 trips. This could be dangerous for passengers, who have no clue that there is an impostor with them. London Mayor Sadiq Khan backed this up and reiterated the importance of following the regulator.

Appeal

As such, Uber is given 21 days to appeal the decision, proving to court that it is still safe for passengers. All the while, it will continue to operate in London. This was the exact scenario that it underwent after its license was first revoked. It won an appeal, which enabled it to operate for 15 months under probation – this ended in September. TfL then gave it another two months to stay active.

Uber Northern & Eastern Europe’s general manager, Jamie Heywood, refers to the decision as wrong because the company had made major changes in its services in the past years. Plus, two months ago, TfL already thought the taxi-hailing app is a fit nowadays because it granted them an extension.