Hundreds of taxi drivers performed a slow-drive protest outside Leinster House in Dublin on Saturday afternoon, as the industry protested against Uber’s proposed fixed-fare model.
Early this month, the transportation company announced it was launching a fixed-price taxi service in Ireland. Users can choose to agree a maximum fare before their trip, rendering the taxi meter irrelevant if it ticks over that number.
According to Uber’s website, if the meter price is higher than the taxi fixed price, the driver will receive the fixed price. In that instance, the taxi essentially operates as a hackney that is still required to use a meter by National Transport Authority (NTA) standards. Efforts by drivers and taxi associations to communicate with Uber have so far been unsuccessful.
Drivers involved in Saturday’s protest have been monitoring the effect of fixed prices for the past two weeks. They claim the new system has had a considerable effect on their income.
RM Block
“They sent us an email and told us that’s how it’s going to be,” says David Mitchell, a Dublin taxi driver involved in organising Saturday’s protest. “I personally shut down the app and deleted my account a week later.”
Regarding the loss of income they claim the change has resulted in, he said: “I can’t go out and work 80 hours a week. I just can’t. None of us can – it’s not safe.”
There are concerns around how the fixed-price model is allowed under Irish regulations. Though Uber employs the strategy in different countries around the world, its business in Ireland has previously had to bend to the laws governing the industry here.
“You sign a contract with them,” says Michael Sharkey, another protest organiser and driver. “Apparently, it’s buried deep down in the contract that they are enabled to change the working practices whenever they like. Our rules for taxis, hackneys and limousines are some of the strictest in Europe and they’re circumventing it.
“Under regulations, the only people who can fix a fare with a customer is the driver. A dispatch operator is not allowed to fix a fare.”
The slow-drive protest was carried out for over three hours on Saturday. Drivers chose a weekend day to limit the impact on the public, but further protests may be more obstructive if there is no change to their situation.
They hope politicians will take note. Mr Sharkey and Mr Mitchell are encouraged by the many taxi drivers that have rallied around the cause.
“You have drivers from every ethnicity, from every city, have come together,” Mr Sharkey said. “There are guys printing labels, printing stickers without being asked. It has really drawn the community together.”
In response to the protest a spokesman for Uber said potential passengers were “much more likely to book a trip if they know what the fare is going to be” and suggested that this created “more earning opportunities for drivers”.
He said that before accepting a trip, “drivers can see their estimated earnings and the route used to calculate this amount, which also includes factors like traffic and time of day.”
Uber also rebutted any suggestion that such fares would be in breach of regulations.
It said taxi regulations allow riders to agree a price in advance for a pre-booked taxi trip that is less than the taximeter and it said that independent research said agreed fares were favoured by passengers as it provides more transparency.
It said passengers and drivers will continue to be offered regular metered trips while upfront pricing will labelled when offered to drivers and include the maximum earnings they will receive per trip.
