Uber may ‘give and take’ to restore ops licence
LONDON: Uber Technologies Inc is prepared to make concessions to restore its revoked London taxi licence, the Sunday Times reported, two days after the ride service said it would fight the suspension in court.
Tom Elvidge, general manager of Uber in London, told the newspaper his company would like to meet to resolve the situation. Rival Lyft Inc, a start-up also based in San Francisco, may be positioning to benefit from Uber’s demise in the capital after holding meetings with London transport officials in the past year, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
Transit agency Transport for London (TfL) decided on Friday to revoke Uber’s licence due to failures to do proper background checks on drivers, report crimes and a programme called “Greyball” used to avoid regulators.
London is one of Uber’s largest and most lucrative markets, with 40,000 drivers and 3.5 million people who use the app once every 90 days.
“We’d like to know what we can do... to sit down and work together to get this right,” Elvidge told the Sunday Times. Uber is ready to make changes on passenger safety and driver benefits, the newspaper reported. Sources close to TfL said the move was encouraging and suggested the possibility of talks, the Sunday Times said.
The comments mark a change of tone from the company. Elvidge said on Friday, “We intend to immediately challenge this in the courts”.
“Clearly the public as a whole want rapid access to taxis of all sorts,” said Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show” yesterday. “It should be regulated, the people should be protected.”
Uber has collected more than 600,000 signatures on a petition to protest the decision and is targeting one million supporters. Bloomberg