Uber rival to fine drivers who get less than five-star ratings

GRUMPY taxi drivers risk having their pay docked if a customer gives them a lower than five-star rating while using a new ride-hailing app.

Uber rival Wheely has been downloaded 14,000 times and has 210 active drivers since its launch in London last month. To make sure the service is running smoothly for its first customers, it has been poaching UberBlack and Addison Lee drivers, offering a weekly £850 retainer to drive exclusively for Wheely.

If the drivers receive a 4.9 rating out of five, they will lose this incentive. Reasons could be the driver not being polite enough, forgetting to open the door for a passenger, not wearing a tie or asking a passenger to hurry up if they have been waiting for them to get into the car upon arrival at their pickup point.

According to Wheely’s policies, customers are to be given at least 20 minutes wait-time before a driver can contact them to ask whether they will be leaving soon. Wheely, which uses only Mercedes Benz cars, hopes to challenge Uber with competitive rates for its chauffeur-style service, at around £35 for a trip from Heathrow to central London.

It is partly funded by Oleg Chirkunov, a former Russian governor turned entrepreneur, and run by his son Anton. The 29-year-old was granted approval from Transport for London and has budgeted £10million for marketing in London in the hope Wheely will become as popular as it is in Moscow, where it has been operating since 2012.

Mr Chirkunov told The Sunday Telegraph that the app was for people who would normally hire their own drivers and that some of the most common trips were in west London and often to Nobu, a Japanese restaurant in Park Lane known for its celebrity clientele.

Wheely takes a 20 per cent commission from fares, while Uber takes 25-28 per cent.

Uber this week revealed that revenue from its global taxi businesses, once it had paid its drivers, rose to $2.7bn (£2.1bn) in the last quarter.

Wheely also plans to launch in Paris next year and is seeking more funding to grow its business. Last week Indian taxi-app giant Ola revealed plans to launch in the UK.