In New York, the war between Uber and taxi is over

Uber, meanwhile, is gaining access to nearly 14,000 new cars and their drivers, at a time when both may be in short supply. Many workers stopped driving for the company during the pandemic, and the ride-sharing industry had 22% fewer drivers in New York earlier this year from its April 2019 peak, according to data from the Taxi and Limousine Commission. And that’s before rising gas prices prompted many DVT drivers to re-examine whether driving made financial sense. (Uber says it now has the most U.S. drivers on the app since the start of the pandemic and hasn’t seen a drop in drivers in the U.S. and Canada in the past month.)

Uber has been particularly pressured in New York, as the city has limited the number of ride-sharing vehicles allowed on its streets since 2018. In January, just over 96,000 driver’s licenses were granted in the city, according to Taxi and Limousine Commission, although 30,000 of them were not used that month. This new partnership will allow Uber to offer more trips without adding new cars to the roads.

New business

The move also has a practical benefit for the once shady company: it could make Uber more understanding of the regulators it has been at odds with. From the start, Uber avoided government taxi rules by insisting that it was a technology platform, not a taxi company. Relationships deteriorated in 2017 when the New York Times reported that the company used special software to evade government surveillance. But today, when it comes to partnerships between established local taxis and ride-hail, regulators “want to make this ethics work,” he says. Daus, the former taxi commissioner. According to him, the multiplication of partnerships between taxi companies and ride sharing companies will benefit customers, as it will allow them to access more routes, more easily.

Uber has partnered with taxi companies in other countries, such as Spain, Colombia, Germany, Austria and Hong Kong, where it acquired a taxi ride app last year.

The deal will need to be approved by the city’s taxi and limo commission. In a statement, Interim Commissioner Ryan Wantaja said: “We are always interested in innovative tools that can expand economic opportunities for taxi drivers.”

Putting taxis on the Uber app could be good news for wheelchair users. There are fewer than 4,000 wheelchair-accessible rideshare vehicles on city streets, and commuters complain about having to wait twice as long as those who don’t need them for a wheelchair-accessible ride. Although the city has lagged behind in meeting the court-set goal of making half of its yellow cabs accessible to wheelchairs, adding taxis to the Uber app could double the number of cars available in just a few clicks of the phone.