Ubiquitous, hugely successful and sometimes controversial taxi service app, Uber, is coming to Belfast, Northern Ireland just before the end of 2015.
This could be great news for the public giving more choice in getting home from a late night at Christmas, with Uber making it significantly easier for taxi drivers to start out on their own with their paying customers coming from the Uber app. They will still have to hold a valid Private Hire licence and we presume have vehicles PSV’d as required.
If you haven’t given Uber a try in other cities (it’s in Dublin already), it is very similar in operation to local taxi company apps. Enter your destination, times and number of people and away you go, tracking your Uber driver until he collects you. What’s more, payment is taken through the app so no more ‘Could you stop at a cash machine, mate‘ on your way to the big smoke. You can also rate your driver which can help keep standards up. Think Tripadvisor for taxi drivers.
It seems to be great for drivers as well. All they need is the Uber app at their end to collect jobs, without having their dashboard drilled to cheese for the 14 separate systems that seem to bestow some of our public cabs. We hope that this will tempt more taxi drivers to help with the demand at sensible prices on the run up to Christmas. I don’t think our local taxi firms are just as excited at the prospect.
Uber Belfast goes live on 11th December, and you can download it from all good App Stores.