Estonian ride-hailing startup Taxify hopes to have issues with local regulator Transport for London (TfL) resolved and restore service in the British capital by the beginning of next week at the latest.
On Sept. 8, just three days after launching its service in London, Taxify had to halt its operations there after TfL launched an investigation into the company.
It was determined that Taxify was not registered in London as a private hire vehicle operator, due to which it did not have the right to accept ride bookings.
Taxify CEO Markus Villig told ERR that preparations are underway for continuing operations in the British capital — TfL demanded additional security requirement compliance from the company, and Taxify hopes to have everything in order by the end of the week.
"Our plan is to launch sometime this or next week," he added.
The Estonian ride-hailing service has previously cited TfL's lack of interest in dialogue or offering tips to ensure their application is approved. According to Villig, the authority's attitude has not improved, but the company has reached an alternative legal solution.
"The first time they were not satisfied with the licensed business we have, but this time we found a different kind of legal solution with which we believe they will be more satisfied," Villig explained. "We're currently waiting for final approval from them so we can relaunch."
While the delay has meant additional expenses for the expansion to London, according to the CEO, the increase has been marginal in the context of the company's launch budget.
"Ultimately, what is most important for us is that [London] was our most successful launch ever for drivers and clients alike, so if we incur some additional legal fees, that isn't the main concern," said Villig. "Businesses are generally more concerned about where to find clients and drivers. In our case, thankfully, these problems have already been solved."
Expansion to Paris not to be affected
According to Villig, Taxify's planned expansion to Paris will not be affected the obstacles the company has encountered in London, as transport regulations in Paris are significantly simpler and the launch of new platforms more competition-friendly.
"Everything is going smoothly in Paris," the CEO confirmed. "Rather, we hope to receive final confirmation from London this week — then everything will be shipshape in both cities."
He noted that preparations are underway in Paris, and that there are teams on location in both cities who are working on training drivers.
When exactly Taxify can be expected to launch in Paris, however, Villig was unable to say, noting that the goal was to line up hundreds of drivers first, as Paris is such a large city to cover.
During its first three days of operation earlier this month, 3,000 drivers joined and 30,000 clients downloaded the Taxify app before the company halted operations after local regulator Transport for London had claimed that the new market entrant had failed to obtain a proper operating license.
Taxify operates in 19 countries around the world. In early August, the company announced that Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing had purchased a 13-percent holding in Taxify and would support the growth of the Estonian-developed platform in Africa and Europe.
Source: News EER. EE
17 comments:
Warning to anyone silly enough to consider thinking about the purchase of a £60k taxi, there may only be a few years left before it's all over for black cabs. Better of buying a rickshaw or alternative investment. If your on the knowledge forget about it, better to use time and effort pursuing a different trade, or just get a car and start going to the west end touting like everyone else. Believe me enforcement will not stop you, they are too busy checking black cabs for cracked hubcabs or badges hung around necks. One presume the latter is to assist in hanging oneself as bankruptcy looms. Yellow badges, you really should join in the free for all on weekend evenings there, everyone else really is, and better you than Uber touting about.
They know what to do now, just offer a big licensing fee and everything should run very smoothly for them. Still at least for more rivals for dodgy Uber the better.
25.000 of those "client" downloads where cabbie's ordering cars all over the place! It was great fun! 😂😂😂
More competition to Black Cabs.
Taxify V Uber
I hear that Lyft will slso be enetring the market ?
I guess all Uber drivers will just have all 3 apps running at once and take the firs request.
Dodgy licensing department, dodgy MPs, dodgy Uber, dodgy drivers. What could possibly go wrong? The eventual saviour may well be the cometh of the all good, all honourable and all powerful JC. That's J I am with Jeremy Corbyn, the only governing direction that may stop the rot. Possibly closely seconded by Nigel Garage . Great ha ha Britain today.
anon 7:50pm - unfortunately (in my opinion), EVERYTHING you wrote, is spot-on - I agree with every word
Thank goodness I am leaving this mad house What ever happened to the british tradition of get qualified then you can do the job you have trained for I am so dissaponted in this country's behaviour where any spiv can run a taxi service
Tx5 dead in the water.
It is quite clear how the lowest priced operators are queueing up for a slice of the London people transportation market (I refuse to call it taxi market as they are not taxis) and because of the execrable and ignominious threshold our licence operator TFL has lowered itself and by being originally covertly corrupted but now openly selling licenses in un-capped volume whilst at the same time they now twiddle with the future licensing costs with self perpetuating greed of Licensing reward.
The current system of flooding the streets with a "get home for cheap" services undoubtedly serves The Met police well as it not only clears the streets, it has powers to identify passengers through the pre-paid apps.
On the other hand, The sexual assault numbers which are rocketing clearly has moral duties of standards laid down for police actions to follow up on, ...but to follow is clearly not a preventative act and this shame clearly attaches itself to the Licence providers (TFL) because the Police who cannot prevent the numbers rising without TFL actions, ..and TFL knowingly refuse to act because of the corruption of morals for clear rewards of financial betterment.
It goes without saying all business's (including us) must hold firm levels propriety and simply lowering costs to below Terra-Firma levels on real operating costs is stripping all quality and safety levels away and grossly deceiving the public about the real cost of operating standard levels of costs which is only to keep the upper echelon's of management well paid and this whole modus operandi is clearly going to get considerably worse before the bubble eventually bursts in human terms as anyone with half a brain can see right now, The all night tubes and bus's are the cheapest way home and Licence fees increases will ironically make them even cheaper as the knot gets tighter.
Be Lucky
greenbadgejohn (on twitter)
You maybe having fun now but this is serious Knolwedge applications now for this year 645 comepair this with the so called 80% drop out rate we are heading for a crash the Knolwedge needs to be made more attractive if not TFLwill simply scrap it and interduce a mini Knolwedge for PH drivers if UBER loose there licence then I'm sure taxify will make a killing with the left over uber drivers people don't seem to care how they get from A to B time to wake up gents
Ironically, the only way to resolve this is to make the knowledge easier to flood London with black cabs, and at same time introduce knowledge testing for private hire. There needs to be more of us than them, otherwise you will soon find you will lose the stations, Heathrow, and have absolutely no weight or power at all. Indeed, wake up and especially wake up the representative bodies, both hackney and private hire. This needs sorting and very fast to save both hackney and traditional private hire companies.
isn,t it illegal to use the word taxi [taxify] if you,re private hire?
To anonymous at 10.08 PH testing is all ready on the cards and the trade orgs know this flooding London with black cabs will not work it’s all about price I’m afraid to say yes taxify have got there licence and there undercutting uber and there are 2 more that are in the pipe line as well to hit London what we need is a regulator to explain to them is we have no need for anymore and Helen is not going to have excaminers sitting around scratching there arses with no one to test 56s days are running at 42 days on the Knolwedge what is that telling you and and when you have young managers who don’t have a clue about the trade it’s a case of game over
There was a mini cab firm on the junction of Fortess Road and Highgate road which had a name Mis-spelt to sound like Taxi (Taaxi or Tachsi) and they had to change their name owing to confusion when people called their telephone number to book them.
As this is an app service and which is in my mind still an illegal e-hail, I am convinced the argument being put forward is on where the customer cannot be mistaken as there is no voice connection to confuse the word 'taxi'.
There must be opposition to the use of any word that states 'Taxi' in it in any way or it will be the thin edge of the wedge on allowing private hire vehicles to display the word Taxi on the outside of their vehicles just as Addison Lee and other Private hire firms display right now.
We must be very weary of the out of sight legal scribblers who constantly think up new ways to erode our world wide identity, and we all must fight our corner to re-emphasize our position as the only purpose built vehicles In London to hold exclusive rights in law to use and display the word TAXI in all and every derivatives and anything else is PRIVATE HIRE, ....No compromises exist, This was clearly explained when I did the Knowledge to drive a TAXI and took a separate driving test in same purpose built vehicle unlike private hire drivers running around in everyday saloon cars.
Be Lucky
greenbadgejohn (on Twitter)
the mob in highgate was tecksie and the minicab office in cranbourne st was taksio
The reason why I think the knowledge should be easier, is to give the opportunity for some of the slightly more intelligent, dedicated and English speaking private hire drivers to become black cab drivers. This will result in great pressure on Uber because the only staff they will get will be the very unintelligent this people will tire of their incompetence more than they do now. In many cities in the UK, the knowledge test is the same for both tiers, thus there is little point in becoming private hire unless you only want to do pre booked jobs or chauffeur style work.
Many cities have strong good knowledge testing for private hire. This is why many Uber drivers choose TFL as the easy option then cross border hire. It was always the case that in areas with strong private hire testing a nice balance was created between Hackney and private hire. At the moment London is very unbalanced.
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