Uber is planning to shake up the taxi industry by launching its own taxi booking service, in what it promises will make the worst aspects of catching a taxi 'awesome'.
You may already be familiar with Uber, the luxury hire car app that launched in Sydney in November last year. The service allows users to book a classy private car and travel in style, instead of rolling the dice and hoping to get a taxi driver who knows where they're going and doesn't listen to talkback radio .
The service gave passengers a considerably more comfortable means of getting from A to B, for a price of between 20% and 40% more than booking a regular taxi, depending on how luxurious they'd like their ride to be.
How it works
When customers book with an app, they’ll be connected with the closest available driver from uberTAXI’s Sydney fleet. The app will plot the driver’s course turn-by-turn and in real time, so you know exactly how far away your ride is, and gives an estimated time of arrival upon making your booking.
Assuming that the taxis using the uberTAXI app to find fares use the same fare rates as those who don’t, it’s an overall cheaper option. Book a taxi through the app and you’ll be charged a $2 Uber Service Fee, which is 40c less than the booking fee used by other taxi networks.
This $2 fee will be waived as a promotional offer for the first two months of uberTAXI operating in Sydney, making the app the cheapest way of booking a taxi in the city.
As a user registers their credit card details with the app, payment is automatically charged by the driver at the end of the journey - so no fumbling with your wallet after a big night out.
Once the fare is complete, passengers receive a receipt plotting the car’s route on a map, so you know exactly what you’ve been charged for.
Why should I try it?
The big pro of using uberTAXI is that it does away with the 10% Cabcharge credit card ‘surcharge’ currently enforced by other taxi companies. This fee has been seen as rip-off by both customers and consumer watchdog groups, so anyone fed up with paying extra just to use their card might well prefer to give uberTAXI a try for this reason alone.
The taxi service is available through the same free app used for private car hire – meaning users only need to download the one app to have access to three tiers of service (uberTAXI, Uber Black or the deluxe Uber Lux service).
Living in Sydney, booking a taxi through an app or even over the phone is often a trying experience – with many either refusing a fare, or not showing up at all. uberTAXI hopes to provide a more reliable alternative through its booking system.
The company says they have much higher driver acceptance rates, since a customer’s credit card details are already pre-loaded in to the app. This reduces the chance of a no-show by passengers or an attempt at a ‘cab bolt’ at the end of the ride to avoid paying the fare.
Uber also hopes its service will ensure a safer experience for both passengers and drivers alike, screening each driver on its network and allowing users to rate their driver at the end of each trip.
The uberTAXI service goes online in Sydney today and will be available in Melbourne soon. The app is available to download for both iOS and Android, or at m.uber.com.
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