Uber In Talks To Use New York’s Yellow Cabs To Overcome Driver Shortage
Image ID 49439348 © via Tea | Dreamstime.com
As Uber struggles with an acute driver shortage, it might have to turn to New York City’s signature yellow cabs to supplement private-hire options.
As seen in a lobbying disclosure list, the company’s executive Josh Gold had met up with the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) chief Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk to discuss “the potential for a yellow taxi dispatch.”
According to The New York Post, users of the ride-hailing service may soon see regular cabs as another option to the usual UberX.
Though, it must be noted, it’s not yet known if the city’s cab drivers would be keen to work with the platform, especially as the app has disrupted yellow taxis’ business model since its inception.
“I think they want to replace their volume. Especially in a moment when a lot of the drivers are not going back,” New York Taxi Workers Alliance leader, Bhairavi Desai, told The Post.
Desai explained that while nothing has been confirmed regarding the commission taxi drivers will receive from Uber, the usual 25% fee given to its private hire drivers won’t be anywhere near sufficient to cover the costs of operating a regular cab.
The current shortage of drivers, as Insider posited, could be due to some waiting for a higher percentage of the population to be vaccinated, or looking to other gigs for higher pay.
But with cities returning to normalcy after nearly two years of the pandemic, demand for ride-hailing services has surged again, leading to price hikes, longer waiting times, and disgruntled customers.
Could Uber cave and offer a higher cut of profits to lure yellow cab drivers over to their side? If demand continues to grow, it’ll soon be a matter of when, not if.
[via Insider and The New York Post, cover image via Tea | Dreamstime.com]
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