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Maaxi app for licensed black cabs

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A new app is recruiting London’s black cab taxi drivers with the promise that it can help them compete against Uber, Hailo and other car pick-up services.
Maaxi is designed to match up to five strangers travelling in the same direction, so that they can share a ride and split the bill.

Alternatively, users can opt to ride solo when they make their booking.
The start-up already has the support of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association.

Prices are determined by how many people the passenger shares with, affecting their journey time
Its backing is in large part down to the fact that Maaxi promotes itself as a black cab-only facility, unlike rival apps that also offer private hire cars.

As well as attracting extra business, the start-up says drivers will earn more money per ride if they carry more passengers than they would do via a traditional pick-up.
Under normal circumstances, black cabs do not charge extra for carrying two, three, four or five people rather than just one, but this is not the case with Maaxi.

“The taxi driver charges each person less than the meter fare but overall gets more, when aggregating all the partial fares – a true win-win,” explained Gabi Campos, the firm’s chief executive.
“The fares are distributed according to the distance and time the person spends in the taxi, so that if five people share a journey they split the fare for that portion in five, and if in a subsequent shared journey only four are sitting in the taxi, the fare is shared by four.

“Maaxi takes the hassle out of the hands of the driver and the passenger, and uses technology for everything to be automatically calculated.”

See more about the Maaxi App

Licensed black cabs & Uber

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London’s black-cab drivers have brought parts of the city to a standstill today with a mass protest against the car service Uber, which allows people to hail a cab and agree a fare using their phone.
The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) says its protest is directed not at Uber, but at Transport for London, which it claims is failing to hold the mobile-based car service to the proper regulations.
“Transport for London not enforcing the Private Hire Vehicles Act is dangerous for Londoners,” Steve McNamara, LTDA’s general secretary, told the BBC before the protest got underway. “I anticipate that the demonstration against TfL’s handling of Uber will attract many, many thousands of cabs and cause severe chaos, congestion and confusion across the metropolis”.

So what is Uber and why all the fuss? Here’s why the car service has got London cabbies hot under the collar.
What is Uber?
Uber is an app that “connects drivers with passengers at the touch of a button”. The app is free to download and, when accessed, shows all the Uber-accredited cars in a user’s vicinity. To hail one, users just tap on a car that is close by, jump in, and at the end of the ride their card is debited automatically. Rates are considerably lower than in a black cab – unless you order a luxury car – and are calculated according to how far a passenger travels and how long his or her journey takes.
Sounds useful. What is the problem?
British cab drivers argue that Uber is operating as a taxi company and should be subject to the appropriate regulations, and that the cars available through Uber should also be classed as taxis rather than minicabs.
Uber, meanwhile, insists that it is “not a transportation carrier”. But black cab drivers disagree, noting that unlike licensed mini cabs, which have to quote on a price up-front rather than using a meter, Uber operates like a conventional taxi company by calculating fares based on time and distance, with a user’s smartphone acting as the meter.
What is the official response?
In TfL’s view, using smartphones to record fares may differ sufficiently from conventional metered travel. Such devices, they say, “do not constitute the equipping of a vehicle with a taxi meter”.
“This distinction is important,” The Guardian notes, “because it helps Uber keep away from laws that govern licensed taxis”.
Should Uber be regulated?
Uber has expanded rapidly and now operates in 32 countries around the world. The California-based start-up has already been hit with legal action, protests and bans of various kinds in Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Houston, Portland, New Orleans, Seattle, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Vancouver and Toronto, the Guardian reports.
What next?
Transport for London says that it has investigated Uber’s business model and determined that it believes the company complies with all applicable rules. However, it has referred the case to the High Court and asked it to deliver a binding ruling, the BBC reports. Meanwhile, publicity generated by the cab drivers’ protest may well have backfired: Uber says it has seen an eight-fold increase in sign-ups since this time last week.

Zero-emissions for black cabs

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London’s only operating zero-emissions capable black cab, the Metrocab, is going into volume production in Coventry next year.

Up to £50m is being invested in the production run by owners Frazer-Nash Research and Ecotive.

The hybrid Metrocab is driven by two electric motors, with a 1-litre petrol engine range extender. It can be run in a variety of modes including zero emissions.

Even the more power-hungry modes allow the cab to produce 98 miles per gallon – about three times more fuel efficient than a standard London taxi.

The associated lower running costs, could save a London cabbie £20 – 40 per day.

Metrocab chairman Sir Charles Masefield said: “This announcement marks another important step in bringing the all-new electric powered Metrocab to volume production.

“Our prototype fleet is already operating very successfully in London, proving that our Range Extended Electric taxis are the solution to delivering on the City’s Ultra Low Emission Zones promises from 2018.”

A small trial fleet of Metrocabs is already being operated in London by Comcab, and the model is the first zero-emission-capable taxi to be licensed by Transport for London (TFL) to operate on a trial basis as a London Hackney Carriage.

City smog

The new taxis could help ease London’s pollution levels, which are among the worst in Europe – a problem the city authorities have been trying to tackle with a rash of new policies.

Last week TFL announced a new plan to get 1m Londoners into car clubs, to help cut emissions and congestion in the capital.

The proposed Ultra Low Emission Zone could also be introduced before the original 2020 target and widened to include more boroughs.

Mayor Boris has also proposed a diesel car scrappage scheme which would offer up to £2000 for diesel drivers to switch to cleaner models.