City taxis buyout Mercury taxis in uber scare

[Nicotrod 10]

Still 75% of the time I get a significantly cheaper fare, a polite and professional driver, a clean car (something I've not experienced much of with City) and an almost instant pick up. I'm happy with my choice.

[Eric Arthur 10]

City also have an app where you can track your taxi, call the driver and pay so you don't need to ring them but at least you can if you ever need to call them.

 

How would you feel If you booked an uber and a rotherham vehicle and driver turned up? As that's what will be happening very soon.

 

I'd feel the same as I did when I booked a City taxi on their app and a Rotherham driver was allocated. If I hadn't looked on the tracker and then called to find out that they City had no available drivers I would have been sat waiting for an hour or more.

 

All taxi companies are as unreliable as each other at times. Uber and City are no different to each other really.

[denlin 12]

Still 75% of the time I get a significantly cheaper fare, a polite and professional driver, a clean car (something I've not experienced much of with City) and an almost instant pick up. I'm happy with my choice.

 

And 25% you get no car. What do you do then? I've found city cars very reasonable and I've not been in a dirty car either. I've never had any trouble getting a City car apart from when it was bad snow. That's a 99.9% record.

Edited October 28, 2015 by denlin

[Eric Arthur 10]

It is unusual but I had a filthy City cab only last week.

[smiggs 10]

How would you feel If you booked an uber and a rotherham vehicle and driver turned up? As that's what will be happening very soon.

 

The Uber app tells you how long the cars will take to get to you before booking if they are too far away for you to wait book with someone else.

[swordfish1 10]

I've only twice not been able to get an Uber, and one of those times City couldn't get one to me within an hour either, so I walked.

The other time was 04.30 in a morning.... I got a black cab.

I'm probably up to 50+ Ubers in Sheffield.

Always on time. Always cheaper.

Used to always get a black cab home from town. Now I can get an Uber there and back for less than the price of a bus there and a taxi back.

[mogwai84 10]

How would you feel If you booked an uber and a rotherham vehicle and driver turned up? As that's what will be happening very soon.

Genuinely couldn't care less.

[kidley 48]

uber is a world wide success and, there's no reason why they cannot be in England not only Sheffield, the more some people/firms poo poo uber the more it will grow, all the taxi firms in Sheffield good and bad have to play catch up or sink, uber have proved themselves time and time again in the world, I would guess that most of Sheffield people have yet,got to get to know uber?

[PAKS4 10]

The Uber app tells you how long the cars will take to get to you before booking if they are too far away for you to wait book with someone else.

 

The city app also does this, only difference is city don't have surge pricing.

 

---------- Post added 28-10-2015 at 18:49 ----------

 

Genuinely couldn't care less.

 

Get ready for it then, as the rotherham drivers join the sheffield Uber drivers will slowly leave,

[smiggs 10]

The city app also does this, only difference is city don't have surge pricing.

 

So what you're saying I as a consumer have choice of two different services with both pros and cons and when booking taxis I can make the decision from information available on my phone. Sounds pretty good to me, I don't understand why anyone would blindly support either firm when the information to decide which firm to use there and then is right at their fingertips.

[*_ash_* 88]

Genuinely couldn't care less.

 

Great

 

Let's hope others don't feel the same, though I suspect that they will also not care less. Let me tell you why other people should care more (outside of your own personal choice, which is fine mogwai, I accept that)

 

It's not just Rotherham, it eventually be from anywhere with drivers and cars that weren't checked as strictly as Sheffield Council licensing do. Since the Deregulation Act 2015 came into force a few weeks ago (taxi wise), Sheffield is already being swarmed with out of town taxis*, you might not care, but as people always ask in here ''do YOU have children?" - well I'll use it this time... have you got kids? Would you want your 18 yo on his/her own, getting in a Sheffield Taxi or any old taxi, with a driver checked by 'goodness knows who'.

 

 

*(just for clarity btw before someone thinks that a bit of competition is good, and also 'why would people come from Newcastle/Swansea/Chester/Nottingham/Leeds/Kirklees?'

 

- well currently most of these aren't people from these towns, they are from here and they can't get a licence in Sheffield - but this is now completely open to anyone).

 

-

 

Would you prefer your CHILD!! () to use a local company where if anything goes wrong, you can phone them and speak to people IN Sheffield, and if there is a serious problem you can ring Sheffield Council and speak to taxi licensing to people IN Sheffield, or press a button on an app; get any old car and/or driver without any checks that you can easily look up, and without having to email a robot and hope for a human response?

 

-

 

As for the competition, City has made loads of changes to match anything that Uber can do.

 

I think Uber won't work in Sheffield, and I've always said that, but by altering and a slight change to the licensing laws, has opened the doors for other companies to compile a huge number of cars from out of town. It's already happened. Uber have just used their power to manipulate the law to allow them to operate (personally I think this all started in the UK after that ECHR case from one bloke who said his human rights were broken because his work area was restricted).

 

 

The main point being that the first time that one of these out of town drivers causes a serious problem, then my livelihood as all other Sheffield drivers is at risk. People naturally group taxis/ drivers together, so if some out of towner assaults a student or something, then the whole of Sheffield suffers, not just us drivers, but pubs, cafes, clubs, food places, etc. the staff in all these places, the reputation of Sheffield itself, and its safety record which encourages students and people wanting to live here... it's a no brainer.

[kidley 48]

Ash you make sense, but to my mind, although it can be discussed on S/F and predictions made about what people think might happen to the taxi trade in Sheffield in the future, Just what impact Uber will have in Sheffield is, in the future.