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THE HEAD OF Hailo in Ireland has this to say to the Ubers of this world: you’re not needed here.
“We believe that in a functioning licensed taxi market, like Ireland, people can get taxis when they need,” Hailo Ireland general manager Tim Arnold said.
“The markets where they have had success is where they have had a dysfunctional licensed taxi market.”
Last week a UK court declared Uber’s app legal in London after pressure from the city’s cabbies drove local authorities to push for it to be ruled an illicit taximeter.
It was the latest front in a war that has included disputes from South Korea to Paris, often pitching the taxi industry against a company offering the lure of cheap fares for passengers willing to take trips in everyday drivers’ cars.
However speaking with TheJournal.ie, Arnold said Hailo still believed “you can be innovative in a space without being disruptive”. He said the company’s growth in Ireland had been “accelerating again” and it now enjoyed a double-digit share of the taxi market in Dublin.
“You can disrupt an industry like the taxi industry here and make it better for everybody without being completely disruptive and disregarding the rules and having a cavalier approach to regulations.
We believe that companies who try to circumvent that structure of a licensed traffic market are to the detriment of the public at large and to the drivers who are in that regulated industry.”
Dominance threatened
More than three years after Hailo hit the streets in Dublin, it has become the dominant app for taxi bookings across Ireland – seeing off early rivals like Click A Taxi and Wini Cabs. However in Uber, which quietly launched in the Republic early last year, it has an entirely different opponent on its hands.
The San Francisco-headquartered company has raised over $8 billion (€7.2 billion at today’s rates) to fuel its growth, which has been built on its commercial carpooling or “ridesharing” model of connecting paying customers with private for-hire cars.
So far it has been hamstrung in Ireland with regulations effectively banning for-reward carpooling or ridesharing services from it or competitors like US rival Lyft and France-based BlaBlaCar.
It hasn’t stopped the $51 billion (€46.3 billion) company, which earlier this year announced a 300-person “centre of excellence” in Limerick, from lobbying the government for changes to the regulations, arguing that would cut congestion and pollution through more-efficient car use, and save passengers money as well.
Arnold said he believed it was only a matter of time before Uber tried its peer-to-peer UberPOP service in Ireland. Uber’s spokesman for Ireland, the UK and Nordic region, Harry Porter, said via email that the company didn’t have any plans to launch a peer-to-peer product in the Republic “at the moment”.
Meanwhile, Hailo has been keen to paint itself as the ‘good child’ in the car-booking class, working with authorities and running customer-friendly marketing ploys like free lifts to polling stations for the same-sex marriage referendum.
“What these other companies often do is launch despite the regulations with a very brash attitude,” Arnold said.
“They don’t worry about breaking the laws, paying the fines that are required until they can try to draw public interest to support them and get that legislation changed.”
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Hailo’s message to Uber:……….. Fc*k Off we don’t wan’t competition.
Hailo are supposed to be in trouble over spending and no investment so uber def spells trouble for them
The journal will literally use any opportunity to mention the gay marriage referendum. Move on.
Gay people can get married now? Gosh, that must annoy certain types of people.
I had not noticed the passing reference to the free taxi service to the polling booths for the same sex marriage equality referendum until you drew it to my attention, RoN.
Clearly you would have preferred RoN to have had the service restricted to the opponents of same sex civil marriage.
Thank you for highlighting the Marriage Equality Referendum passed by more than 68% of those who voted.
This topic deserves another separate article so that RoN can get his full rant on.
When will companies and businesses in all industries cop on that they are not in any way simply entitled to your business? If they are out flanked by someone with an innovative idea, the onus is on them to either catch up or offer more appealing innovative ideas of their own.
In theory yes but it seems that the playing field isn’t level. Essentially they are both providing the same service but uber drivers are not vetted or regulated in any way and their costs are lower, for example insurance. Also, I don’t think uber drivers are taxed.
Harry Potters real?
No, just a fictional character who looks a bit like you.
Taxi service in Atlanta is dreadful, everyone i know uses uber and they rave about its convenience, low cost etc. I personally have only used it once and it was bang on, great idea, well executed.
Uber is incredible
Ireland is not Atlanta.
We dont need Uber destroying the jobs of licensed,regulated taxi drivers.
The industry is overcrowded as it is.
They are a scourge on the face of the earth.
The authorities have a responsibility to control this form of unbridled capitalism.
Can we all do part time work as civil servants/teachers/Gardai etc. and put them out of work.?
Not likely.
I hope that Uber is launched in its full form in Ireland, allowing those with a suitable car and a clean criminal background check to apply.
I used ubers multiple times in San Diego this summer and the system works brilliantly and is very cost effective too
No Hailo app for windowsphone…but there is an Uber app, so hailo for f**k off
In the U.S. UBER HAS STARTED DOING LOGISTICS NOW, will Hailo start doing the Ambulance service now???
we only have 12 ambulances in Dublin and these are fully stretched at this time of year… if you need to get to a hospital and a DFB ambulance will be another hour, why not get help?
I can see it happening with the TiSA Agreement privatised hospitals and ambulances, Uber is involved with logistics now. So god knows what the future will bring thanks to TTIP and the Trade in Services Agreement.
Many things are run down in order to change them and the excuse is cost but getting private firms to run things always costs more as the NHS model has shown and the same is starting to happen here now…
Help is one thing but cost will be another???
Given the wages of ambulance drivers, I am sure the government would love it.!
have your say