Expand / Collapse search
☰

Uber will list all NYC taxis on its app in shift that could help struggling cabbies

By FOX 5 NY Staff
Updated  March 24, 2022 6:58pm EDT
Uber
FOX 5 NY

Uber to list NYC taxi cabs on app

Soon, you may be able to hail a cab through Uber, with the ride-hailing giant reaching a major deal to start listing yellow taxis on its app.

NEW YORK - Uber has reportedly worked out a deal to list all New York City taxi cabs on its app.

The ride-hailing car service will allow more than 14,000 yellow cabs to operate alongside its drivers giving people more options for transportation and sending a lifeline to the struggling taxi industry.

The announcement was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

According to the Independent Drivers Guild, a limited number of New Yorkers will be able to start hailing yellow cabs through the Uber app starting this spring before the feature rolls out fully over the summer.

Get breaking news alerts in the free FOX5NY News app!  |  Sign up for FOX 5 email newsletters

The price of taxi rides via the Uber app will be the same as for Uber X rides, according to the WSJ. Uber is teaming with tech platforms Creative Mobile Technologies and Curb to eventually have all New York City taxi cabs available on its app.

Unlike Uber drivers, cabbies will be able to turn down potential rides after seeing where the customer wants to go and the price of the ride. 

"Uber has a long history of partnering with the taxi industry to provide drivers with more ways to earn and riders with another transportation option," Andrew Macdonald, Uber’s senior vice president of mobility and business operations, said in a statement to The NY Post.

The partnership will boost the number of rides available after a period in which wait times for Uber rides had grown longer, and it gives NYC cab drivers access to a massive pool of commuters who now have Uber and Lyft apps on their phones. 

Uber drivers give NYC riders the thumbs down

New York City has been named the U.S. city with the rudest Uber passengers in the nation.

Uber has been incorporating taxi drivers around the world into its system for the past several years. 

Uber Technologies Inc. has been incorporating taxi drivers around the world into its system for the past several years. In Spain, the company has integrated taxis Madrid, Málaga, Valencia and Barcelona. It’s teamed in Colombia with TaxExpress, which has more than 2,300 active drivers. Half of all Uber taxi trips in Latin America come from the TaxExpress partnership in Colombia. Uber also has relationships with taxi software and fleet operators in Austria, Germany, Turkey, South Korea and Hong Kong.

"Uber has a long history of partnering with the taxi industry to provide drivers with more ways to earn and riders with another transportation option. Our partnerships with taxis look different around the world, and we’re excited to team up with taxi software companies CMT and Curb, which will benefit taxi drivers and all New Yorkers," Andrew Macdonald, senior vice president, Mobility and Business Operations, at Uber, said in a prepared statement.

Creative Mobile Technologies said Thursday that taxi drivers on its platform, which includes the taxi app Arro, will gain access to Uber’s customer base, giving them the opportunity for a higher volume of trips and expanded revenue.

Uber, Lyft drivers forming cooperative

With many ride sharing drivers seeing their incomes fall as the companies they work for taking more of a cut, some drivers have formed a worked-owned cooperative.

Creative Mobile said a beta version for taxis will be rolled out this spring and reach the general public this summer.

Anyone with the Uber app will have access to thousands of yellow taxis that operate on the CMT/Arro platform. Taxi drivers will see Uber-originated fares on their driver monitors which they already use to service e-hails from the Arro taxi app.

Curb, which offers a ride-hailing app for licensed taxi and for-hire rides in North America, said that its partnership with Uber will give more transportation options for riders and more trips for drivers. While their agreement will start in New York City, Curb said that the partnership will expand to its nationwide network over the coming months.

Drivers on the Curb platform will be able to receive and accept Uber trip offers through their existing in-vehicle systems, in addition to Curb app demand and traditional street hails.

"We’ve found great success in creating incremental trip demand and revenue for drivers by integrating with several aggregators over the past two years, and this partnership builds on that success by delivering even greater opportunities for cab drivers to have access to an ever-widening pool of riders," Curb CEO Amos Tamam said.

With the Associated Press