Uber Can Only Use Livery Drivers In Moscow, Motorcycles Confiscated In Bangalore

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Ride-hailing app Uber wants to provide transportation services around the world, but taxi service laws are very local, forcing them to fight city by city for each of their services to exist legally. In Moscow and Bangalore this week, cities were able to limit the service’s growth, including confiscating drivers’ motorcycles in India.

In Moscow, the company offered the cheaper UberX service that often uses amateur drivers without livery licenses, as well as its more upscale black-car service. Moscow had threatened to ban the service, and instead won two key concessions from the company: Uber agreed to share data about their cars and where they traveled, and agreed to only have drivers with existing livery licenses drive for the service.

In Bangalore, meanwhile, Uber and a rival ride-hailing app based in India, Ola, both started motorcycle taxi services on the same day in March. Yesterday, the city seized a total of 86 unapproved motorcycle taxis that were accepting fares from companies that weren’t officially approved, including Uber.

“Uber, Ola and others have not obtained permits from the Road Transport Authority to offer bike taxi services,” the city’s commissioner for transport and road safety explained to Bloomberg Business.

Uber Motorcycle Taxis Halted in Bangalore as Bikes Impounded [Bloomberg]
Uber to Limit Moscow Service to Licensed Cars and Share Data With City [Bloomberg]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist