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The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB) of the Philippines has ordered a one-month suspension of Uber's operations in the country.
The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has suspended for a month the operations of transport network company (TNC) Uber after it defied its July 26 order not to accept and activate new drivers into its platform.
In response, Uber issued a short statement, saying: "Uber received an order around 6 p.m. tonight (August 14) to completely stop operations. We are studying the order at the moment. We will update our riders and drivers as soon as we can."
In its cease-and-desist order that was released and took effect on Monday night, the LTFRB said that Uber was "irresponsible" when it continued to accept and activate new drivers into its platform.
[...] Recognizing that their order meant that thousands of Uber's drivers would lose income for a month, the LTFRB recommended that Uber extend financial assistance to its affected drivers as a "form of good faith."
"[T]heir accredited peer-operators would not have suffered the current predicament were it not for the predatory actions of [Uber]," it said.
On July 26, the LTFRB ordered TNCs Grab and Uber to stop their acceptance and accreditation of new drivers as the agency ironed out issues concerning the ride-sharing industry.
However, the LTFRB found out that Uber defied its order, with the TNC even releasing a statement that partly read that "applications are being accepted but not processed" by them. On top of this, the LTFRB was also able to activate three of its cars into Uber's platform.
The company later issued a statement that it was complying with the order. Earlier today (August 15) they filed a motion for reconsideration which the LTFRB has denied.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:58AM (2 children)
As someone who has lived in the Philippines all his life, I can tell you that the taxi scams you describe aren't common, at least not in Metro Manila. In 41 years of life here and riding taxis almost daily I have never experienced any taxi drivers extorting extra fees for things like use of air conditioning or for extra passengers, like the Thénardiers of Les Misérables cheating the customers of their inn. The only really common taxi scams are drivers taking out contracts agreeing to a fixed fee regardless of what the meter says, and drivers refusing to carry passengers going to obscure or distant destinations they feel are not profitable. This is irritating enough as it is, and is one reason why Transport Network Companies like Grab and Uber are becoming very popular. The other being that there simply aren't enough taxis to service the city's transportation needs.
A fully decentralised model though, has major drawbacks. With complete decentralisation however, accountability completely flies out the window. All of the notional scams you have described for the traditional taxi system and many, many more would become rife in a completely decentralised transport network service. There has to be some sort of authority that is able to impose things like fares and add a layer of accountability. I don't want to roll the dice that this driver I'm about to hail is going to rob me at knifepoint after taking me to a quiet field somewhere. A traditional taxi service and these centralised transport networks like Grab and Uber at least have that going for them. Don't tell me that ratings will help put a stop to this. It only takes a driver doing the equivalent of shipping a bobcat in one out of thirty packages [xkcd.com] to game those.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:58AM (1 child)
You're being disingenuous there. I obviously don't have any way of judging your personal experience, but I do know that if you've lived in Metro Manila for 41 years you are fully aware of what I'm speaking of, and having never experienced it is going to require a knowledge of the typical issues, tells, and at least a bit of good luck. In any case, for anybody that would like see a sampling here you go: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=philippines+taxi [youtube.com]. You needn't specify robbery, abuse or anything of the sort. It's so systemic that simply searching for philippines taxi is synonomous with abuse and scams. And it is not only foreigners, though it's not as if ripping off and scamming foreigners ought be acceptable either. Or search google for "philippines taxi robbery". What you get in most countries is taxi drivers being robbed. In the Philippines it's the exact opposite.
Your example of gaming rating systems does not seem likely. Ripping off 3% of your customers, means you gain lose 97% of your potential gains from such behavior. Another characteristic that is a stereotype, but one that is reliable, is that these sort of scammers and thugs are not exactly go getters. They will sit around all day doing nothing waiting for a single soft target when they could have made more money driving 10 people for legitimate fares in less time. They're not going to drive 30 people to 5 star competence so they can game their numbers and screw every 31st customer. The biggest benefit for ride sharing services is that there is also always a record of exactly who is driving and who is picked up. Such public knowledge protection mechanisms could be made even stronger in a decentralized system. For instance the way a ride could be 'started' would be mutual biometric exchange. The driver and passenger snap a quick pic of each other, after a quick face matching (against unchangeable photos) the ride is 'validated.'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:18AM