European taxi drivers organized their biggest protest to date on Wednesday directed at Uber Technologies Inc., the car-sharing service that they claim it unfairly eats their profits.
From London to Madrid and Berlin to Paris, more than 30,000 taxi and limo drivers blocked tourist centers and shopping districts asking regulators to apply stricter rules on San Francisco-based Uber, owner of the namesake smartphone app that allows customers to order a ride from drivers who don’t need licenses. In some of these cities, licenses can cost up to €200,000 ($270,000) apiece.
The biggest protest was in London, where black-cab drivers, private car services and trainees gathered in the city center to protest what they see as the government’s failure to hold Uber to the same standards as other car services and taxis.
“A strike won’t work. What we need is real dialogue where we talk about these disruptions caused by technology,” European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said in a statement cited by Bloomberg. Uber serves 128 cities worldwide, 20 of which are in Europe.
London taxi drivers argue that the app’s fare calculator amounts to a meter, which are not allowed in hired cars that aren’t registered taxis. Some European taxi drivers say they lost up to 40 percent of their revenues since 2009 because of services like Uber.
Uber’s response to the taxi drivers’ strikes was to promote its service, saying in a statement that its teams across Europe would help people moving during the protests. “While the taxi protests may seek to bring Europe to a standstill, we’ll be on hand to get our riders from A to B,” read the company’s statement.
By Dan Mihalascu
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