We want to thank all of New York’s UberFaithful for giving our NYC TAXI beta a shot over the last month. It was pretty exciting – for the first time in 30 years, New Yorkers could get a cab without going to the street and putting your arm out. This meant finding a driver happy to take you to Brooklyn knowing he could get a return fare through Uber, or getting a cab from the Bronx at 7pm on a Friday night.
Some quick stats:
– 160 cabbies participated in Uber TAXI beta
– Biggest payday – one top UberTAXI driver made $168 additional fares in a single day!
– Biggest week – Joe E. made $586 additional fares with UberTAXI in a week!
Unfortunately, as many of you have noticed, there haven’t been enough available TAXIs. Demand far out-stripped supply, making you feel pretty lucky when you got a yellow from your iPhone. We did the best we could to get more yellows on the road but New York’s TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) put up obstacles and roadblocks in order to squash the effort around e-hail, which they privately have said is legal under the rules. We’ll bite our tongues and keep our frustration here to ourselves.
So what can we say… such is life as a transportation technology innovator, boldly going where no man has gone before (well at least for 30 years). New York City’s TLC will hopefully get things moving, and let UberTAXI back out in the wild next year. In the meantime you can try UberTAXI in more innovation-friendly cities – including Boston and Toronto on the east coast – and as always, New York is still rocking with Uber Black and our low-cost UberX offering.
Happy UBERing,
Travis Kalanick
Uber co-founder and CEO
