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Uber, hit by driver shortages and a surge in food delivery requests during the pandemic, will list New York City taxi cabs on its app, a partnership that until recently would have been unthinkable with both camps fighting ferociously for the same customers.
After a period in which waits for an Uber ride grew longer due to a driver shortage, the partnership will boost the number of rides available, and it gives NYC cab drivers access to a massive pool of commuters with an Uber app on their phones.
There had been hints tensions between Uber and taxi services had begun to thaw as Uber expanded aggressively into the very lucrative food delivery business and needed a growing supply of delivery drivers.
The agreement announced Thursday comes amid the back drop of more cities moving to regulate the explosive growth of Uber and other app-based ride services, including New York City, which placed a temporary cap on new licenses for ride-hailing services in 2018.
New York City is the largest American market for Uber.
The New York City Workers Alliance, a group that represents taxi drivers and has been critical of Uber and other ride-hailing apps, said it would push for negotiations.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission said Thursday that it is always interested in tools that can provide more economic opportunities for drivers.
Uber has been incorporating taxi drivers around the world into its system for the past several years. In Spain, the company has integrated taxis in Madrid, Málaga, Valencia and Barcelona. It has 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.
In New York City, Uber is teaming with tech platforms Creative Mobile Technologies and Curb to eventually have all New York City taxi cabs available on its app. 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.
