Uber is promising to share data gathered from the millions of trips its cars make in London in the latest move to meet requests from Transport for London, which stripped the taxi app of its license last year.
Reuters reports that it is part of its strategy to keep its 40,000 drivers operating London’s roads, which Reuters says is its most important European market, after TfL deemed it not “fit and proper” to run a taxi service, adding that Uber has also changed its business model to include proactive reporting of serious incidents to police.
The report adds that anyone would be able to look at its anonymised information, including on past travel conditions and how journey times in different areas of London are affected by events and road closures.
Uber is also changing its app to “make it clearer to riders in London – once they have requested a car through our app – that Uber London has accepted their booking as the private hire operator”.
It says all bookings through its app in London and surrounding areas (such as at airports like Heathrow) will be accepted by Uber London, which means that only drivers licensed by Transport for London can carry out those trips.
“And when we send riders the booking confirmation we will let them know that TfL has licensed their driver, alongside information such as their name, photo, private hire licence number and car registration,” the company says in a statement.
