Uber is experimenting with a decidedly retro service: a telephone dispatch system that would allow people without smartphones to call a hotline and order an Uber ride, according to a transit official in Pinellas County, Florida. The system is being tested as a pilot program in conjunction with the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, which plans to launch it on July 18th. The call-in feature is part of a local program that will grant publicly subsidized Uber rides to low-income residents who do not have cars or easy access to the area’s bus-based public transit system, according to Christopher Cochran, senior planner at the PSTA.

The call-in feature signals that Uber is looking not only to expand its clientele beyond its smartphone wielding, tech-savvy customer base, but also that the ride-hailing giant hopes to be taken more seriously by public transit agencies as a complement — or even alternative — to existing mass transport options.
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UberK’s boss in the UK claims she has been forced to quit Twitter after being bombarded with sexist and abusive messages from taxi drivers.

Jo Bertram claimed the attacks have included one angry cabbie saying he hoped she would “get run over by a Toyota Prius”, while others have criticised her appearance including one who said she looked like Jimmy Savile.

The Uber executive, who is in charge of the minicab app across the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia, spoke about the abuse today at a "powerful women" conference being held in central London, Bertram told the Fortune Most Powerful Women event at Holborn's Rosewood Hotel that she now gets staff to check her Twitter account as she cannot face logging into it herself.

http://goo.gl/fW1HSe

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After putting the finishing touches to their colourful cabs, 70 taxi drivers have made their way to the seaside for the annual Edinburgh Taxi Trade Children's Outing.

From an Eddie the Eagle-inspired float to a taxi transformed into Red Riding Hood's Grandma's house, the horns beeped through an excited crowd as more than 100 families joined them at Edinburgh Zoo. 

The city's cabbies take a day off to drive children with special needs, life-limiting conditions and terminal illnesses and their families on a trip to the seaside.

Funded by an organising committee of taxi drivers, who raise money throughout the year, the outing has become a staple in the city for the last 70 years.

http://goo.gl/dLpnCE 

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UBERK FLORIDA

Touted for years as the company that would disrupt the taxi industry, Uber is now going old school and experimenting with a telephone dispatch system that allows those without smartphones to call in to order an Uber ride.

If that sounds familiar, it should; it’s how taxi’s have operated for more than a century.

The new program is being tested as a pilot program with the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority in Florida and launches on July 18.

 The program is part of a project to offer subsidized Uber rides to those typically reliant on the bus-based public transit system, according to Christopher Cochran, senior planner at the PSTA.
Under the new plan, “transit disadvantaged” residents can phone in a request for an Uber ride and be granted a taxpayer-subsidized trip anywhere within the service area during daytime hours.

The program covers both travel the dispatcher deems “urgent and life sustaining” as well as minor things, such as grocery shopping or routine medical visits.

What’s interesting is the possibilities the move opens up for cities to complement their existing public transportation options for “transit disadvantaged” individuals. The move would see Uber vying for new clientele not just in tech-savvy smartphone users, but as an additional option for municipal and state governments and a real alternative for the non-tech savvy to the traditional route of calling — or hailing — a taxi.

The Verge.