It comes after messages were posted on social media relating to the behaviour in the east end of Newcastle.
The posts suggested that a male taxi driver has been locking vulnerable women in his vehicle.
It's understood an upfront payment has been demanded from passengers and that they have been locked in unless they agree to pay the fare - an investigation is now underway.
There have also been reports of passengers being sick in a taxi and being locked in the vehicle until they hand over property or payment as a fine.
Both male and female passengers have reported these types of incidents and we do not believe that vulnerable women are being targeted or that a driver has ever intended to harm them.
A local taxi company has dismissed an employee in connection with the reports and a police investigation is ongoing to see if any criminal offences have been committed.
Meanwhile, a 29-year-old man has been arrested by police and his taxi licence has been suspended by the local authority. His vehicle has also been seized to avoid him driving for another company.
http://bit.ly/2scGCmI
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Taxi drivers in Spain are striking today in cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia to protest at what they see as the exploitative practices of ride-hailing transportation apps Uber and Cabify.
Cab drivers in Barcelona are staging a 24 hour strike and will be taking their distinctive black and yellow cars to Madrid to take part in a demonstration in the centre of the city planned for midday, according to El Pais. A shorter taxi strike also took place in Valencia this morning.
It’s the second such anti-Uber demonstration in Spain, and follows the company’s limited re-entry into the market last year in Madrid, with a version of the Uber service that uses only licensed drivers. Uber has not sought to reintroduce the ability to hail a ride from non-professional drivers in the market. Nor does it currently offer its carpooling service, UberPool.
But it looks to be playing a longer game of attrition in the market — focused on lobbying for regulatory change so that it could reintroduce other services in future. In the first instance Uber is seeking to get a cap removed on the number of licenses for private hire vehicles — currently set at one per 30 taxis — to enable more Ubers to operate. Hence taxi drivers being angry.
Anger has also apparently been directed at Uber rival Cabify, which has claimed it’s been the target of various acts of aggression in the market — including having nine of its cars set on fire in Sevilla earlier this month.
In a blog post on its Spanish website yesterday Uber argued that eliminating the cap on the VTC licenses necessary to rent a vehicle with a driver would “reduce urban transport prices, create thousands of jobs and favor more sustainable cities”. Earlier this month it also published a report it commissioned which claims there would be “significant economic and environmental benefits” flowing from the liberalization of VTC licenses.
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