Senior Liberal Democrat politicians have demanded an urgent meeting with Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and Environment Secretary Michael Gove, over concerns the government is not doing enough to encourage taxi drivers to switch to cleaner cars.

Former party leader Tim Farron and Transport spokesperson Baroness Randerson wrote to Gove and Grayling late last week requesting an "urgent meeting" to discuss why the latest private hire vehicle (PHV) statistics fail to include any data on how many ultra-low and zero emission vehicles are licensed in England and Wales.

The release from DfT on Thursday indicates the number of licensed PHVs in England and Wales is at its highest since comparable records began in 2005, with more than 285,000 taxis on the road.

Private car ownership among young people is declining in the UK, with many preferring to avoid the cost and responsibility of running a car and instead relying on taxi apps such Uber to get around.

Yet there is no nationwide information on the environmental impact of taxis or how fast the national taxi fleet is switching to green technologies, the Lib Dems argue, despite the government's own target of ensuring almost every car and van on UK roads is zero emission by 2050.

"Your government has made cleaning up our air an important priority by publishing papers like the DfT's 'Road to Zero' and DEFRA's 'Clean Air Strategy'," Farron and Randerson wrote. "It is therefore disappointing to see statistics published regarding taxis and private hire vehicles that do not include numbers on how many ultra-low emission or zero-emission cars have been licensed in England and Wales. If the government is serious about encouraging more low-emission vehicles on the road surely it needs to know how many are already there?"

Many towns and cities across England and Wales are already demanding taxis entering urban areas meet strict emissions standards. At the beginning of the year Transport for London mandated that all newly licensed taxis must be 'zero-emissions capable', while Oxford has promised to phase out all polluting vehicles - including taxis - from its city centre from 2020.

Anticipating tougher regulation, Uber last week unveiled plans to charge an extra 15p per mile for journeys in London to help fund the switch to electric cars.

But the Liberal Democrats argue accelerating this process should start with effective data collection, and warned recent moves to cut EV grants and concerns over the sluggish rollout of new charging infrastructure will put people, including taxi drivers, off choosing an electric vehicle.

DfT was considering a response at the time of going to press.

The government has made a number of moves to speed the roll out of greener taxis in recent months. Earlier this year the Treasury consulted on plans to make zero-emission capable taxis exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), while last year DfT launched £50m of grant funding for taxi drivers, offering £7,500 off the price of a new electric taxi.

https://goo.gl/DXSPSZ 
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 COURT OF APPEAL TODAY

Uber drivers are estimated to be more than £18,000 out of pocket because the ride hailing company refuses to recognise a two-year-old ruling entitling them to holiday pay, a minimum wage and rest breaks.

The law firm Leigh Day – acting for the GMB union, which brought the action against the tech giant – calculates that its 40,000 drivers are all owed almost £11,000 in wages and more than £8,000 in holiday pay. But Uber is continuing to appeal the ruling, made two years ago at the central London employment tribunal.

“These figures lay bare the human cost of Uber continuing to refuse to accept the ruling,” said GMB legal director Sue Harris. “While the company is wasting money losing appeal after appeal, drivers are up to £18,000 out of pocket. That’s thousands of drivers struggling to pay their rent, or feed their families. It’s time Uber admits defeat and pays up. The company needs to stop wasting money dragging its lost cause through the courts. Instead, Uber should do the decent thing and give drivers the rights to which those courts have said they are legally entitled.”

However, a spokeswoman for Uber said “almost all” taxi and private hire drivers had “been self-employed for decades”, long before Uber existed. She quoted an Oxford University study based on a poll commissioned by Uber, which found that its drivers make more than the London Living Wage. She added: “If drivers were classed as workers, they would inevitably lose some of the freedom and flexibility that come with being their own boss.”

Since the ruling, Uber says it has given drivers more control over how they use its app, plus sickness, maternity and paternity protection.

“We think the Employment Appeal Tribunal fundamentally misunderstood how we operate,” the spokeswoman said. “For example, they relied on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80% of trips sent to them when logged into the app, which has never been the case here.”

In its recent accounts, Uber London acknowledges that the self-employed status of its drivers is disputed. It says: “The Uber Group [is exposed] to numerous legal and regulatory risks, including the application, interpretation and enforcement of existing regulations … as well as risks related to … the company’s classification of drivers as independent contractors.”

https://goo.gl/cKHLhf 

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Uber and Lyft are behind a sharp rise in US traffic deaths

The rise of ride-sharing services has increased traffic deaths by 2% to 3% in the US since 2011, equivalent to as many as 1,100 mortalities a year, according to a new study from the University of Chicago and Rice University.

How it was calculated: Researchers took statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and compared them with the dates Uber or Lyft launched in a specific city. Then they checked accident rates in those cities relative to vehicle miles traveled. That rate shot up in San Francisco after Uber launched in 2010, a phenomenon that was replicated in other cities.

Deadheading: The increase in congestion is partly because drivers spend 40% to 60% of their time searching for passengers, a practice known as “deadheading.” On average, drivers in New York City traveled 2.8 miles between fares.

Before ride-sharing: Traffic deaths fell to their lowest number just before Uber launched in San Francisco. In 2010 there were 32,885 fatal car accidents nationwide, the lowest number since 1949. This decline halted and then reversed after the introduction of ride-sharing in US cities. However, it “may be too soon to tell whether the effect we document is a short-term adjustment or a longer-term pattern,” the researchers said.

Piling up problems: The study adds to a growing body of research on ride-sharing companies. Recent studies have found they increase congestion and cut the use of public transport. Cities are starting to respond to harms, perceived or otherwise. New York’s city council introduced a cap on ride-sharing in August, for example.

https://goo.gl/qJgPFz 
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NEW YORK (AP) - New York City is waiving nearly $20 million in fees owed by taxi cab owners in an effort to ease their financial burden after a string of driver suicides.

Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Meera Joshi tells Monday's New York Post that it's prudent to pause collection of the fees "at a time when every penny counts" for taxi owners.

Seven drivers have died by suicide in the city this year.

Advocates say the death points to continuing hardships faced by drivers since the advent of ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft.

Before the reprieve, owners of the city's 13,500 cabs had been on the hook this week for $2,200 in biennial fees, inspection charges and a $10 medallion renewal.

A city councilman is looking to find ways to help drivers and owners out of debt.

https://goo.gl/wAfPW6
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Volkswagen and Mobileye, the computer vision firm owned by Intel, announced Monday a plan to launch a commercial self-driving ride-hailing service in Israel in 2019. It’s an aggressive move by the German automaker that could propel it to the front of the pack of companies working to commercialize autonomous driving, along with Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise.

As part of the deal, Volkswagen will supply a fleet of electric cars, Mobileye will handle the self-driving technology, and Champion Motors, Israel’s second largest car importer and distributor, will run fleet management operations. The vehicles will be fitted with Mobileye’s AV kit, “a turn-key, driverless solution comprised of hardware, driving policy, safety software and map data,” the companies said. And the project will start in early 2019 with a few dozen vehicles and scale to “hundreds of self-driving electric cars” by 2022.

“This is not a pilot project,” an Intel spokesperson said in an email. “The joint venture is the first of its kind targeting Level 4/5 commercial MaaS.”

For the uninitiated, MaaS stands for “Mobility as a Service,” the catch-all phrase used to describe the shift away from personally owned vehicles and toward a tech-enabled transportation utopia. And Level 4 / 5 describes the top two levels of vehicle automation as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers: Level 4 is no human driver within certain parameters; and Level 5 is no human driver without restrictions. (To be sure, many experts predict that Level 5 automation will be impossible to achieve.)

Other details, such as in which city the new service will first launch, weren’t immediately available. But the Israeli government is supposedly on board, ready to supply regulatory and infrastructural support as needed, the companies say.

To be sure, Volkswagen is not a member of the super group comprised of BMW, Intel, Mobileye, and Fiat Chrysler that is working on the development of semi-autonomous and fully autonomous technologies for production vehicles. The companies are already testing AVs on public roads, and have said they want to develop “scalable architecture” that can be adopted by other automakers and designers to plug into vehicles of different brands.

“The VW and BMW relationships are different,” the Intel spokesperson said. “In the case of New Mobility in Israel with VW, we are forming a joint venture AND providing a turn-key AV Kit that will be retrofitted into existing VW cars. In the case of BMW we are working with company to design an [autonomous driving] solutions that will be customized for future Level 4-Level 5] BMW AVs.”

That collaboration, though, is nonexclusive, freeing up each company to pursue its own projects — one which clearly is this Israeli ride-hailing venture with Volkswagen.

https://goo.gl/cPNxiz