{"id":146909,"date":"2018-06-26T20:31:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T20:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/uber-granted-short-term-licence-to-operate-in-london\/"},"modified":"2018-06-26T20:31:53","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T20:31:53","slug":"uber-granted-short-term-licence-to-operate-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/uber-granted-short-term-licence-to-operate-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber granted short-term licence to operate in London"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mobile phone with Uber app in front of Big Ben\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/4ECA\/production\/_102207102_94zbtk1q.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Reuters                                                    <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Uber has been granted a short-term licence to operate in London following a court hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Transport for London (TfL) refused to renew the licence when it expired last September, saying the US taxi app was not a &quot;fit and proper&quot; operator.<\/p>\n<p>Uber has now been awarded a licence but it has been put on probation for 15 months.<\/p>\n<p>The company had been seeking a five-year licence when it was refused last year.<\/p>\n<p>Following a two-day hearing at Westminster Magistrates&#039; Court, Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot said Uber was now considered &quot;fit and proper&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>She ordered the company to pay TfL&#039;s legal costs of \u00a3425,000.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Uber changes app following TfL concerns over licensing<\/li>\n<li>Uber drops English language test appeal for London drivers<\/li>\n<li>Call for women-only Uber Pools for London<\/li>\n<li>Uber to introduce limit on drivers&#039; hours<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>London mayor Sadiq Khan said: &quot;After years of operating poorly in London, Uber has now accepted that TfL&#039;s action in refusing to renew their licence was totally justified. Today our stance has been vindicated by the court.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Uber has been put on probation - their 15 month licence has a clear set of conditions that TfL will thoroughly monitor and enforce.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Tom Elvidge, Uber&#039;s UK general manager, said he was pleased with today&#039;s decision: &quot;We will continue to work with TfL to address their concerns and earn their trust, while providing the best possible service for our customers.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;Disturbing&#039;<\/h2>\n<p>One of the areas of concern that TfL highlighted last year was about how Uber reported crime. <\/p>\n<p>The company said that it had made &quot;wholesale&quot; changes to the business since last September.  <\/p>\n<p>This includes reporting crimes directly to the police instead of logging criminal complaints with TfL, which caused delays. <\/p>\n<p>During this week&#039;s hearing, Helen Chapman, the licensing, regulation and charging director at TfL, said that Uber&#039;s behaviour over reporting allegations to police was &quot;very disturbing&quot;.<\/p>\n<h2>Analysis by Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent<\/h2>\n<p>So in the end the humility strategy worked.<\/p>\n<p>When Transport for London denied Uber a new licence last September, the company responded aggressively promising to see the regulator in court over its anti-competitive ruling.<\/p>\n<p>But by the time this week&#039;s hearing started it was in full retreat.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Getty Images                                                    <\/figure>\n<p>For much of the hearing, Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot seemed unconvinced - Uber had shown a gung-ho attitude, determined to grow its business come what may.<\/p>\n<p>She wanted reassurance that the people who&#039;d been responsible for statements of questionable honesty in the past had gone and that the culture really had changed. But for the arrival of the &quot;impressive&quot; Laurel Powers-Freeling as non-executive chairman she might have been disinclined to grant a new licence.<\/p>\n<p>So Uber is now free to continue operating in a very important market - but on probation with Transport for London watching its every move.<\/p>\n<p>A taxi-driver who sat through the hearing was unimpressed - &quot;three strikes and you&#039;re in&quot; he told me. <\/p>\n<p>But something has changed. Uber once thought it could go round the world ignoring local rules - now other cities may follow London in attempting to clip its wings.<\/p>\n<p>She said: &quot;I think we have had five years of a very difficult relationship where Uber has felt they haven&#039;t required regulation and being operated in the same way as everybody else we regulate.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Ms Chapman said that the changes implemented by Uber &quot;could, if applied correctly, enhance public safety&quot;.<\/p>\n<h2>Public safety <\/h2>\n<p>TfL said the way the firm was run had potential public safety and security implications when it decided not to renew its licence to operate in London last year - a decision backed by Mr Khan.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, it highlighted Uber&#039;s approach to reporting serious criminal offences, how medical certificates are obtained and background checks on drivers.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      Mayor of London Sadiq Khan backed TfL&#039;s decision not to renew Uber licence to operate in the capital last year                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Among the changes implemented by Uber, drivers can now only use the app in the region in which they hold a private hire licence and their working hours are more tightly regulated. <\/p>\n<p>A licensed driver on the app has to now take an uninterrupted six-hour break after 10 hours of taking passengers or travelling to pick them up.<\/p>\n<p>The firm also made changes to its app in London to &quot;make it clearer&quot; to passengers that its drivers are licensed by TfL and that it accepts ride requests before allocating drivers.<\/p>\n<p>It also dropped an appeal against a move that would make all its drivers in the city take English language tests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Uber has been granted a short-term licence to operate in London following a court hearing. Transport for London (TfL) refused to renew the licence when it expired<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}