Uber claims to have 4000 NZ drivers, taxis say impact is less than feared

Thursday, 4 May 2017

Ridesharing app Uber claims it has 300,000 users in New Zealand, but the Taxi Federation claims the company is having limited impact.

Uber claims it has 300,000 active users in New Zealand, 'almost double' what it had two years ago.

The ridesharing app released limited data about its New Zealand business to mark three years since it launched.

A billboard in Auckland promotes Uber's safety standards, but taxi operators say the ridesharing app should face the same regulations as the taxi industry.

San Francisco-headquartered Uber, which operates in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, also said it had more than 4000 drivers.

Many of the drivers are part-time, with 'nearly half' working less than 10 hours a week.

Taxi drivers in Christchurch stage a protest against Uber in July 2016.

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* Under threat of trespass, Uber close to deal with Wellington Airport**

To be considered active by Uber, users must have taken at least four trips in the past three months, while drivers need to have completed at least one journey in 28 days.

The claims have been played down by the taxi industry, which said based on the feedback of its members, most Uber users probably rarely used the service.

New Zealand Taxi Federation executive director John Hart said ridesharing was having less of an impact on its members than they had feared.

Use of taxis in the cities where Uber operated had fallen by 'low single digits' at certain peak times, with no impact at other times.

'There's has been an impact, it's more pronounced in some centres than others, but it's nothing like that,' Hart said.

While not all taxi companies had provided him with data, Hart said the feedback was that on Friday and Saturday evenings, Uber was impacting taxi business by about 5 per cent.

'Everyone was very concerned, and probably still is, but the impact isn't as great as they thought it might be.'

Uber did not provide any information on how active its users are, such as how often on average they took a ride on the platform.

'Before we launched ridesharing getting around wasn't easy,' Uber said in a statement.

'Unless you lived near a public transport hub, commuting or visiting a friend across town usually required owning a car.'

Uber claimed its integration with public transport, along with other commuter focused services, meant it was taking cars off the road.

But Hart said he believed Uber may actually be leading to more car journeys, because during the day when prices were typically low, users were making suburban journeys on the ride-sharing app as an alternative to taking a bus.

'We think Uber is taking people off public transport,' Hart said.