Today, the taxi licensing committee of Plymouth City Council will meet to decide if they will issue an operator's licence for Uber to operate in the city.
Uber has been on something of a fascinating licensing spree in 2024 the reasons for which we can only speculate. One motive could be an expected tightening of rules that might prevent cross border hiring which would restrict local bookings predominately to locally licenced operators. Another could be a charm offensive with local authorities in anticipation of the eventual roll out of autonomous vehicles.
We wrote to the licensing committee and made the following points that we believe they must consider in any decision to award a licence to Uber. The council should consider refusing, deferring the decision or offer a limited duration licence until these issues have been addressed.
Governing supervision
1. It is a requirement of Uber’s London licence that the licence holder, Uber London Limited, should have non-executive board oversight to supervise compliance. This includes notable figures including Laurel Powers-Freeling, Mayank Prakash and Roger Parry. Uber Britannia Limited, the applicant for a Plymouth City Council licence has no such independent oversight which has been deemed absolutely essential to the determination of fitness in London. There is no good reason why Plymouth City Council should not demand the same level of governance control.
Public access to data and personal data protection
2. The council cannot discharge its duties unless it requires Uber and other high volume operators to provide anonymised journey data on a monthly basis. The council can use this data to monitor safety, utilisation rates and environmental impact. See our report, Dying for Data[1], on how leading cities across the world demand this as a condition of licence.
3. In the application, Uber says work will be allocated and prices will be set on a variable basis by algorithms. However, despite broader recent controversies, Uber has not been transparent to workers or passengers about how such algorithms work. In litigation we successfully brought against Uber in Amsterdam, the Judge noted: “It may also be the case that Uber is deliberately trying to withhold certain information because it does not want to give an insight into its business and revenue model.“[2]
We note that the council is using the Button direction that nothing unacceptable should be done with personal data. Therefore, the council must require full compliance with the GDPR and to respect passenger and driver data protection rights as a condition of licence.
Previous revocations & lack of local office location
4. Uber has not been honest in their licensing application when they say that Reading Borough Council previously refused Uber a licence for ‘reasons not relevant to this current application’. In fact, one of the reasons Uber were refused a licence in Reading was because there was ‘no clear evidence as to how the Uber office was to be manned on a daily basis.’[3] Uber has told Plymouth City Council that it has no intention of operating an office and the office address given is simply a flexible office space which means Uber has no real office in Plymouth, contrary to requirement.
5. It is not possible for Uber to discharge its duties for repatriation of lost property per the current application without a functioning office. There seems to be no reliable provision for drivers to access the office to drop off lost belongings nor is there reasonable access for passengers to collect them.
6. In addition, there appears to be no reasonable access in Plymouth for workers to be in contact with their management locally on a daily basis for training, communication, supervision, safety, welfare, performance management and quality improvement.
Health, safety and welfare
7. The council and the applicant seem to rely heavily on public liability insurance as a strategy for safety management. But insurance can only compensate for damages after the effect whereas the council and the applicant must drive proactive safety management as a priority. This is not reflected in the application even though the primary process of the licensing regime is public safety.
8. According to HSE regulations, Uber has a range of legal duties and responsibilities for their workers which they must do including[4]:
a. providing you with relevant training
b. planning journeys so they are safe for you
c. keeping you safe
d. protecting your health and wellbeing
It is not clear from the application how Uber intends to discharge these duties remotely with algorithmically assigned work. How will legally reportable illnesses, accidents and injuries at work be reported locally and to whom? What safety data will be reported to the regulator?
9. Uber workers are legally entitled to rest breaks at work but Uber appears to have made no provision for facilities where drivers can use toilets, rest and eat. This is a matter of operational safety and integrity.
10. The council has not considered fatigue risk management in the licence decision analysis prepared thus far. As our recent report, Dying for data[5] makes clear, Uber operates to a higher fatigue risk management and safety standard in Australia, New Zealand, New York and California than they do here in the UK. Uber limits drivers only to 10 hours engaged time but true working time to achieve 10 hours of engaged time at current utilisation rates is as much as 17 hours behind the wheel which is manifestly unsafe.
Environment
11. The council says that carbon impact is not applicable in the licensing decision. We believe that the council has a legal duty to gather the facts and consider how the impact of emissions, air quality deterioration and congestion will be managed. In our report, Dying for data[6], we analyse Uber’s reported emissions for the UK which totalled 588,000 tCO2e in 2023. This was a 65% increase on reported emissions from last year. The on demand business model is optimised for customer responsiveness but it is operationally and environmentally wasteful. The council must consider the full environmental impact of this licensing decision.
Inadequate fees
12. The total licence fee proposed of just £3,618 for 5 years is totally inadequate to realistically cover the cost of licensing, audit, inspection and any potential enforcement action, or any judicial review arising from the council’s decision. Nor does it cover the significant impact on city infrastructure of Uber’s operations relative to its considerable economic extraction. In reality, tax payers and other licensees will end up subsidising Uber’s operation.
Worker Rights
13. In the application, the applicant refers to workers as ‘independent contractors’. This is not correct. The Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Uber drivers are Limb b workers according to the Employment Rights Act of 1996. Uber has duties to their workers accordingly but has not yet fully complied with the Supreme Court and do not pay workers for waiting time. The council should not accept the continued misclassification of workers as presented in this application.
A recent Bolt employment tribunal ruling[7] has again made clear that private hire drivers must be paid for stand by time. Yet, as our Dying for data[8] report finds, Uber workers are routinely paid for as little as 6 hours out of every 10 worked. This obviously has profound implications, not only for driver income, but also for public safety and fatigue risk management.
Uber’s business model is optimised for fast ETAs but this requires an excess supply of drivers relative to demand. This leads to poor fleet utilisation resulting in longer hours at work, congestion, excess emissions and poor air quality. The council should not license Uber as fit and proper until it can demonstrate that it is meeting all of its statutory obligations to workers including payment for all working.
Cross border hiring
14. Uber has applied for a licence for 160 drivers but has Uber committed to only dispatching Plymouth bookings to Plymouth licensed drivers? Has Uber otherwise at least agreed to the so called AB BA model where out of town drivers may bring a passenger into Plymouth or take one out of Plymouth but must not stay in Plymouth to work? If Uber cannot agree to this, the council will be undermined in its efforts to uphold its own regulatory regime.
[2] https://www.workerinfoexchange.org/post/uber-ordered-to-pay-584-000-for-failure-to-comply-with-court-order-in-robo-firing-case
[3] https://media.reading.gov.uk/news/uber-driver-ordered-to-pay-over-gbp-1-000-for-second-offence-of-illegally-operating-in-reading#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20an%20operator%20can%20pass,manned%20on%20a%20daily%20basis.
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