Uber - a new trend in city transportation

Last time when my wife and I visited our daughter in Toronto in September 2014, we spent a good deal of money on taxis and train. We are back in Toronto again. This time, things are a bit different. The first evening we went out, daughter took out her IPhone and clicked a couple of tabs on an app and in a few minutes, a taxi came to the front of her apartment building.
The app she used on her IPhone is the Uber app. As we went down the elevator, daughter showed us the name and the picture of the driver who came to pick us up in the Uber app and how far he was from us. This driver is not a regular employee of any company providing taxi service but a private individual who is just earning extra bucks in his spare time with his own car. He has registered his name and car with Uber that controls the operation and shares with him what he earns without himself or Uber spending any great amount of money on setting its operation.
Uber is a fully Internet-based operation. It controls the operation centrally. The users (passengers) have to download the application from the web on their IPhones/Smart phones. When the user wants to call an Uber taxi, he/she opens the app that instantly shows to the central Uber office his/her location. The user then enters on the app where he/she wants to travel. The central office then connects the user to the nearest Uber driver/car and to him/her with the identity of the driver.  On the app, the user can follow the location and movement of the Uber car/driver. Usually, the wait for an Uber car is less than five minutes.
There are other advantages of the Uber operation. Neither the driver nor the user transacts cash. The fare is taken care of through the Internet banking system. Uber has the user's credit/debit card details and the fare is transacted on line like any on-line shopping transaction. The user while getting out of the taxi can see the actual amount that has been taken from his/her credit/debit card. Usually, the amount is so satisfactory because it is considerably less than a regular taxi (roughly half of a regular taxi cab fare) that the user has no reason for hassle and gets out of the Uber car as a totally satisfied customer. And giving credit/debit card number to Uber is 100 per cent safe and protected.
The Uber application allows the user to register dissatisfaction over service. Action is taken against the driver on merit of a complaint. The provision in the app to register complaints places the driver in a tight spot and forces him to be polite which is not the case with the regular taxi services and taxi cabs. In both the US and Canada, there are regular complaints against the drivers of taxi cabs about rough behaviour to passengers where the latter in most cases have no opportunity to register their complaints and are left to suffer in silence.
Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp introduced the Uber concept in 2009 in San Francisco by experimenting with carpooling features and improving upon them. Like carpools, the providers do not spend money on overhead costs related to, in the first instance, purchase of a fleet of cars that regular taxicab companies do to run the services. Second, the Uber operation has no costs in licensing and registering fees that taxicab operation has. Finally, the operators do not spend any money on insurance for users/passengers that regular taxicab operators must spend. In fact, a major criticism against Uber is the issue of insurance for users but so far they are not bothered with it at all.
The Uber concept has spread to 58 countries and is now operating in 300 cities worldwide. It is expected to generate US$ 10 billion in revenue in 2015. In big cities like Toronto, Uber is not just a transportation service but has become a phenomenon. Its adverse impact at the moment is falling only upon the regular cab operators as it is threatening their business seriously. A city councillor in Toronto recently ran into trouble when he threatened an Uber driver, calling his operation illegal in which the passenger who had called the service also got involved. The matter was widely publicised in the local media. The lady, who had called the Uber service, said she would lodge a formal complaint against the councillor for bullying the driver. The case led to media investigation about Uber operations in Toronto. These investigations found that the operations are in no way in conflict with laws and by-laws under which cab services operate in Toronto.
Uber operations in Toronto have a problem of its own. There are many Bangladeshis in Toronto who drive their own cars as agents of established taxi cab companies and earn handsomely. One such Bangladeshi plays cricket with my son-in-law who asked him why he did not join the Uber instead of partnering with an established taxicab company. He agreed that if the Uber service kept expanding the way it is, it would threaten his business eventually. Nevertheless, he is still not thinking of joining Uber because those who control the Uber operations keep a disproportionately big amount for themselves leaving the Uber car driver/owner only a small part of the earnings.
The Uber operations in Toronto have nevertheless come for people in the city many of whom depend on public/private transportation systems as a great relief. They now save a substantial sum through the use of the Uber, which is roughly half of normal cab service. That made me wonder if Uber could be introduced in Dhaka. In its service, as stated, no cash is exchanged between the driver and the user that could be a big plus for Uber in Dhaka. Of course, to operate Uber in Dhaka, some business organisations must get permission from its  headquarters in California. And again, of course, Bangladesh and city governments must also permit Uber to operate and set the laws and by-laws for operation.
Uber would have one disadvantage in Bangladesh that it in western cities do not have. Those who own cars in Dhaka, for instance, are rich people with no need for the extra bucks. But if Uber is introduced, then many less affluent people could buy cars and join the service as a full-time profession. If laws and bye-laws for Uber operation are based on carpooling fundamentals as in western cities, all the incidental costs of running or being part of the conventional taxi cab system would not be incurred and those who enter the Uber business with their cars as well as those who use it would both benefit. And it would also be a major yardstick for measuring Digital Bangladesh.

The writer is a retired Ambassador.
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