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RIDESHARING SERVICES WHICH supporters claim could spare Irish cities from gridlock are being effectively locked out of the country on the grounds of breaking taxi laws.
Transport officials have recently questioned one of the industry’s newest entrants, a carpooling app backed by entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den investor Sean O’Sullivan, on how it fits within rules that have already seen similar operators abandon the market.
But Cork-based startup Carma Carpooling claims it is only promoting the kind of ridesharing setups neighbours and colleagues have been doing for decades.
The startup, which evolved about 18 months ago out of O’Sullivan’s earlier venture Avego, is the latest to catch the eye of the National Transport Authority (NTA).
While Carma has been focussing all of its attention on the US – and primarily San Francisco – in its early stage, it is available for download and use anywhere, and has a small “cluster” of users in Cork.
Co-founder Emmett Murphy told TheJournal.ie the company had requested a meeting with NTA after receiving a letter from the government agency.
We are about driving with their neighbours and their colleagues and sharing the costs as they go to work,” he said.
Carma’s app allows people to book carpooling trips in return for a per-mile charge based on the break-even cost to US drivers. It keeps 15% of the revenue for its own operations.
No commercial rides
Last year the NTA issued a warning to German newcomer WunderCar that it would be breaking taxi licensing laws if it went ahead with plans to launch its ridesharing services in Dublin.
The company, which was already running in several European cities, bases its services on non-obligatory tipping of drivers for journeys booked through its app, but dropped its move into Ireland after the warning.
WunderCar founder Gunnar Froh said the company’s aim was to make travelling in a city easy by allowing people to instantly share transport but it didn’t “facilitate commercial rides”.
“In a few years from now, we believe that sharing a ride in the city will be just as common as it is today to take the bus,” he said.
Based on our experience, we think that innovative forms of transportation have to be piloted in other cities than Dublin, though.”
A juggernaut stopped
Recent figures from the European Commission showed Irish people favoured cars more than anyone else in the EU except for residents of Cyprus.
Ridesharing advocates argue their services help take cars off the road and clear congestion by making more efficient use of the available resources, as well as saving users money.
Meanwhile, global juggernaut Uber has also been forced to shelve the ridesharing offerings that have helped make it the world’s second most-valuable startup for its Irish operations.
Here it effectively operates as a taxi- and hire-car booking service only, absent its more-controversial features of being able to also book private cars which were not officially licensed as taxis.
Those budget options have helped Uber broker over one million rides worldwide per day, although it has also led to city bans and protests from taxi drivers complaining the startup puts them out of business.
There have also been safety concerns raised about putting passengers into cars with drivers who haven’t gone through the same vetting processes as professionals, although the companies involved have been careful to try and put those fears to bed.
In Ireland, companies found to be running illegal taxi services can be fined €50,000 while individual drivers can also be sanctioned under 2013 laws which ban people taking paying customers in their cars without the proper license.
A spokeswoman for the National Transport Authority (NTA) said it was only legal to offer carpooling or ridesharing services when there was no money changing hands.
A different mission
However Murphy said he looked at companies like Uber and its competitor Lyft as “operating in a very different space” and Carma didn’t facilitate any trips for gain.
“The big difference is their drivers are making a profit in the same way as taxi companies are. Our drivers pretty much never make a profit.
Our mission, which is very different, is to fight traffic congestion - we would love to see more people try to crack this problem.” tjb
This month, as part of TheJournal.ie’s ongoing startup and small and medium enterprise (SME) focus, we are looking at peer-to-peer services and the sharing economy.
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It’s the taxi lobby that blocked any decent Night Luas or Night DART.
I would say that was more to do with anti social behaviour.
Not on the Green Line. It was great to get a late Luas home. Thanks, taxi drivers! Putting us back to the 1950s when the last bus home was 11.30pm!
Mary it had nothing to do with taxi drivers perhaps you should ask the NRA
@Old Gordon
Fair play to you, making up any ol’ ill informed comment. The taxi industry doesn’t have ANY input into Bus or Luas operations (hell we barely have an input into taxi operations).
As a driver my experience is that on the nights of no night link buses ie. strikes then fewer people go into town and our business is down.
Most people go into town intending to get a bus home but usually opt for a taxi when push comes to shove, even if the buses are still running. (Safety and Convenience are the most stated reasons).
PS we pay through the nose for public liability insurance, not just for collisions but in case of injury getting in or out of taxis, how would an ordinary driver cope with this when the insurance company deny payment due to lack of correct cover??????
Sorry should be RPA
Cop on! Taxi drivers dont influence Luas/Dart services!!
Taxi drivers have no say whatsoever re nighttime dart/Luas. Late night dart was tried years ago but wasn’t used enough by customers! Put facts where your ignorance currently resides!
possibly the most annoying issue in this, is that while all of these startups are trying to look at ways to make money by doing innovative schemes that reduce CO2 emissions for the city, we would prefer to put up road blocks to keep the status quo rather that welcoming and giving these new schemes a term of reference to become legal. while we are waiting for cycle lanes, underground trains, proper outside-Dublin commuter rail investments, bus routes that take you somewhere else than the city centre, the councils, NRA and govt sit on their hands and wait for the inevitable EU fines for emissions breaches. let people come up with ideas, put other ideas up and do it yourself, but what ever you do… don’t stand still.
The NTA will never let it happen they are creaming money off taxi drivers.
There’s too many nanny state rules in this country stopping people from doing what they want to do.
Blablacar works pretty well in Europe especially in France, it’s cheaper than a bus or train (fécking expensive overcrowded train), it’s good for the environment and they often go to places not served by our ineffecient transport system, people have profiles and a system of reviews which is usually reliable. I still don’t understand what the big deal is.
Taxi lobby.
I’m not sharing my ride with anyone
One of Sean O’Sullivans car-sharing apps in California was abandoned after the authorities issued a “cease and desist” order against it.
He then tried to re-launch the App for users travelling between Cork City and Kinsale.
The debate at the time focused on private/commercial car insurance – if any sort of “reward” was involved then the driver of the private car was effectively driving without insurance.
One of the main insurance companies issued a statement clarifying that a “reward” was not necessarily financial, this put the brakes on Avego.
Unless ex-Dragon Sean has come up with something radically different, the issue of insurance has not been resolved.
This isn’t “nanny-state” talk – if a carload of “Carma Carpoolers” collides with you, is the owner of that car insured – it is a very valid question.
It shouldn’t be a question of whether “the owner of that car” is insured or not. Ireland and England are, to the best of my knowledge, (and I’ve lived and driven in many countries) 2 of the only countries in the world where every, individual driver, needs to be named on the policy. It’s a complete ripoff and money grabbing scam by the insurance companies. Everywhere else, the car is insured and anyone with a full license can drive it, safe in that knowledge. The NRA are threatened here and the typical Irish response is… if you can’t tax it more then ban it. An absolutely ridiculous but expected response.
Dunno about the south but in the north I was under the impression that fully comprehensive insurance meant I am insured to drive any car where the car owner also has insurance. And the named driver element is to allow for additional people who don’t have their own insurance.
eg A dad can add a son as a named driver but the son doesn’t have to have individual insurance so it’s much cheaper for the son.
That’s correct until you start accepting remuneration for carrying passengers, it is then that your insurance company will not cover you as your policy terms will be usually for private/leisure. There is an add-on to a normal policy called a Class 2 where one can use their car for business purposes and can carry colleagues but again you cannot accept remuneration and these apps are designed to cost neutral the drivers expenses by accepting payments from those who they are carrying
Majority of policies will cover car pooling once there is not an element of profit to it. Otherwise a lot of people who would split costs on a road trip etc would not be covered which is a bit onerous
Car pooling (a better term for Ireland I reckon!) works. I’ve seen it work really well first hand in other countries, for example in some states in the US they have freeway lanes that only allow cars with 3 or more passengers to travel.
Getthere.ie is another website where u can find just a few offers/requests for a passenger seat in Ireland. Handy for avoiding mad train fares especially!
Another ridiculous Government intervention which only seems to serve the purpose of stopping people improve their finances actually.
Best small country in the world in which to do business people… Unless of course you are the least bit innovative or have an idea that will shake up the status quo and maybe step on a few toes.
Where are SIPTU in all of this? A new company trying to improve life for everyone and not so much as a whimper of protest from them?
Why use uber, when we have Hailo?
Less cars on the road, less petrol and diesel sales, less tax for the government. Now it becomes clearer
I thought I’d never say this but ” Fcuk off Carma”…
There is a new completly free carpooling project. NO commission is taken for booking and ride costs are directly shared with the driver. It’s Freeecar with three e. http://www.freeecar.com
Hi just would like to say, where there is a problem there is always an opportunity.
How difficult would be for the Irish government to take in part of business model promoted by private investors (blablacar, uber share,etc…) and shape it for the Irish citizens and residents benefit ?
It seems that the taxi’s lobby does not want to pay for the bill.
I understand this change of rules cannot happen overnight.
But, I also understand the need to build a path toward that change.
Public interest must always prevail over the interest of private/lobby sector.
Public resources must be allocated and shared in fair and regulated way.
The rules of the game are not carved on stone.
Some of the rules have to change and soon.
have your say