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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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Security positions to make sure no one attempts to buy clothes.
@Jurga Moylan: that’s a government decision not Tesco’s
@Jurga Moylan: This is the most ridiculous thing. If you don’t have more than 6 weeks worth of clothes and can’t wash them then the issue is you and not the restrictions. Underwear, socks, children’s clothes and winter essentials are all still for sale in Dunnes. Everything else is nonessential.
@Jurga Moylan: there’s always someone to throw a downer on what is a positive story. Ctfo.
@KSham: My local Dunnes the clothes are all blocked off. Also, the weather has changed and children tend not to fit in the same clothes they did last winter
@KSham: I beg to differ there. U can’t buy a pair of kids socks in tesco.
Regardless, it was tongue in cheek comment but the ireland if today is too touchy Feely and sensitive to see that and just want to be offended by things.
@James Gannon:
How long have you waited to get your lingo into a comment here? “ctfo”.
That’s great news.
@Michael Clinton: Worst supermarket who treat their suppliers terribly and don’t buy and sell Irish products. I’ll be staying well clear this Xmas!
@Whoswho: Are you for real, and can you back that assertion up in any shape or form. Tesco sell more Irish products than any other retailers, and they give more back to Irish society than any other retailer. BTW I am not an apologist for Tesco, but I feel that they are an easy target for most on here, simply due to the fact that they are British.
@Whoswho: rates of pay not great and well for the rest
@The Firestarter: I know previous suppliers. Read some articles about their previous history with suppliers. Nothing to do with British. Stay well clear. They don’t support Irish produce
Every little helps!
Off the back of all the small local retailers, don’t forget the profits leave the city
@Martin Sinnott: how is it off the back of the small retailers? Are they building more? That’s hundreds of jobs for the local communities in the existing stores which is great news.
@Munsterman: Need to look deeper than that; numerous studies have shown that when big retailers enter a town or city for every job created up to 1.4 jobs are lost as smaller retailers close. Moreover, the small enterprise pays a slew of taxes whilst multinationals pay a fraction of this, employing the most creative accountants money can buy.
https://www.socsci.uci.edu/~dneumark/walmart.pdf
Good stuff.
Will they have zero contracts??
Are the jobs in Tesco Douglas? Are these not the jobs of the shop that was closed due to the fire last year. Support local and Irish. Michael Martin should be supporting local businesses at this time.
‘Displace’ is the word they’re looking for.
When will they publish accounts solely for republic?
Tesco’s idea of “full time” is a 20 to 25 hour contract over 4 or 5 days a week. The nature of these contracts give workers little flexibility to take up a second job and ensures they cannot claim anything as a casual / part time worker.
have your say