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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.
To view other stories from our collection, click here.
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Did you know that if you stand on the Great Wall of China you can actually see the moon.
Not if he’s in Korea.
Brilliant …. love this sort of story. Will I be able to see it in Newbridge? If so I’ll be out with my jacket and a scarf (bloody well cold up here compared to Cork) and a cuppa to have a look
Wondering the same thing myself Eileen!
Download the iss app to your phone Eileen -I am also in newbridge and its a brilliant app -alarm goes off to let you know when its due to pass -I’ll be out tonight looking up at it -crutches and all
Naas is on the line
The moon being upside down is surely a bigger story!
Vews (and photos) through a telesope are upside down. Same with view through one’s eyes but the brain turns them up “the right way”. Someone just forgot to flip the photo.
There was an experiment years ago where people were given spectacles which showed everything upsidedown. It took a couple of days but eventually their brain adjusted so they could see normally! They had a few more unpleasant days when they stopped using the glasses.
Clear sky over Dublin tonight, is the moving station visable with the human eye?
It’s easily visible with the human eye. To ne honest it looks like a very large shooting star in my opinion. I have used a basic pair of binoculars and made out good detail.
It is extremely bright in the night sky, moving at a fairly fast pace. You can’t miss it.
That is no moon!
I wll tell the kids it’s the Emporers Shuttle arriving :-)
Lol, he’s just here for a look around… We’ll send him packing, probably would like it much like the airwaves adds.
Oh so that’s the moon! Thanks Journal!
Pass the beer nuts please
That’s my thursday evening sorted so :)
Grand, my boss lives in the moon. I will tell her to have her coins ready so she doesn’t miss this one…
I’m delighted that the picture above is captioned.
Just saw it passing by. That was very cool! Thanks for the tip off. It was moving a lot faster and much brighter than I thought!
bet ya €5 the clouds come out to watch as well always the same frigging irish weather
I’m so excited!
Will a person not on the line see the station at all ? I remember when the shuttle flew over after launch and most people could see it. What’s different here ?
Thanks Ciara
Clouds in Dublin as per usual. Caught a glimpse but nowhere near the moon.
Stupid cloud about to obscure the moon at 20.48 grrrrr
Got some pics and a video so a very happy camper here.
Cool. Anyone interested space x are the new movers in space exploration and they have some cool ideas if you like these type of things.
Just spent past hour and a bit looking to the sky’s on lovely clear night and didn’t see a thing:( glad didn’t spend good money on that ha
have your say