Uber Cabs Pros & Cons Case Study

[pic 1]

Uber

Opgave 5a

Oskar Sloth Skovdal | Engelsk | 23/02-2019

Concept

Uber is a San-Francisco based technology company, which was founded in 2009. It started off as a ride sharing app, but along the road exploded and became one of the biggest companies in the world, meanwhile interrupting the whole transportation industry. Uber claims to be “Evolving the way the world moves”. But overall just a smartphone app that helps people come from A to B.

Uber is available in more than 440 cities, over 6 continents. They are roughly estimated to have a worth of 65 billion dollars, in just seven years.

Pros and cons

Pros:
Uber has been a very popular alternative for the original taxi, mainly because of the low fare and quick access to their vehicles. On the right, there is linked a photo showing the Uber prices compared to a black cab, which is a taxi in the UK. Uber works every day to press the prices to their lowest and has so far managed to cut the price to half that of a black cab.

Their main goal is to make Uber cheaper than owning a car yourself, they say in a statement “Our intention is to make Uber so efficient and car so highly efficient that for most people it is cheaper than owning a car”.

In the app, Uber has also invented a review button, where the user of the specific Uber, can leave a review, about how the driver was and all other things you felt about your drive, from 1 to 5 stars.  [pic 2]

Cons:
Uber has over the time received some major backslashes since launch. They have been in at least 70 legal battles with various countries, most of them have been related to regulatory action, but has also been sued a dozen times by other taxi unions and governments.

There have been several times where some Uber scandals have been on the front page on different newspapers. Uber has already been banned in four countries, which are Bulgaria, Hungary, Denmark & the northern part of Australia. The causes of them being banned from several countries are of reasons like the Uber drivers not having a legit taxi license, which is mandatory in some countries. Taxes have also been a legitimate problem for Uber because many of their drivers failed to inform different countries about their earnings and therefore failing to pay taxes. Uber did not require their Uber chauffeurs to pay tax or put up fare meters and seat occupancy sensors. This lead to Uber being specifically banned in Denmark.

Uber’s Future:

Uber has a bright future, they work hard every day to optimize their apps and technology. But a key factor for Uber to grow even bigger is for them to start thinking twice when they do something because if they don’t think when they make big decisions, they will end up dying. There have already been four major examples where they did something really bad and ended up getting banned. There have been numerous times where they did not care about their drivers evading taxes or following other national laws.