Taxi drivers driving for mobility applications, the end of a rift?

06/19/2021 6:00 AM

• Clarín.com

• Cities

Updated 06/19/2021 6:00 AM

A scene:

taxi drivers

starred for the seventh consecutive day in a protest against

the transport applications

that work in the City of Buenos Aires.

A few meters from the Obelisk, but also on the main avenues of Buenos Aires, they met, each one inside their cars.

They were a mantle of yellow roofs that moved slowly and in block.

The taxi drivers did not interrupt the traffic but they disturbed it so much that it was the same.

Thus, generating car nodes, they

demanded the cancellation of the applications

that, they said, provided service illegally and took work out of them.

It was November 2019.

Another scene: a man requested a car through Uber.

Within minutes, he received a notification on the screen.

His car had arrived and was waiting for him.

The man left his apartment, took the elevator down, opened the door of the building and found that the car that was parked next to the curb was

a taxi

.

The image surprised him.

He had not noticed that requesting

a private car or taxi

was covered in the application and that he had inadvertently opted for a taxi.

It was March 2021.

Between one scene and another, a year and four months passed.

During that time, technology continued to penetrate everyday life but

there was an event that accelerated the change of scenery

.

According to taxi drivers, drivers and spokespersons for transport applications, that event was the coronavirus pandemic and its associated quarantine, which

ended up bringing taxi drivers and applications closer together

, two old adversaries.

Since Uber arrived in the City in 2016, taxi driver mobilizations against the app have become a frequent occurrence in the downtown area.

Photo: Luciano Thieberger

The

quarantine forced

Daniel (48 years old)

to reformulate his work

.

"It was a braking of 100 to 20 km / h, that abrupt. Although we were coming from vacation break, work lifted with the return to classes," he says.

That March 2020, remember, there was a week of increase in demand and then

a total decrease

from a Thursday to a Friday, when the Preventive and Mandatory Social Isolation was announced and began to take effect.

"Many colleagues stopped working in the taxi because they could not support the rental of the car. Others began to make deliveries from Mercado Libre.

Each one looked for a way to survive

."

It took him a month to reorganize himself: through recommendations and the passengers he picked up on the street - they were generally men and women going to and from work - he

put together

a portfolio of clients

.

With those fixed trips, plus the little spontaneous demand from the street, Daniel sustained himself until mid-December.

Then a friend added another possibility: "He told me that the call for taxi drivers for Uber was open. I signed up, they approved me and

I also started working with the application

."

Since last year, taxis have circulated with a plastic screen that divides the driver from the passenger Photo: Fernando de la Orden

"At first,

passengers saw a taxi and did not understand

. They were struck by the dispute between taxis and Uber. But as they used the system, they got used to it," says Daniel.

Few of his fellow taxi drivers did not get used to it.

"

Some of them bothered me on the illegal side,

" he says. They asked me how it was possible for me to work with the application. I answered that I can work in peace because I have a licensed car, insurance and all the papers. I am not avoiding with the taxi ".

Today Daniel's work routine is between 12 and 13 hours a day.

And

its system is mixed

: it maintains fixed customers and raises trips through Uber taxi.

"Now I see more taxi drivers with the application and in good time -he comments-. I also observe that the passengers are approaching again. As there was no competition, many customers endured the guild's mischief for a long time. And when the applications appeared, they were they were fully with that. Now it is a little different,

within the application passengers prefer the taxi

because they feel it safer. "

The Uber Taxi service was launched in August 2020.

Uber Taxi was launched in City and Province in

August 2020

.

According to company records, taxi rides doubled between January and May this year.

And just in the nine-day restrictions that ran from May 22 to May 30, the demand for Uber taxi requests grew by 80%.

The number of passengers using

the Buenos Aires government app, BA Taxi

, also increased in a pandemic.

The City Transportation Department estimates that the increase was 10%.

And they detail that there are 9,900 taxi drivers who take trips through the application, which has 240,000 registered users.

During the past year, with almost six months of public transport only available to essential workers, the mobility of the population in the City and Province mutated towards a growth in the use of bicycles and

a greater displacement in private vehicles.

The demand for travel grew during the pandemic.

Many applications were found to be missing drivers and added taxi drivers to the system.

Given that there was a demand to satisfy, not only Uber was folded to

add the taxi drivers

.

So did other mobility companies, such as

DiDi and Beat

.

From August until today,

the Greek app Beat incorporated more than 2,000 taxi drivers

in its service format.

"The lack of trips on the street was the trigger for many to make the decision to be part of our community," the company told

Clarín

.

Most of Beat's drivers are male and over 45 years old.

They live in the City of Buenos Aires and they own their car.

For 70% of the company's drivers,

the vehicle represents their only source of income

.

Miguel Ángel (52) is part of that statistic. 

Taxi drivers who provide service through the app put aside the clock.

The final price for the passenger is fixed and is announced before starting the trip.

"I have everything: Beat, DiDi, Cabify, Ba Taxi. Everything that the memory of the cell phone allows me, I put it. I have been a taxi driver for 27 years,

I do not like to be driving around empty,

" he says.

The arrival of Miguel Ángel to the world of applications was in 2014, through Easy Taxi.

About that moment, he reconstructs: "

I always liked technology and taking trips.

In 2014 a colleague told me 'come on, black - that's what they call me, clarify this.' And he showed me the cell phone screen and how the orders for I liked it, installed it and started. At first most of the passengers were young guys using smartphones. "

On the other hand, Beat arrived in November, also by a friend, who told him that

there was a registration call for taxi drivers

.

Neither before the pandemic, nor at the beginning, nor during, nor today is it opposed to mobility apps.

"As a taxi driver,

I never thought they were getting a job from me

. Only once did I witness a ruckus that broke out in Carlos Pellegrini and Lavalle, between a group of taxi drivers and some Venezuelans who were from Uber. I thought it was wrong. They are working, they are not me stealing from me. In any case, those from the union steal from me, "he says.

And he explains that the conditions of taxi drivers will improve

when they are recognized as bus drivers

-and not as laborers-, they are delimited hours of work and rest, they are given training and they are given medical check-ups.

About the taxi and its presence in the City, Miguel Ángel is categorical: "

The taxi will live forever.

Perhaps it will be for those who do not want to use applications or are anxious and do not want to wait and prefer to raise their arms. The taxi does not die: in 2001 we were walking in the middle of burnt tires, always working. The taxi will never disappear. "

NS

Look also

Due to the pandemic, taxi drivers will be able to buy older models to renew their cars

Uber vs. Udder: the app encouraged her to change the name of her referral service and she refuses