Uber’s app is not a taximeter

16/10/15

The High Court today granted a declaration sought by Transport by London (TfL) that an app used by Uber London Ltd, the minicab operator, did not infringe the prohibition on equipping a minicab with a “taximeter”.

Uber uses an app installed on the driver’s smartphone. The app receives GPS signals during the course of a journey and transmits these signals to Uber’s servers in California. After the journey is finished, these servers calculate the fare, based on distance, time and various other factors, and then transmit the fare back to the driver’s and passenger’s smartphones. 

Section 11 of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 provides that licensed minicabs must not be “equipped with a taximeter”. “Taximeter” is defined as “a device for calculating the fare… by reference to the distance travelled or time elapsed since the start of the journey (or a combination of both)”. The owner of a licensed minicab equipped with a taximeter is guilty of a criminal offence.

The London Taxi Drivers’ Association and the Licensed Private Hire Car Association complained to TfL, which regulates both minicabs and black cabs. (Black cabs are permitted, and indeed required,  to have taximeters fitted). The complaints alleged that Uber’s method of calculating the fare infringed s. 11 of the 1998 Act. TfL concluded that it did not, but conceded that the contrary was arguable and issued Part 8 proceedings for a declaration.

Mr Justice Ouseley, sitting in the Administrative Court, accepted TfL’s argument, supported by Uber, that a device was a “taximeter” for the purposes of s. 11 only if it actually performed the calculation. Any other interpretation would throw other common business methods into real doubt. In any event, even if the smartphone and app were together a taximeter, it could not be said that any vehicle was equipped with that device. “Equipped”, the judge held, focusses on what the vehicle is provided with, not on what the driver brings into the vehicle and makes use of.

The judgment is here.

Link to BBC News here 

Link to FT here

Link to Guardian here

Link to Telegraph here