Uber to place New York City’s iconic yellow taxis on app

Uber Technologies Inc mentioned it would listing New York City’s yellow taxis on its app, a transfer that might assist the ride-hailing large overcome a driver scarcity in its largest U.S. market.

The metropolis has for years been a battleground between Uber and yellow taxi drivers, who’ve for lengthy protested in opposition to the corporate’s know-how on grounds that it disrupted the business and restricted their earnings.

The deal would see Uber work with taxi software program firms Creative Mobile Technologies and Curb, whose apps collectively account for all of the yellow cabs in New York metropolis. It is prone to deliver cab drivers extra enterprise at a time when the spike in fuel costs has added to the woes of an business buffeted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Passengers can pay roughly the identical fare for taxi rides as for Uber X rides, in response to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the information.

Uber, whose shares 6% increased in early buying and selling on Thursday, has in latest months struggled to maintain up with a requirement surge introduced by the lifting of coronavirus curbs. The partnership will “add tens of thousands of vehicles to the Uber platform in New York City and beyond,” Curb mentioned in a press release.

Uber mentioned it now has extra drivers on its platform within the United States than at any level in the course of the pandemic and that the gas worth surge had not impacted its driver base.