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Gett is using Citymapper data to plot new ride-sharing routes
London's public transport system is pretty robust, with plenty of Tubes, buses and overground lines zig-zagging across the city. At rush hour, though, squeezing onto a crammed DLR carriage can be a total nightmare. One alternative is a taxi-hailing app like Gett, which for some time now has been pushing Gett Together, a ride-sharing service that operates on preset routes across the city. Today, the company is announcing Black Bus 1, a new route that operates between Highbury & Islington and Waterloo. The expansion is notable because it was designed using data supplied by mobile navigation app (and now bus route operator) Citymapper.
Uber has a new London rival in Taxify
In the US, Uber has an arch rival in Lyft. In the UK, however, Uber doesn't have such an obvious competitor. Sure, there's Mytaxi (formerly Hailo), Gett and Taxiapp for hailing black cabs, or Kabbee for booking minicabs, but no service that quite matches Uber blow for blow. That changes today with the London launch of Taxify -- an Uber clone that already operates in numerous cities around the world, including many in Europe. But how exactly does Taxify hope to compete with Uber, which has over 40,000 drivers roaming the capital? By giving drivers a bigger cut of the fare, and passengers a cheaper ride.
VW's new company aims for on-demand self-driving cars
Like other automakers, Volkswagen sees the writing on the wall: it knows that there won't be as much of a reason to own a car in the future between ridesharing (like that of its partner, Gett) and self-driving cars. Accordingly, it's creating a company to prepare for that future. Moia (Sanskrit for "magic") is a new, stand-alone mobility firm that will offer services in between mass transit and personal car ownership. Conventional ridesharing is the "first step," VW says, but definitely not the only one.
All London black cabs will support contactless from next week
London's entire black cab fleet will be required to carry readers to process card and contactless payments as of Monday October 31st, Transport for London (TfL) has announced today. This is no great surprise, of course. The ball began rolling on the new rule late last year, and TfL set an October deadline this past March. For now, all that's asked of black cabbies is they have the facility, but from January next year readers will have to be mounted on the passenger side of the glass. Some hackney carriages have supported card payments for years, but for the majority of cabbies cash has remained king. From next week, though, it'll no longer be optional.
Google Maps adds Lyft and Gett to its ride hailing options
Users searching for directions from Point A to Point B in Google Maps just got a few more options for getting there. According to the official Google Maps blog, both the iOS and Android versions now include estimated fares and wait times for ridesharing services Lyft and Gett when searching in cities in the United States.
Volkswagen ponders a luxury Uber rival with Porsche cars
Last week, the Volkswagen group dumped $300 million into Gett, a taxi hailing-cum-ride sharing app that's big outside of the US. Now, the company has revealed that it's pondering a rival to Uber Black by offering private drivers access to its higher-end vehicles. Details are scarce since it's a single line reference in a very long press release, but VW says that it's looking at a "special chauffeur service" that features "premium brands, such as Audi and Porsche." What that looks like in reality is anyone's guess, although the idea of getting ferried around in an Audi RS 7 does have some appeal.
Volkswagen pours $300 million into Gett's ride hailing service
Ford and GM aren't the only big car companies getting cozy with the on-demand transportation industry. Volkswagen has made a $300 million investment in Gett, one of the bigger ridesharing outfits in the world (particularly in Europe). The two are working together to expand on-demand ride services. For VW, this is the "first milestone" toward becoming a top-tier mobility service provider by 2025. The firm doesn't expect this to be its only partnership, but it's an important one.
Google Maps for iOS gets more ridesharing options
Google Maps has added new ridesharing options to its iOS app, a week after they first became available on Android. Uber was the sole choice for years -- so long as you have the app on your phone, Maps can show how much you'd pay for a ride when you search for a destination. You can even launch the app from within Maps if you decide to make a booking. While the new new ridesharing partners are certainly welcome, there's one caveat: they're mostly services in other countries, though one offers rides in NYC.
Google Maps makes it easier to hail a ride that isn't Uber
For almost two years now you've been able to open up the Google Maps app, type in a destination and see how much an Uber would cost. If you like the price, you can tap the button, instantly pop into the Uber app and request a car. It's a neat addition, but one that can also be a little unhelpful if you prefer other ride-hailing and taxi-booking apps. To help, Google is teaming up with a bunch of new providers and integrating their services into Google Maps. These are 99Taxis in Brazil, Ola Cabs in India, Hailo in the UK and Spain, mytaxi in Germany and Spain, and Gett in the UK.
Gett tweaks its UK taxi app to help visually-impaired users
Thanks to smartphone apps, hailing a taxi no longer requires memorising the phone number of the local cab company or gesturing at a passing driver in the street. However, none of these options are particularly useful if someone is visually impaired. Gett, the black taxi app formerly known as GetTaxi, agreed more could be done to help its blind or partially-sighted users, so it acted on a suggestion by an Israeli teenager to overhaul its iOS and Android apps.
Gett's latest expansion takes it beyond Uber in the UK
Uber is finally starting to ramp up its operations in the UK, but it faces tough competition from taxi-booking app Gett. Formerly known as GetTaxi, the company is expanding into 18 new cities today: Oxford, Cambridge, Reading, Slough, Milton Keynes, Brighton, Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Leicester, Coventry, Sheffield, Nottingham, Bradford, Hull, and Newcastle. They join London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow and Leeds, taking the app's coverage far beyond its ride-hailing rival.
