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| FILE - Yellow taxis pass people standing in silence during a protest at Taksim Square in Istanbul. |
Cameras are being put in taxis in Turkey's largest city, Istanbul.
Turkish officials say the cameras will provide security for taxi drivers and their passengers. But some people fear the devices are part of a government effort to expand surveillance and control over the population.
They note that more than 60,000 Turkish citizens have been detained since the failure of an attempt to overthrow the government last year. In addition, nearly 200,000 people have
Cab service aggregators Ola and Uber have faced yet another blow from local taxi unions, this time in Lonavala. Amidst regular fierce protests, the city authorities have asked the app-based cab services to stop their ‘outgoing services’ within the Lonavala Municipal Council limits in the city.
Ola and Uber can now bring in passengers from different cities to Lonavala, however, cannot pick the outstation passengers from the city itself. On one hand, this will certainly affect the ride economics for both the companies. On the other hand, with empty return taxis, the companies might be forced to completely stop their outstation cab services in the city.
Making headlines for all the wrong reasons, the disruptive taxi-hailing app is battling for its reputation:
David Parry
For a company once lauded as a darling of tech disruption, Uber today is a brand fighting a reputational war on several fronts.
Making the news for all the wrong reasons, it is the subject of a licence appeal in London, violent protests on the streets of Bogota, and allegations of sexual harassment and an aggressively sexist company culture. Uber now faces increased competitive threat from ‘nicer’ rivals like Lyft – tipped to enter the UK market – if not prohibited by concerned regulators.
Like so many of its tech contemporaries, Uber has scaled globally almost exclusively on the basis of a disruptive business model and speed to market. It is of one of the many digitally native businesses defined by a ‘launch fast and iterate faster’ approach, exploiting digital network effects and peer-to-peer economics to pull the rug from beneath a variety of incumbent players.
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David Parry is the chief operating officer of global branding agency Saffron
