
It had been suggested by a number of protesting parties, including London?s traditional black taxis, that Uber was breaking rules by using smartphones as meters ? devices outlawed for private hire vehicles.
On a number of occasions in the last year, black taxi drivers have held protests by blocking the streets of London with their vehicles. They feel that Uber should be regulated to a greater extent, and are a threat to their livelihoods. If Uber had failed to get the High Court decision it was after, it would have had to comply with the rules set for black taxi drivers. These drivers are allowed to use a meter because of the training required to navigate the streets of London. In a statement describing the ruling, Lord Justice Ouseley said: ?A taximeter?, for the purposes of section 11 of the Private Hire Vehicles Act 1998 does not include a device that receives GPS signals in the course of a journey, and forwards GPS data to a server located outside of the vehicle, which server calculates a fare that is partially or wholly determined by reference to distance travelled and time taken and sends the fare information back to the device.?- Taxi app Uber declares it can create 50,000 jobs across Europe
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