Rising commissions being charged by the big taxi app platforms and the introduction of flat fare offerings by Uber late last year have given impetus to local efforts to organise alternatives, with two Dublin-based operations – Tap a Taxi and Hola Taxi – saying they have been recruiting significant numbers of drivers in recent weeks.
Tap a Taxi is the result, one of its founders says, of so many drivers bemoaning their growing dependence on the big multinationals during protests against Uber’s flat-fare move late last year.
David Knox, a long-time driver himself, and six others decided to come up with an alternative. Within a couple of months, they had the app up and running. Less than two months further on, they claim to have signed up about 10 per cent of Dublin’s nearly 18,000 drivers.
Hola Taxi, meanwhile, has been in existence for several years but says it has also significantly increased recruitment in recent months as the bigger firms “pushed drivers too far”, according to one of its directors, Lar Kelly.
He says it has about 1,500 drivers, with the number now growing steadily.
