The New South Wales Minns government has officially invited controversial gig-economy heavyweight Uber into the public transport management tent, green-lighting a deal for authorities to send in-app alerts to drivers when services break down in return for “limiting surge pricing when disruption happens”.
The deal is a coup for Uber because it deals the private car and delivery service directly into a lucrative pipeline of referred work from incidents literally as they occur, allowing it to muster and potentially call up extra drivers to unclog bottlenecks. And clip the ticket.
Minister for transport Jo Haylen is hailing the deal as an Australian-first, saying passengers will be the ultimate beneficiaries of better coordination between the public and private sectors. But it is not to what extent surge pricing will be limited, nor how it will be controlled.
“Uber and Transport NSW will also partner to put proactive measures in place to ensure faster and more efficient communications with drivers during disruptions,” a statement issued by Haylen said.
“This includes a proposal that will see Uber issue immediate notifications and in-app messages to drivers when things go wrong on the public transport network.”
However, the formalisation of the relationship with transport authorities raises a swag of other complex public transit questions, including whether private Uber vehicles should be allowed to use bus and transit lanes on public roads.
Taxis have long been permitted to use bus lanes; however, cabs require a specific public transit vehicle registration and operating licence from which the government directly raises revenue. It also directly licences taxi drivers.
The taxi industry seems to be on the wrong side of the government at the moment. On Wednesday, transport authorities gave notice of a crackdown on cabbies who illegally demanded set prices or minimum fares rather than charging what was on the meter.
The gouging tactic by unscrupulous cabbies is often justified to passengers as a reflection of the floating price that Uber is charging at the time; that is, if an Uber’s price goes up, so does the taxi’s.
State governments have, over the past 10 years, been forced to buy back huge quantities of taxi licences, essentially handing Uber a massive taxpayer subsidy to deregulate a once tightly-controlled point-to-point transit market.
Since then, Uber has sought to diversify its reach, spreading into the online delivery market via Uber Eats as well as competing with last-mile parcel delivery services and teaming up with the big supermarkets for grocery delivery.
However, the firm’s rapid expansion has been frequently criticised for its aggressive resistance to industry and labour regulations, especially the distinction between employees and independent contractors, with the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) previously launching legal action against Uber.
In 2022, the TWU thrashed out an agreement with Uber for basic rights and conditions after the union took the firm to court after revelations some riders were earning as little as $5 per hour.
The previous NSW government had been trying to make rideshare and point-to-point players part of the broader public transport ecosystem to maximise convenience and efficiency, especially on under-patronised bus services where it would be more efficient to use Ubers for small passenger numbers rather than roll a bus run.
That project made initial headway but got bogged down over pricing, payments and integration into to Opal card system.
However, the change of state government in March 2023 appears to have reset government relations for Uber, with the minister for transport conspicuously talking up Uber’s potential, even if the degree of control or limits for surge pricing for help with incidents is unclear.
“Passengers deserve transparency around the reasons behind the surge and passengers deserve real choices about the way they travel,” Haylen said.
“The Government’s agreement with Uber will mean that when a serious incident happens on our transport network, surge pricing will be limited.”
“Some surge pricing will occur to incentivise drivers who decide to operate in the affected areas. However, it will be limited so passengers don’t end up copping exorbitant fares.”
Dom Taylor, Uber’s general manager of rides for Australia & New Zealand, said the firm was now an integral part of the NSW transport network.
“We feel a deep responsibility to being a collaborative and constructive part of the solution when major disruptions occur,” he said.
“Formalising this relationship with Transport NSW marks an important milestone that will work to the benefit of NSW residents.”
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