For lots of city-dwellers, it’s hard to remember a time before Uber. The transport company landed in London in 2012 and ever since then we’ve all been trying to maintain our 4.93 Uber ratings and old-school cab hailing has become an endangered practice.
Now Uber covers more than 60 towns and cities across the UK – and there are two more Scottish cities that could soon be added to the roster. Uber has revealed big plans to bring its services to Aberdeen and Dundee.
Nothing’s confirmed yet, but there’s a license committee happening for Aberdeen in June. If a license is granted, it should only take a month or two to officially launch in the city. Matthew Freckelton, Uber’s UK head of cities, told Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce's podcast (there really is a podcast for everything) that he hopes it will be up and running there by August.
He said: ‘We see there are hundreds of thousands of people over successive months who have been opening the Uber app, trying to use it.
‘They’ve used the app, come back to Aberdeen naturally thinking they can just open the app and get one of our vehicles and then found that they can’t.
‘We see Aberdeen as one of the key cities we need to get licensed in, so we can start providing out travel services to the good people of the Granite City.’
Plans haven’t got quite so far with Dundee, but the company has confirmed that the city is one if its main focuses. It may not be welcomed by everyone, though.
Qaiser Habib, president of the Dundee City Taxi Drivers Association, told Professional Driver: ‘Dundee is a small city and we actually have more taxis than needed in the taxi ranks. There are more than enough taxis in Dundee. There can often be 30 to 40 in one particular area and we are usually with our customers within minutes.’
Planes, trains and automobiles
With millions of us relying on public transport day in and day out, we at Time Out like to keep you up with all the latest. Most recently we covered reported that Glasgow could trial free public transport, covered the current M25 closures and told you all about a brand-new airline for dogs. And of course, we’ve got a regularly updated guide to train strikes across the country.
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