Uber: Resistance is Futile

Denis Coderre, Mayor of Montreal, is in California to position his city as “a leader recognized worldwide in the digital field as a SmartCity.” That’s a good thing.

But I would dare to ask a question: Why, during his time in Montreal, has Coderre’s team done everything to block Uber, a technology that has precisely the potential of making the city a “SmartCity”?

Uber is the app that is making the taxi industry tremble, here and elsewhere. An app that transforms the way you get around the city. An app that has the potential to transform the city.

You just have to use it to be convinced. Once your information is entered, you can get around without ever calling or hailing a taxi, without waiting, without finding your way, without getting your wallet out, counting your money, calculating the tip …

You enter your destination. You click a button. That’s it.

And that’s just the beginning of what Uber offers. If I were a member of an industry whose latest innovation was radio-dispatch, I’d be afraid too.

Uber is the bad boy of the California start-ups; the company that is trying to find its niche by fiddling with the rules. Hence the outcry in the 200 cities where it has established itself.

The nebulous Uber doesn’t fit into any one box. First, there’s the Uber division, the service that’s been running in Montreal for almost a year in a joint effort with taxi drivers—but not taxi companies.

But there is also UberPool, which allows carpooling by telephone; UberRush, which insures the delivery of packages; and especially UberX—UberPOP in Europe—which allows any car owner to become a driver in his spare time, and allows travelers to enjoy rides that are 40 percent less expensive than those in a taxi.

That’s the service that is sending shockwaves throughout the world, including in Montreal, where it is at the gates.

Uber is a strange business, therefore, that doesn’t fit into the current system. But it’s also a company that can quickly find its niche in the mix of urban transportation and persuade a few more city-dwellers to stray from their cars.

So is the problem Uber? Or the rules that ban Uber?

Montreal is forbidding it without even raising the question. Uber is illegal, the Taxi Bureau has decided. Period.

We can play this little game. But trying to block Uber is like closing the door to keep rising waters from flooding a house. The water will find a way in, just like Uber.

And if it’s not Uber, it will be Lyft, SideCar, Haxi, Summon or any other app from the “sharing economy” that calls into question the established order, like Airbnb in hospitality.

It’s a losing battle, even if it leads to some legal victories—don’t forget Napster—because the minute that travelers adopt it, the technology will immediately find a place in the way they do things. The industry, then, has the choice of adapting or dying.

Taxi companies, of course, only see a threat to be eliminated with the complicity of the city—another one, because whether it’s Uber, 747, Communauto, Car2Go, Auto-mobile, or BIXI, it’s always the same story: They’re crying unfair competition and recalling that they’re having trouble surviving.

Maybe. But in that case, why hasn’t the industry evolved in reaction to the competition? Why hasn’t it improved its customer service? Why is it still so difficult to pay with a credit card—in 2014!?

Admittedly, companies like Diamond have put out apps that resemble Uber’s. The city has published a policy foreseeing the possible installation of GPS and electronic payment.

That’s all very well. But the Uber revolution isn’t just in the gadgets that make it possible, it’s also in the approach centered on the user. After each fare, users rate their experience on a scale of five. If the average score of a driver goes under 4.5, the driver gets a warning. If nothing changes in a month, the driver is excluded from Uber or has to get more training.

Compare that with the current taxi system, where you can only add your complaint to the 600 others made each year …without ever seeing an impact on the quality of service.

Instead of resisting, why doesn’t the city show that it’s open to change, like San Francisco? Why not supervise the use of Uber by requiring vehicle inspections, training, insurance and a quality control mechanism? Why not require a criminal background check on all UberX drivers—which is not even required of the taxi industry in Montreal!?

In short, rather than offering futile resistance to technological change because it questions what we’ve always done, why not rethink those habits? That’s what would make a truly “SmartCity,” right?