Uber announced Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with Los Angeles Yellow Cab to deploy taxi fleets throughout Southern California. The multi-year partnership, which will also extend to five other Southern California affiliates, will allow traditional yellow cabs to pick up Uber passengers. The collaboration between the strange bedfellows follows similar trials in New York City and San Francisco.
Uber describes the alliance as mutually beneficial for all parties. Taxi drivers, struggling to recover from pandemic losses while competing with ride-sharing, are gaining access to referrals from Uber. Meanwhile, passengers could see faster pickups. (You can choose not to use the yellow taxis in the app if you prefer the typical ride-sharing cars.) And of course, Uber gets a bigger ride offering.
The association extends from the Southern California coast to the Mexican border. Includes 1,200 vehicles from Los Angeles Yellow Cab, San Diego Yellow Cab, California Yellow Cab, Long Beach Yellow Cab, Fiesta Taxi Cooperative, Inc. and United Checker Cab. Onboarding of taxi drivers in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties begins this week. Once fully onboarded, drivers can begin accepting rides at UberX prices.
This unusual combination comes after years of controversy between ride-sharing businesses and traditional taxis. The two sides have often been at war since the early 2010s, when the existence of Uber and Lyft began to threaten the taxi industry. Uber claims that taxi drivers who took rideshare fares in the New York and San Francisco pilots earned an additional $1,767 per month from those rides alone and earned 23.8% more on average than taxi drivers who avoided Uber.
“We are thrilled to announce this partnership with Uber because it is clearly beneficial for drivers and passengers,” said William Rouse, CEO of Yellow Cab of Los Angeles. “We anticipate this partnership will have a positive impact for our driver-owners as the recovery from the pandemic continues. Drivers will no longer have to worry about finding a fare during off-peak hours or getting called on the street to return to the city when they are in the outer suburbs.”
