Understanding Uber: Breaking Down The London Driver Numbers

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The question of just how many Uber drivers there are in London has been at the centre of the current debate. Not least because Uber themselves have made it so.

Indeed the “40,000 jobs” figure received not one, but two mentions in Uber’s immediate statement after the decision had been made.

3.5 million Londoners who use our app, and more than 40,000 licensed drivers who rely on Uber to make a living, will be astounded by this decision.

By wanting to ban our app from the capital Transport for London and the Mayor have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice. If this decision stands, it will put more than 40,000 licensed drivers out of work and deprive Londoners of a convenient and affordable form of transport.

To defend the livelihoods of all those drivers, and the consumer choice of millions of Londoners who use our app, we intend to immediately challenge this in the courts.

That 40,000 figure is one that was quickly picked up by the media. It has been quoted extensively ever since. Yet in hardly any cases has it ever really been analysed in detail. Instead it has simply been presented as something between a soundbite and an indisputable fact.

Both of those are dangerous things to do, because it is not an independent number. Whilst we don’t doubt that it is accurate in some way, we also don’t doubt that Uber selected a figure that would best supports their current stance (we’ll look at why TfL haven’t deployed a counter-figure in a future article).

This is not to say that Uber haven’t been prepared to provide a little bit more context on how it was calculated, just that very few people seem to have done so (credit to the Telegraph who clearly did so themselves). In fact, according to Uber, this figure represents roughly the number of drivers who have completed four trips in London within a sampled month.

The trouble is, that context yields more questions than it does answers. Most importantly: does that number accurately represent the number who would be ‘put out of work’ by Uber’s departure from the marketplace? As part of our continuing look at the economics of Uber and how the model works both for the company and its drivers in London, we intended to take this number, compare it with other public data and work that out (roughly at least).

The problem is, the numbers don’t seem to work.

It is not our intention for this post to be seen as a ‘gotcha’. It is entirely possible we have missed something. But if we have, we can’t see it. So following on from our look at why the current debate isn’t about the app and before we move on to look at the economics, we thought it best to pause and look at the maths – because they yield some rather surprising possible conclusions.

Constant one: The number of drivers

The source for this figure is easy and barely needs mentioning – the repeated statements by Uber about number of drivers affected.

Total number of drivers: 40,000

Constant two: The total pot of money drivers make

The accounts for Uber London Ltd can be found on Companies House these cover the period up to December 2015.

In these, ULL declare sales of £23m. If we assume this corresponds to their share of the fare revenue, then at an 80/20 split (the rate Uber launched at) this leaves a 2015 driver earnings ‘pot’ of about £92m.

The number of drivers in 2015 was estimated at 20,000. To calculate our 2017 pot we will therefore double this figure. This is crude, we admit, but Uber have increased their percentage of the fare taken from all drivers who signed up after 2015 to 25%.  This, plus the resulting data tables, show that the crudeness of our doubling probably doesn’t have a major effect on the result.

Total driver pot for 2017: £184,000,000

Constant three: the average percentage of ’full-time’ drivers

On Tuesday 28 September ORB International released a survey, commissioned by Uber, which contains a number of data points about the makeup of Uber’s UK driver base. The timing is likely not coincidental. One of those points is this:

More than four in five (82%) drivers say Uber is their main source of income with 10% saying it tops up other sources of income and 8% saying it is one of a few different main sources of income.

Indeed this figure is highlighted by the report as being particularly relevant to the current London debate by ORB Managing director, Jonny Heald, who says:

While Uber has been in the headlines for the past few days, we’ve heard little about the 40,000 drivers who could be impacted by the licence refusal. Our poll shows that four in five drivers rely on Uber as their main source of income.

We actually think this figure (82%) is very optimistic, so we’re actually going to aim lower, although our tables will ‘top out’ at 85%.

Total Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) in London: 60%

The variable: ‘full-time’ salary

We’ve used two salary figures for each of the following calculations to give a range of outcomes. These figures are:

The London living wage: £19,012.50
Uber Driver London’s upper estimate: £39,000 (Based on a 60 hour week, not adjusted for car payments or other operating costs. The take-home salary would likely be closer to £23,000)

The issues

All of these numbers likely include a margin for error. As the data tables below make clear, however, none of them work with anything approaching a reasonable salary estimate. In each case, the numbers are so far off that at least one of these public numbers (given by Uber or their proxy survey) have to be wrong.

A final note: when looking at these tables, remember that you need to allow for Part Time Equivalents (PTEs) within the total driver pot too. This is our unknown, and it is also something of a ‘Camel train in the desert’ problem – the more PTEs they are, the larger that pot likely needs to be.

Because of this, it’s not just about discarding the results that have a negative available pot, but also those results that are too close to the ‘break even’ point. The column ‘PT Average’ shows the estimated income of the remaining PTEs to provide some kind of sanity check here. We generally assume that an average in the region of £2,500 would be a reasonable PTE target.

Option 1: London FTEs are being exaggerated by a significant margin

If the driver numbers and driver pot are correct, then the number of drivers earning a ‘full-time’ wage in London is somewhere between 5 – 15% of the total pool. So 2,000 – 6,000 drivers.

FT Salary FT % Total Drivers Total FT Drivers Total Driver Income FT Driver Income PT Pot PT Average
19,012.50 85 40,000 34,000 184,000,000 646,425,000 -462,425,000 -77,070
19,012.50 80 40,000 32,000 184,000,000 608,400,000 -424,400,000 -53,050
19,012.50 75 40,000 30,000 184,000,000 570,375,000 -386,375,000 -38,637
19,012.50 70 40,000 28,000 184,000,000 532,350,000 -348,350,000 -29,029
19,012.50 65 40,000 26,000 184,000,000 494,325,000 -310,325,000 -22,166
19,012.50 60 40,000 24,000 184,000,000 456,300,000 -272,300,000 -17,018
19,012.50 55 40,000 22,000 184,000,000 418,275,000 -234,275,000 -13,015
19,012.50 50 40,000 20,000 184,000,000 380,250,000 -196,250,000 -9,812
19,012.50 45 40,000 18,000 184,000,000 342,225,000 -158,225,000 -7,192
19,012.50 40 40,000 16,000 184,000,000 304,200,000 -120,200,000 -5,008
19,012.50 35 40,000 14,000 184,000,000 266,175,000 -82,175,000 -3,160
19,012.50 30 40,000 12,000 184,000,000 228,150,000 -44,150,000 -1,576
19,012.50 25 40,000 10,000 184,000,000 190,125,000 -6,125,000 -204
19,012.50 20 40,000 8,000 184,000,000 152,100,000 31,900,000 996
19,012.50 15 40,000 6,000 184,000,000 114,075,000 69,925,000 2,056
19,012.50 10 40,000 4,000 184,000,000 76,050,000 107,950,000 2,998
19,012.50 5 40,000 2,000 184,000,000 38,025,000 145,975,000 3,841
19,012.50 0 40,000 0 184,000,000 0 184,000,000 4,600
FT Salary FT % Total Drivers Total FT Drivers Total Driver Income FT Driver Income PT Pot PT Average
39,000 85 40,000 34,000 184,000,000 1,326,000,000 -1,142,000,000 -190,333
39,000 80 40,000 32,000 184,000,000 1,248,000,000 -1,064,000,000 -133,000
39,000 75 40,000 30,000 184,000,000 1,170,000,000 -986,000,000 -98,600
39,000 70 40,000 28,000 184,000,000 1,092,000,000 -908,000,000 -75,666
39,000 65 40,000 26,000 184,000,000 1,014,000,000 -830,000,000 -59,285
39,000 60 40,000 24,000 184,000,000 936,000,000 -752,000,000 -47,000
39,000 55 40,000 22,000 184,000,000 858,000,000 -674,000,000 -37,444
39,000 50 40,000 20,000 184,000,000 780,000,000 -596,000,000 -29,800
39,000 45 40,000 18,000 184,000,000 702,000,000 -518,000,000 -23,545
39,000 40 40,000 16,000 184,000,000 624,000,000 -440,000,000 -18,333
39,000 35 40,000 14,000 184,000,000 546,000,000 -362,000,000 -13,923
39,000 30 40,000 12,000 184,000,000 468,000,000 -284,000,000 -10,142
39,000 25 40,000 10,000 184,000,000 390,000,000 -206,000,000 -6,866
39,000 20 40,000 8,000 184,000,000 312,000,000 -128,000,000 -4,000
39,000 15 40,000 6,000 184,000,000 234,000,000 -50,000,000 -1,470
39,000 10 40,000 4,000 184,000,000 156,000,000 28,000,000 777
39,000 5 40,000 2,000 184,000,000 78,000,000 106,000,000 2,789
39,000 0 40,000 0 184,000,000 0 184,000,000 4,600

Option 2: The number of drivers is being exaggerated by a significant margin

If the driver pot and the FTE percentage are correct, then the number of active drivers in London is between 7,500 – 15,000. This is well below the figure of 40,000 that Uber have circulated.

FT Salary FT % Total Drivers Total FT Drivers Total Driver Income FT Driver Income PT Pot PT Average
19,012.50 85 15,000 12,750 184,000,000 242,409,375 -58,409,375 -25,959
19,012.50 80 15,000 12,000 184,000,000 228,150,000 -44,150,000 -14,716
19,012.50 75 15,000 11,250 184,000,000 213,890,625 -29,890,625 -7,970
19,012.50 70 15,000 10,500 184,000,000 199,631,250 -15,631,250 -3,473
19,012.50 65 15,000 9,750 184,000,000 185,371,875 -1,371,875 -261
19,012.50 60 15,000 9,000 184,000,000 171,112,500 12,887,500 2,147
19,012.50 55 15,000 8,250 184,000,000 156,853,125 27,146,875 4,021
19,012.50 50 15,000 7,500 184,000,000 142,593,750 41,406,250 5,520
19,012.50 45 15,000 6,750 184,000,000 128,334,375 55,665,625 6,747
19,012.50 40 15,000 6,000 184,000,000 114,075,000 69,925,000 7,769
19,012.50 35 15,000 5,250 184,000,000 99,815,625 84,184,375 8,634
19,012.50 30 15,000 4,500 184,000,000 85,556,250 98,443,750 9,375
19,012.50 25 15,000 3,750 184,000,000 71,296,875 112,703,125 10,018
19,012.50 20 15,000 3,000 184,000,000 57,037,500 126,962,500 10,580
19,012.50 15 15,000 2,250 184,000,000 42,778,125 141,221,875 11,076
19,012.50 10 15,000 1,500 184,000,000 28,518,750 155,481,250 11,517
19,012.50 5 15,000 750 184,000,000 14,259,375 169,740,625 11,911
19,012.50 0 15,000 0 184,000,000 0 184,000,000 12,266
FT Salary FT % Total Drivers Total FT Drivers Total Driver Income FT Driver Income PT Pot PT Average
39,000 85 7,500 6,375 184,000,000 248,625,000 -64,625,000 -57,444
39,000 80 7,500 6,000 184,000,000 234,000,000 -50,000,000 -33,333
39,000 75 7,500 5,625 184,000,000 219,375,000 -35,375,000 -18,866
39,000 70 7,500 5,250 184,000,000 204,750,000 -20,750,000 -9,222
39,000 65 7,500 4,875 184,000,000 190,125,000 -6,125,000 -2,333
39,000 60 7,500 4,500 184,000,000 175,500,000 8,500,000 2,833
39,000 55 7,500 4,125 184,000,000 160,875,000 23,125,000 6,851
39,000 50 7,500 3,750 184,000,000 146,250,000 37,750,000 10,066
39,000 45 7,500 3,375 184,000,000 131,625,000 52,375,000 12,696
39,000 40 7,500 3,000 184,000,000 117,000,000 67,000,000 14,888
39,000 35 7,500 2,625 184,000,000 102,375,000 81,625,000 16,743
39,000 30 7,500 2,250 184,000,000 87,750,000 96,250,000 18,333
39,000 25 7,500 1,875 184,000,000 73,125,000 110,875,000 19,711
39,000 20 7,500 1,500 184,000,000 58,500,000 125,500,000 20,916
39,000 15 7,500 1,125 184,000,000 43,875,000 140,125,000 21,980
39,000 10 7,500 750 184,000,000 29,250,000 154,750,000 22,925
39,000 5 7,500 375 184,000,000 14,625,000 169,375,000 23,771
39,000 0 7,500 0 184,000,000 0 184,000,000 24,533

Option 3: the amount of money generated by Uber in London is significantly greater than ULL accounts show

If the number of active drivers and FTE percentage are correct, then the profits ‘booked’ by ULL cannot account for the total required size of the driver pot. This would need to be somewhere between £500m – £980m

If this were the case, this would suggest that the ULL figures do not represent the ‘banked’ revenue total for London Uber fares. Instead it would mean that Uber B.V. – the Dutch subsidiary – is currently banking somewhere between £625,000,000 and £1.2bn in fare revenue, for London alone, every year. Ten times the stated turnover of ULL.

FT Salary FT % Total Drivers Total FT Drivers Total Driver Income FT Driver Income PT Pot PT Average
19,012.50 85 40,000 34,000 500,000,000 646,425,000 -146,425,000 -24,404
19,012.50 80 40,000 32,000 500,000,000 608,400,000 -108,400,000 -13,550
19,012.50 75 40,000 30,000 500,000,000 570,375,000 -70,375,000 -7,037
19,012.50 70 40,000 28,000 500,000,000 532,350,000 -32,350,000 -2,695
19,012.50 65 40,000 26,000 500,000,000 494,325,000 5,675,000 405
19,012.50 60 40,000 24,000 500,000,000 456,300,000 43,700,000 2,731
19,012.50 55 40,000 22,000 500,000,000 418,275,000 81,725,000 4,540
19,012.50 50 40,000 20,000 500,000,000 380,250,000 119,750,000 5,987
19,012.50 45 40,000 18,000 500,000,000 342,225,000 157,775,000 7,171
19,012.50 40 40,000 16,000 500,000,000 304,200,000 195,800,000 8,158
19,012.50 35 40,000 14,000 500,000,000 266,175,000 233,825,000 8,993
19,012.50 30 40,000 12,000 500,000,000 228,150,000 271,850,000 9,708
19,012.50 25 40,000 10,000 500,000,000 190,125,000 309,875,000 10,329
19,012.50 20 40,000 8,000 500,000,000 152,100,000 347,900,000 10,871
19,012.50 15 40,000 6,000 500,000,000 114,075,000 385,925,000 11,350
19,012.50 10 40,000 4,000 500,000,000 76,050,000 423,950,000 11,776
19,012.50 5 40,000 2,000 500,000,000 38,025,000 461,975,000 12,157
19,012.50 0 40,000 0 500,000,000 0 500,000,000 12,500
FT Salary FT % Total Drivers Total FT Drivers Total Driver Income FT Driver Income PT Pot PT Average
39,000 85 40,000 34,000 980,000,000 1,326,000,000 -346,000,000 -57,666
39,000 80 40,000 32,000 980,000,000 1,248,000,000 -268,000,000 -33,500
39,000 75 40,000 30,000 980,000,000 1,170,000,000 -190,000,000 -19,000
39,000 70 40,000 28,000 980,000,000 1,092,000,000 -112,000,000 -9,333
39,000 65 40,000 26,000 980,000,000 1,014,000,000 -34,000,000 -2,428
39,000 60 40,000 24,000 980,000,000 936,000,000 44,000,000 2,750
39,000 55 40,000 22,000 980,000,000 858,000,000 122,000,000 6,777
39,000 50 40,000 20,000 980,000,000 780,000,000 200,000,000 10,000
39,000 45 40,000 18,000 980,000,000 702,000,000 278,000,000 12,636
39,000 40 40,000 16,000 980,000,000 624,000,000 356,000,000 14,833
39,000 35 40,000 14,000 980,000,000 546,000,000 434,000,000 16,692
39,000 30 40,000 12,000 980,000,000 468,000,000 512,000,000 18,285
39,000 25 40,000 10,000 980,000,000 390,000,000 590,000,000 19,666
39,000 20 40,000 8,000 980,000,000 312,000,000 668,000,000 20,875
39,000 15 40,000 6,000 980,000,000 234,000,000 746,000,000 21,941
39,000 10 40,000 4,000 980,000,000 156,000,000 824,000,000 22,888
39,000 5 40,000 2,000 980,000,000 78,000,000 902,000,000 23,736
39,000 0 40,000 0 980,000,000 0 980,000,000 24,500

So what does all this mean?

Our intention here is not to post a ‘gotcha’. Our assumption is that there is a mistake in our maths. If so, we can’t see it but we will be quick to correct when it is pointed out.

If not, then there are serious questions to be asked about the numbers that Uber have been using or implying in the current debate. Should Uber wish to provide us with better numbers, we would be very grateful indeed. In the meantime, it is likely worth considering Uber’s ‘affected drivers’ figure and narrative with a considerable amount of caution.

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79 comments

  1. Thank you for questioning the figures. As you say, something definitely doesn’t add up.

    I’m also highly sceptical about the parallel claim that there are “3.5 million Londoners who use our app”. That’s 40% of the capital’s population. Really?

  2. My instinct is that ‘3.5m’ is a journey figure, and that they’re playing fast and loose by defining it as ‘Londoners’.

    Like the rest of these figures, none of them actually add up when you stick them in a spreadsheet.

    For the record I don’t think there’s any real ‘gotcha’ here. I think the actual answer is relatively simple – Uber are booking an absolute TONNE of money via UBV that’s actually generated in London.

    That’s their right, of course. The media have just made the mistake of assuming ULL’s profits are theirs and so nobody has pushed them on it.

    Is that relevant to the current debate? It depends. If that’s the reason the numbers don’t add up, then at least it provides an element of clarity as to whether the other figures are right. I do suspect that the ODR survey is also dodgy. 82% full time seems VERY high, unless there’s something terribly shady going on with how they’re defining ‘full time’.

    Basically I just think some clarity around the numbers would be nice – or at least a few more questions in the media asking Uber to show their working out.

  3. I think the Uber London Limited accounts effectively disclose that Option 3 is the case. (Naturally, that doesn’t stop Option 1/2 also being true.)

    In particular, Note 4 to the accounts states: “The company operates on a cost plus basis and all costs are therefore included in administrative expenses.”

    The term ‘cost plus’ means that ULL simply incurs costs and then is paid those costs plus a percentage markup by another company (if I had to guess, Uber BV). It looks from the accounts that the markup used is 8.5%.

    Unfortunately, this means that the accounts of ULL aren’t a good guide for Uber’s London revenues, as there’s no direct linkage between their revenue from passengers and the revenue in the accounts.

    One further note of caution on interpretation (assuming only only Option 3 is true). Just because some costs are incurred and disclosed in ULL doesn’t mean that there aren’t other London related (non driver) costs incurred in other entities, so it’s not necessarily the case that any hypothetical extra revenue in Uber BV is pure profit.

  4. Very interesting analysis JB. The tables are a bit hard to understand, but I think in essence you’re saying that the estimated turnover of ULL does not support a full time income for 40,000 drivers.

    ORB is a reputable company, and their survey is reliable as far as it goes. If it’s unrepresentative, it would be a problem with the sample provided to them by Uber. At least two things stood out for me in the data tables https://www.orb-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ORB-Uber-Release-September-2017.pdf

    1. Seven in ten drivers in London have been driving for Uber for more than a year; one-third for more than two years. I wonder how well this represents their overall driver base / what is the rate of churn? Are those most disposed to answer the survey also those most committed to Uber?

    2. The tables don’t break down hours worked by city, but more than half of respondents come from London, less than four in ten overall drive 40+ hours a week. So your estimate of 60% FTE may still be too high?

    Note that the survey question doesn’t ask whether they’re full time, it asks whether Uber is their main source of income.

  5. I think it’ important to understand Uber is, in the language of the trade, entirely ‘on the books’, in a business that is – at yer local cab office level – cash.

    Also, your traditional local office has a fixed fare structure, preferring to give customers longer wait times at busy periods rather than price incrases, contrasting with Uber’s business model.

    Putting that together, it will suit *some* drivers to work out of a local office, say during the week when they have kids to drop off and pick up from school, and work long weekend shifts with Uber around the price spikes

    So, in a sense, Uber legitimises an income level by giving drivers weekly income statements that can be proffered to HMRC, which may not reflect the entire picture.

    I intentionally didn’t mention the phrase ‘tax credits’.

  6. So no different from TfL or Network Rail that tell us that, for example, Waterloo is used by 100 million passengers each year. That is twice the population of England starting or ending a journey at Waterloo station in the course of a year. I don’t think so!

  7. In terms of the ORB survey and analysis, the notes at the bottom state:
    “ORB interviewed a representative sample of 1002 drivers… the statistical margin of error at the 95% confidence level is +3.07%”

    Doing the Chi-Squared analysis in reverse suggests that the Uber England Wales and Scotland driver population size was between 58,373 and 61,679 when the survey was planned and drivers selected.

    So two-thirds of Uber EW&S drivers are probably in “London”

  8. From the article in this last weekend’s “FT”, which I recommend everyone to read, if they can get a copy. The FT interviewed three drivers & got their stories of the work:
    Driver 1: A female Romanian, making £300-600 a week, gross, spending most of it on grotty accomodation “Hoping to make £80 a shift” …
    Driver 2: Orignally from Somalia, emigrated here from the Netherlands when his job there collapsed (factory closed) trying to avoid becoming homeless (again) whilst sending money to his sick mother
    Driver 3: Originally from Turkey, actually has a small flat, drives from 22.00 until 04.30, every night, actually seems to have some marginal security.
    The overall impression on reading the article is of scabbling at the edges & of exploitation, I’m afraid.

    I’m also sure that certain “authorities” will be looking closely at any discrepancies in the figures from Uber overall, ULL & UBV, shall we say, especially if Option 3 is even remotely near to being a correct, fair & true record, shall we say?

  9. I think, in any case, far fewer people (far from none though) would have their living ajeopardised by TfL’s decision than what we are led to believe, otherwise I am afraid a small riot is pretty close to happening. Even if one earns big from Uber trips, it’s entirely possible that the person is still doing it part-time only, or the earning can be got in some other means / from another organisation.

  10. PoP
    Waterloo entry/exit is controlled by Cubic gates that log how many people go through them – how many? How many per day/week/year?
    Because that equates (approximately) to 139 000 return journeys a day, doesn’t it?
    Which seems possible.

  11. Re Concord,

    Note that the survey question doesn’t ask whether they’re full time, it asks whether Uber is their main source of income.

    Completely agree on the wording designed to mislead.

    Income of course doesn’t include benefits and the key thing to claim the in-work benefits is to work at least 16 hours a week but not have income above the threshold so <£338 per week.

    Re T11C and JB,

    Agree on the option 3 being most likely direction for the figures to add up in. This would also suggest that London is gold mine for Uber hence the loss of licence could be big issue as the global losses would increase.

  12. Re Patrickov,

    Having reverse engineered the driver population size the percentages can be put into actual numbers:

    So of the ~60K EW&S driver number only 2300-2500 were unemployed pre Uber, 18100-19120 were already taxi drivers pre working for Uber (do they still work for other firms at times as well?) etc. which suggest job losses would be small?
    (Ranges to cover errors to appropriate levels based on the ORB survey methodology)

  13. I’m sure you’ve already seen these figures, but last month the Department for Transport released their Taxi and PHV licence figures for the UK as at 31 March 2017: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/taxi-and-private-hire-vehicles-statistics-england-2017 The numbers aren’t nearly granular enough to draw any meaningful conclusions but do suggest some direction of travel (pun intended).

    In the 6 years from 2005 to 2011 the number of private hire vehicles (PHVs) in London increased from 40k to 51k. None of this growth can be attributed to Uber. In the 6 years from 2011 to 2017 the number of PHVs grew from 51k to 87k (they dropped slightly in 2013 to 50k). If we assume a similar increase in non-Uber PHVs between 2011 and 2017 as took place in the previous 6 years (i.e. taking that figure to ~60k), that would suggest that in 2017 27k PHVs had some affiliation with Uber. Those are, of course, gross assumptions and assume no shift from non-Uber to Uber, plus constant growth in non-Uber PHVs.

    The driver figures show faster growth, from 40k in 2005 to 61k in 2011 and 118k in 2017. If we take the same assumptions we made for vehicles (20k non-Uber driver growth from 2011-17, no switch from non-Uber to Uber) that would suggest that 36k PHV-only licenced drivers had some affiliation with Uber, not a million miles off the 40k figure quoted by Uber in their press release. The driver numbers also highlight an interesting trend – in the 2000s there were 0.9 – 1.1 driver licences per licenced vehicle, in 2017 there were 1.35 driver licences per licenced vehicle. We could therefore assume that there is an increased level of car sharing among drivers working for Uber. I wonder how this impacts the FTE employment levels.

    Apologies for introducing this dataset if you had already discarded it. I fear all it does is continue to muddy the waters!

  14. Re Diamond Geezer and JB,

    3.5m Londoners.

    I suspect this might involve assuming that each journey has 4 passengers so 875k journeys or users who have used the App?? So possibly an average of just 175k Journey per year over Uber 5 years in London – equivalent to 480 per day. Again they don’t explain how they got there hence the potential for plenty of spin.

  15. @NGH

    Doing the Chi-Squared analysis in reverse suggests that the Uber England Wales and Scotland driver population size was between 58,373 and 61,679 when the survey was planned and drivers selected.

    So two-thirds of Uber EW&S drivers are probably in “London”

    An easier way to do this is to read across the ‘weighted’ column and estimate the profile to which the data are weighted, i.e. what Uber knows about its drivers (‘The final data has been weighted to ensure it is representative of the total distribution of drivers who use the Uber app across the UK. ‘).

    Thus, 74% of (presumably active) driver app users are in London. This handily disregards all issues relating to where they are licensed etc; this is where they drive.

  16. Re Concord,

    All the more reason to look at the figures in as many ways as possible as this highlights. Active drivers could be 74% in driving London where as the total driver population (including inactive) puts that at between 64.0% and 69.4% so the proportion of active drivers in London is higher?

  17. I note that according to Companies House, Uber London Ltd were meant to have filed their 2016 Accounts by last Saturday and they are now listed as “Overdue”. So we might get another analysis source soon…

    (Another item that won’t sit well with regulators)

  19. @Diamond Geezer, JB, & ngh

    ‘3.5m Londoners use Uber’

    This may be the number that have downloaded the Uber app, in the vicinity of London. But not all of those will have used Uber, and will likely include a significant number of tourists.

  20. Greg Tingey,

    You are entirely missing the point as regards 100 million users at Waterloo per year. There are NOT anything like 100 million users. I wouldn’t dispute that there are 100 million passenger journeys that start or end there.

    There are probably something like 3-5 million users many of whom are commuters who use Waterloo twice a day for 40-50 weeks of the year. So, for example, you can’t claim 100 million people would be affected by Waterloo closing for a year.

    I am no fan of Uber but lets have a level playing field and lets not condone misleading figures when issued by TfL and Network Rail but throw our hands up in horror when Uber describes them inaccurately.

  21. The 3.5m figure shows why JB must have had such fun / frustration when calculating these figures.

    Downloads? If we assume an adult population of around 6.5m in 2016, then 3.5m downloads implies approaching half of all adults in London – rich and poor, young and old – have downloaded the Uber app. Seems too high.

    Trips? Even if we gave a generously high average ride fee to Uber of £7 (based off uberdriverinlondon.co.uk’s maths for longer journeys and pool trips), then using ULL’s 2015 declared sales implies 3.28m trips in 2015 alone. Seems too low.

    It’s possible the number came from internal Uber market research of e.g. the number of Londoners who say they have ever considered using Uber, but again this seems unlikely.

    This would appear to be another example of Uber’s (and tech cos in general) slapdash use of numbers without sourcing or clarifying data. Arguably it’s this approach, which worked in other markets, that has met a Palestra-shaped wall with TfL.

  22. POP/Greg: The ORR – the producer of the ‘100m at Waterloo’ always states ‘Total Entries & Exits’ in its station usage estimates. That this is simplified to passenger journeys and then further simplified to passengers may be regrettable to pedants/purists (of Purley) but is hardly an attempt to deceive…

  23. A-Mous,

    Maybe the intention wasn’t there but when you hear the often quoted figures that six million people use London Buses every day or four million people use the tube every day I am sure the average local news watcher takes that literally.

    If Uber had stated exactly what their figures relate to then we could understand what is going on. It is the sloppiness (intentional or otherwise) that causes the problems. More pedantry is needed!

  24. Detailed article What happened in the city that banned Uber on the BBC about Austin Texas’s Uber ban. Some selected quotes from this article:

    “Uber’s new chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi will be in the UK on Tuesday for a meeting with Transport for London (TfL). He hopes the negotiations will stop the imminent revoking of his company’s license to run its ride-sharing business in the capital…

    “The same was true in Austin, Texas. It’s a city that shares few similarities with London, other than its own bitter tussle with Uber – the fallout from which could contain clues as to what might happen if, and it’s a big if, TfL follows through with its threat.

    “Uber had been available in Austin since 2014. But on 10 May 2016, Uber (and rival service Lyft) turned off their apps and left.

    “Less than 24 hours earlier, Austinites had gone to the polls to vote on Proposition 1. It was a law that removed a requirement on ride-sharing companies to gather fingerprints as part of their background checks on drivers, as well as sharing more data with city officials. Uber didn’t want to do this. It argued that the fingerprint database drivers would be cross-checked against would be ineffective.

    “It’s also likely – though Uber never expressed this publicly – that adding a layer to the sign-up process would make it more time-consuming, and expensive, to recruit drivers. It’s something the company, in all the markets it works in, constantly seeks to avoid – and in Austin it was prepared to spend big to avoid the restrictions.

    “David Butts, a political consultant who campaigned against Uber during the dispute, estimates that the firm spent more than $10m (£7.5m) fighting city officials.
    “We have never seen a campaign that spent that much money, for anything,” he said.

    “Whatever the size of the lobbying bill, it wasn’t enough. Mr Khosrowshahi said Uber’s poor corporate reputation may have been a factor in TfL’s thinking, and the same may have been true for Austin’s voters, according to Ben Wear, a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.

    “”They showed up and basically ignored the city’s rules.”
    “And so just like that, Uber and Lyft were gone.
    ““But within a few weeks, there were several players that came into town. Very quickly that total number of rides were filled by those other players.””

  25. @poP/ Greg

    100 million entries/exits may be an accurate figure for the number of times the gates are activated, but it doesn’t allow for people going through gates left open, babes in arms, or people entering the platform gates and then leaving again when their train is cancelled and re-entering when an alternative train is identified (three entries/exits recorded but only one journey), but as PoP says many (most?) users will be regular commuters, using the station twice a day, five days a week, say 45 weeks of the year allowing for holidays, sick leave etc. And even most casual users will be making return journeys.
    So a more accurate figure of the number of different people using the station over the course of a year might be 1/400 of the quoted 100,000,000, or 250,000 individuals.

    (I have probably been through Waterloo more than 10,000 times in my lifetime!)

    Likewise with Uber, although in identifying how many people use any cab firm there is the added complication of people sharing a cab (one trip, several users), or one person booking a cab for someone else (so there may be more individual users than account holders).

  26. Pedantic: As someone who has occasion to use passenger statistics for PR, I am always conscious of the need to give scale, without also giving inaccurate information.
    You are correct that the “100m passengers a year” is actually 100m passenger journeys a year. However, it helps to give a picture of how much strain a station is under to say “100m people go through here every year” rather than “3.5m people use this station 10 times a week”…
    For instance, if we say “140,000 people use London Bridge every day”, actually it’s about half that, they just use it twice. But saying 70,000 doesn’t give you anywhere near the right idea of how busy it is and how massive the new one needs to be.
    Uber’s error is to say “3.5m Londoners” , which is just simply not true.

  27. I’d simplify the number crunching: In 2015 ULL claims revenue of £23m and 20,000 drivers. That’s £1,150 per driver. If ULL took 20% of fares, then that means drivers earned £4,600 p.a., which certainly isn’t enough for more than 80% of them to ‘rely on Uber to make a living’. So something is way out here.

    But my deep suspicion is that Uber’s income is far above the ULL income. And it may be not so difficult to check: Uber’s income comes from the fares, so I’d check where the fares go in the first instance. Option 1 is to ULL – then surely the accounts should show their total income, so this obvious not the case (as £23m is far to low as total revenue for 2000 drivers never mind 20,000). Option 2 is to the driver – then the question follows who are the drivers contracted to? If they are contracted to ULL, the £23m will indeed be 20% of passengers fares, if it is with UBV then we don’t know. Option 3 is fares go in first instance to UBV, in which case it may again be difficult to get to the bottom of the economics.

    Or am I missing something?

  28. I’d like to apologise for diverting the comments on this serious post down an irrelevant backwater.

  29. @Christian –

    The footer of the downloadable invoice answers your question – it reads:

    Issued on behalf of [Driver Name] by:
    Uber B.V. / Vijzelstraat 68-78, 1017 HL Amsterdam / VAT: NL852071589B01 / COC #: 56317441

    No VAT, of course. Presumably because it’s Uber BV, rather than because the individual driver earns less than the VAT threshold.

  30. @diamond geezer

    I felt your comment “I’m also highly sceptical about the parallel claim that there are “3.5 million Londoners who use our app”. That’s 40% of the capital’s population. Really?” was perfectly valid. It is indeed good to question the validity of public statements of transport companies and agencies. The regular media aren’t doing it to any depth. LBM

  31. A quick calculation based on PoP’s estimate of 3-5 million individuals using Waterloo, and the oft-quoted 100 million journeys, (actually 99.15m) suggests about 230,000 regular commuters (assuming 400 trips per year).
    (3 million individuals: 234,000 commuters, 2.775m casuals
    5 million individuals: 224,000 commuters, 4.775m casuals

  33. The Telegraph article is “premium”, only available to subscription customers.

  36. I’d hazard an educated guess the 3.5m figure is the number of unique Uber accounts that have used the app within London. So grossly inflated by tourist numbers ~ 20 million international tourists in 2016 plus an additional 12 million domestic visitors.

    As above 40% of London’s population feels too high, though maybe not a million miles out as I reckon the majority of 20 and 30 somethings living in London have downloaded the app.

  37. Since Uber are keen to have maximum public exposure for their case will the meetings between the Mayor/ TfL and Uber be public or is that a silly question to ask?

  38. Re MWMBWLS,

    Of course not and given what will probably come out in the meetings Uber very probably wouldn’t want it unless are full subscribers to the there is no such thing as “bad publicity” view of things.

  40. Re Greg,

    Adding an extra Uber sized company tier (10k+ drivers) and fees going up because it is costing lots to regulate Uber.

  41. NGH

    Thank you – probably a fine example of the proverb ” people who live in glass houses should get undressed in the dark”?

  42. You seem to be confusing full time (FT) with full time equivalent (FTE) at a number of points within the article. FT, which is what I think you mean in the tables, would be the number of drivers actually working for Uber full time. This is not, incidentally, the same as the number of drivers for whom Uber represents the ‘main source of income’ as this group would include those doing some other smaller jobs so that Uber may represent as little as 50% of their income. FTE, on the other hand, represents the total numbers working were all the work to be done by drivers working full time. It thus, includes all the work done by part time drivers on the basis that each part time driver represents a fraction of a full time driver. So a workforce consisting of 1 full time driver, 3 working 50% of their time and 5 working 20% of their time makes up 3.5 FTE. The concept of a part time equivalent (PTE) is nonsensical as it would all depend on what proportion the part time equivalent was working. On the example I have given that would make 7PTE on a 50% basis or 17.5 PTE on a 20% basis. .

    This confusion between FT and FTE may well affect all your tables. If your estimate of 60% FTEs is right and the you actually mean FTE, then the total number of full time equivalent drivers for Uber is 24,000 and this will include all the part timers

  43. @Concord
    The reason there’s no VAT on an Uber invoice is that Uber assert passengers are buying their journey from the driver, who they assert is self-employed, and of course the drivers earn below the VAT threshold. Legally Uber aren’t selling us any kind of travel service (they assert). This might turn out not to be how HMRC views the transaction… Jo Maugham QC, a tax barrister has written about it here:
    https://waitingfortax.com/2016/12/20/thats-one-uber-vat-problem/
    and is actually pursuing a case against Uber relating to 56p of VAT on a journey he took. More details here:
    https://goodlawproject.org/uber-case/
    and here:
    https://goodlawproject.org/uber-case-update-2/
    He’s also started a second case against HMRC directly, so as to set off the vastly larger sum of £1.06 of VAT against the VAT he charges his clients, details here:
    https://waitingfortax.com/2017/06/30/uber-a-new-front/

    That’s more than enough VAT for now.

  44. @IMD/BMT
    I would just add that this is unlikely to go away as the alleged undeclared output VAT would amount to 20/120 i.e 16.66% of gross fares paid by passengers for at least four years to date plus surcharges plus interest as well as a hefty fine.
    As the Employment Tribunal has already ruled that drivers are Uber’s workers, the company is on thin ice.

    And the decision will not be based on formal contract terms but the Duck Test.

  45. I’d agree that (from what we can tell of the financials so far), Uber are on thin ice, Various threads of thin ice (1) with transfer pricing between jurisdictions (there should be a justifiable economic justification for booking money in a foreign entity: the costs of licensing the app probably qualifies but I can’t imagine an acceptable justification for booking revenue/costs associated with paying drivers for rides within London into a Netherlands entity, (2) VAT (as per the fascinating Court judgement linked above) and (3) employment taxes such as NI.
    However….. HMRC seem remarkably uninterested in pursuing such issues – just look at how they ignore an online shopping portal that claims transactions are in Luxembourg even when the goods are shipped from a warehouse in Milton Keynes…. Whether this is lack of interest within HMRC is due to lack of resources, or a lack of understanding of the issues (small pool within HMRC who understand these cross border flows?) or due to political pressure exerted on HMRC from on high – well I couldn’t say.

  46. Re Island Dweller,

    There have been steps taken this year against the Luxembourg based retailers on VAT with them now being held liable for marketplace /3rd party sellers not paying VAT and the retailers are beginning to clamp down on the big importers from China.

    HMRC typically take small steps to begin with to close of some of the exits then go in hard later when there are fewer escape routes.

    With potentially £100m+ in VAT a year at current estimate revenues it is well worth pursuing.
    The issue will possibly have to be addressed by March 2019 anyway.

  47. Hi thanks for an account

    The total. For uber driver Earning very low if you add expenses around £300 to £400 a week is came up around £7 or 10 grand years

    London taxi driver earning around £50 to £80 grand a years mostly cash they pay £20 week tax a week can you work it out their an account pls.

    Tfl boss earning around £550 grand plus bonus

    Which is the reality of life .

  48. If you are interested in looking at the economics of Uber at a deeper level than just London, I would recommend the series of articles written by Hubert Horan around a year ago. They can most easily be accessed here: https://medium.com/@michaelhaupt/this-is-such-an-important-read-its-worth-providing-the-link-1bbe9304a3a8. The central thesis is that Uber is only successful because it heavily subsidises the real costs of a journey – and that its long-term model is to drive out existing cab operators through lowballing, and then (as a virtual monopoly supplier) be able to raise prices to a profitable level – but that for various reasons this model is unlikely to be successful. If Uber have to start charging VAT and meet minimum wage (and other employment rights requirements), the costs of subsidising journeys will increase significantly, and I wonder whether their economic model will survive. I don’t know whether TfL consider the financial viability of cab operators as well as their compliance with laws and regulations as part of the licensing process – but if they did, it would be interesting to learn how Uber perform.

  49. @Nicholas A
    That business model is doomed to fail for a different reason, that is, were Uber to be successful in driving all other taxi operators out of business and then raise fares, there would be nothing to stop a new entrant (or new entrants) entering the market and charging much lower fares. The only stop on this would be in those cities which maintain an arbitrary limit on the number of taxi licenses, if Uber were able to secure a monopoly hold on these. Even then, raising fares would drive away business and make this a somewhat hollow victory.

  50. On the “40,000 drivers” number, it is quite likely that Uber are using a similar option to what many writers of open source software do and counting *downloads* of their app for drivers – a ‘possible’ drivers count rather than the number who are actually *using* the app regularly.

  51. @Nicholas A

    Uber London Ltd are paying corporation tax – ok, not very much, but some. This means they are making an operating profit. If they were burning capital to subsidise fares, they would be making an operating loss and therefore be paying no corporation tax. Also, the Dutch Sandwich operation through UBV would be unnecessary.

    @Alison W

    Counting downloads is often the best way you have of estimating usage if you’re an open source developer. You know it’s going to overestimate your number of users but you really don’t have any better number to offer. Where I worked in the past we offered free downloads of some software to work alongside our hardware products, and we really had no idea how many people were using it; after about a year we knew that there had been around 10 support tickets opened for it from unique users and around 20,000 downloads. We initially deduced that the number of users was between those figures, but later discovered that some university customers were making it available to students on their intranet so it could actually have been higher.

    Uber do have better usage figures. They know who is driving for them and how much ‘cos they’re paying them. I’d guess that they’ll define an ‘Uber driver’ as someone who has driven at least one journey in the last $period_of_time: it gives a big number but would probably be accepted as justified by the passenger on the Clapham Omnibus, defining someone who has never driven an Uber journey as a driver would probably not be and I find it difficult to believe that a company so steeped in PR would use a methodology that wouldn’t pass the smell test if it came out.

    There could easily be a churn of people who try driving for Uber, don’t get on with it and stop pretty quickly who don’t make up a large portion of the Uber driver pool at any one time but make up a significant number of driver accounts over a period of time. For example, if there are 15k long-term drivers who were in the Uber pool all year, and 500 per week who try it for a week and then give up: this would give us our 40k drivers over a 12-month period (15k long-term + 25k one-weekers), while at any one time there would only be 15,500 drivers, 97% of them being long-term ones.

  52. Something interesting about those polling numbers: margins of error quoted by polling companies are for the worst case when the population proportion is 1/2, so that the margin of error is (1.96/2) sqrt(1/n) sqrt((N-n)/(N-1)). If you reverse this to find the population size N you find 59992, suggesting ORB have been given 60k as a round number estimate of the total number of drivers.

  53. ULL’s turnover doesn’t stem from fares taken in London. That’s how the double-dutch thing works. Fare revenue never touches a jurisdiction where it might be meaningfully taxed. The sums add up better if you accept the figure of one million trips a week, as quoted by Reuters (https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-uber-competition-taxify/taxify-takes-on-uber-in-crowded-london-taxi-hailing-market-idUKKCN1BF1RK). I assume it’s an Uber figure, although I can’t find where.

  55. Re Concord,
    Careful spin wording strikes again – Using the App doesn’t actually mean they booked and used an Uber…
    They might just have looked to see what is available and decided not to due to surge pricing or lack of availability at the time!
    If the App has been updated in the last 3 months requiring a restart then that might even count as a use…

  57. The words from the judge are worth repeating in full. Very much not what Uber ants to hear.
    Wondering if this has implications for similar services, such as Addison Lee….

    Her Honour Judge Eady, who made the EAT judgement, said: “I am satisfied the ET did not err either in its approach or in its conclusions when rejecting the contention that the contract was between driver and passenger and that ULL was simply the agent in this relationship, providing its services as such to the drivers. Having rejected that characterisation of the relevant relationships, on its findings as to the factual reality of the situation, the ET was entitled to conclude there was a contract between ULL and the drivers whereby the drivers personally undertook work for ULL as part of its business of providing transportation services to passengers in the London area.

    “The claimants’ case was not put on the basis of an umbrella contract and the ET found they were only working under a contract to personally undertake work or services for ULL as and when they had the app switched on, were within the territory in which they were authorised to work, and were able and willing to accept assignments. Allowing that there could be gaps, when the drivers did not meet these requirements, the ET did not consider that to be fatal to their status as ‘workers’ when they did.

    “On the ET’s findings, I certainly see no difficulty with that conclusion in respect of those periods when a driver accepts a trip from ULL, the obligation assumed at that point is clear; the trip is assigned to that driver and there is an expectation that they will undertake the assignment personally, for which they will be paid at a rate laid down by ULL, or face possible penalties if they fail to do so.”

  58. EDITOR’S NOTE

    I’ve been waiting for this so I can finish the final part of our Uber series. It will go live on Monday. I would suggest avoiding discussing the findings until then.

  59. @John
    I can finish the final part of our Uber series.

    Be careful what you wish for 🙂
    I gather Uber have already announced they will appeal… so suspect that Monday’s post will (hopefully) be the penultimate part!

  60. Point of information.
    Any future appeal can ONLY be made on matters of fact & possibly (re)interpretation of the law as it stands.
    Uber’s, or anyone else’s opinions simply don’t count from here on. And in Tax/Employment cases (which this is) it is notoriously difficult to get judgements reversed, once past this point.

    IMHO, Uber are simply operating a delay-tactic to buy themselves a few more weeks of operation – like over the coming Yule period.

    [Previous two comments were not about the details of the judgment itself – so allowed. Any comments directly relating to it need to wait until Monday. PoP]

  61. @Greg
    My understanding is that an appeal can only be on matters of law – that is, that the EAT applied the law incorrectly – and can not address matters of fact unless the ET or EAT drew factual conclusions that no reasonable person could reach. Uber cannot introduce new matters of fact at this stage as this would merely beg the question ‘why didn’t you raise this earlier?’

  62. – unless “the facts change” ( See famous quote from J M Keynes on that subject! ) – i.e. there is some new & directly-relevant alteration – in which case they are allowable.
    But, it’s probably unlikely here, though.

  63. Indeed, and I suspect you don’t mean that the facts change – that they don’t – but circumstances change. However, the courts are ever only interested in the circumstances at the time that the case was brought. That things have changed since then is not material in terms of coming to a judgement, though it might be relevant in terms of the remedy or sanction to be applied. Thus, to take a very different example, a woman may complain that a company has a policy which discriminates against women. The courts will be interested in the policy that applied at the time of the complaint. The fact that the company may have changed the policy subsequently to remove the discrimination doesn’t alter the fact that there was discrimination at the time (if the case is supported).

  65. @SEAPAKE
    For the record, the linked article is well over a year old and refers to the accounts to 31 December 2015 – now not the latest.

    The statutory directors’ report appended to the accounts of Uber London Limited states that:

    “The Company’s principal activity is to support the Uber Group in providing on-demand services (as an intermediary) through mobile devices and web based requests.”

    The notes to the accounts attribute all turnover to this activity.

    Exactly how does this wording exclude driver commissions?

  66. @Nameless: Driver Commissions are collected by the Uber Group (in the shape, AIUI, of Uber BV), ULL then, as another member of Uber Group, receive income for what the services they provide – any relationship between that and driver commission is an internal matter for Uber Group.

    But what I do struggle with is the relationship between ULL’s stated principle activity (of supporting Uber Group) and its role as the holder the TfL Minicab Operator’s license: between Uber BV and ULL who should be providing supporting services for whom?

  67. @Jeremy. I think you allude to one of the issues that are behind tfl’s refusal to renew the Uber licence. If we read between many lines, isn’t it that Uber assured tfl that their business model complied with tfl rules (requirement to maintain booking office in London etc) but these various company accounts (where apparently all passenger / driver money is booked in NL) suggest that this ain’t so.

  71. @Greg

    This article states a number of factors that don’t relate to Uber:

    “Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission hailed the judgment as “one of biggest decisions ever made by the courts on workers’ rights”.

    “If you wear the uniform, if you drive the branded vehicle, if you only work for one business, you are employed. That means you are entitled to the appropriate protections and adjustments which go with the job, to enable you to work safely and productively. Everyone has the right to a healthy working environment and to that end businesses need to recognise their duties to their workers.”

    So this decision will not “almost-certainly” affect Uber. This will be up to lawyers and the courts to decide.

  72. There have been dozens of cases through the years on the status of workers, employees, contractors, self-employed, and so on. Issues of uniform, supply of vehicle, control of day to day schedule, the implications of being available if required at specified times, the documentation issued, and many, many other factors have featured in cases like the plumber in the news today. They have cropped up in many different industries and occupations, with different and sometimes bewildering, not to say, contradictory variations of outcome.

    As LBM says, it will (still) be up to courts (and tribunals) to decide on the merits of cases put before them. When the dust settles, this particular judgement may or may not be relevant and decisive in particular circumstances. No doubt business and union ‘experts’ will have to consider the ins and outs of the judgement and decide what if anything they need to do to different. With a bit of luck, legislators too will have a look and see what might need to be done to clarify the relevant law.

  73. I understand that the legal procedure is described as examen anatinum.

  74. In the BBC News reports about the Pimlico Plumber case, their analysis suggested that because this was a Supreme Court judgement it does create precedent – which is likely to influence the Uber case (and other gig employment disputes such as Deliveroo).
    Do we have a lawyer in the forum who perhaps understands the nuances better than me?

  75. All judicial decisions create precedent, which can be only be over-ruled by a higher court. (Or made irrelevant by Parliament changing the law)

    So a High Court ruling has to be followed in similar cases heard in the High Court or in any lower court, but the Supreme Court can overturn it.

    If a case relating to Uber is brought which has the same facts as the Pimlico one, the precedent has to be followed. But if the facts in this hypothetical Uber case are different from those the Supreme Court considered relevant (e.g was a uniform supplied/required, was the vehicle owned by the driver or the company, was the driver free to choose his own working hours), the verdict can also be different.

  76. @Island Dweller
    As a supreme court decision it certainly creates precedent As others have said, though, the issue is whether the decision on Pimlico Plumbers can be read directly across to Uber. What I find more interesting is that if the decision does apply to Uber, then it may well also apply to black cab drivers who are linked to radio circuits where their logos are on the side of the cab. Were this to be the case then much of the black cab industry would be doomed, either because it would entirely price itself out of the business and/or because numbers would start to shrink as radio circuits became difficult to justify financially.

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