Cape Town - Taxi service Uber hopes a social media campaign it launched this week will help it secure vehicle-operating permits for its drivers in Cape Town.
Uber started the online PR campaign after earlier reporting that 200 cars used by its drivers had been impounded here since the start of the year for operating without licences.
On Thursday, the province is set to decide whether 201 Uber applicants will be awarded vehicle-operating permits, allowing them to operate.
Uber hopes the campaigns will show the Provincial Regulatory Entity, which will make the decision, how popular its service is here.
And the result probably depends on the City of Cape Town.
“If city supports Uber_RSA’s applications, licences will be issued,” Premier Helen Zille tweeted.
The first leg of Uber’s goodwill push was an online petition , and the second the Twitter hashtag #CTNeedsUber . Both were launched on Thursday.
Uber Africa spokeswoman Samantha Allenberg said in an e-mail: “The intention (is) to show policymakers that citizens of Cape Town want Uber.”
The petition, which says the impounding is “threatening job creation and preventing our Uber partners from offering safe and reliable rides”, had exceeded with almost 20 000 signatures by Monday morning.
The Twitter hashtag #CTNeedsUber , meanwhile, started trending here, with a number of personalities expressing their support.
Trend analyst Dion Chang urged people to sign the petition: “Users love it but regulators don’t get it,” he tweeted.
Former Miss South Africas Jo-Ann Strauss and Melinda Bam also tweeted the hashtag, with Bam saying it was “the most helpful mode of public transport” in Cape Town and Joburg.
Even the City of Cape Town’s media manager Priya Reddy took to the platform to say the city supported Uber’s South African drivers.
NO CLEAR ROUTE
In an earlier media release, the taxi service said despite more than a year of discussions with regulators at city and provincial level, there was “still no clear route to obtaining vehicle-operating permits for Uber driver partners”.
It said while it had been left behind, operating licences had been granted to “large metered taxi fleet operators, favouring these incumbent operators”.
In response, the provincial Transport and Public Works department said the 201 applications from Uber drivers were under consideration.
Transport MEC Donald Grant said this took time as the province had to “apply itself to each and every application”.
“This is as important for commuter safety as it is for the responsible management of the meter taxi industry.
“It is essential that operations within the industry are regularised to promote fairness and to avoid conflict.”
Grant said Uber had to apply for the same licences as metered taxi operators.
“The National Land Transport Act is clear in what it requires when public transport operators are operating a service for monetary gain, and that is a valid operating licence.
“Normal applications for an operating licence must be made as prescribed by the law, for operators looking to provide a public transport service.”
If the National Land Transport Act were changed to accommodate business models such as Uber’s, drivers would be able to apply for new types of licences.
Grant denied the province was dragging its feet on the applications, saying the provincial government and the City of Cape Town supported “new and innovative ways of providing safe and reliable public transport”.
Weekend Argus