A GROUP of cabbies in Dublin have come together to create their own app to take on the big taxi firms because they believe drivers are footing unfare bills.
German taxi giant FreeNow charges 15 per cent of a fare, while US app Uber pockets 12 per cent from the total bill.
Dublin taxi drivers Kamal Gill and Lar Kelly felt these big companies were taking too much from fares and have started their own app, Hola, that charges cabbies just €1 per fare.
Kamal — who has been working as a cab driver in Dublin for more than 10 years — had the idea for Hola last year, before teaming up with Lar. They were also helped by Alex Andrei and Yasr Rana.
Lar, who has been a taxi driver in the Fair City for more than 30 years, believes drivers are being taken for a ride by apps that now dominate the industry.
He told The Irish Sun: “What Hola really is is a community. That’s what we have in our mind. We don’t want to treat drivers like contractors. This is a community that is driving the service. For drivers, by drivers.
“This is basically to give drivers a platform to allow them to advertise to whoever they want. The commission then is only €1.
“For example, I was speaking to a driver at a rank the other day and he said he paid FreeNow €120 in commissions last week — that’s 120 jobs on our app.”
The pair claim to have close to 1,000 drivers signed up to Hola, which is beginning to build a customer base around the capital.
Kamal came up with the idea of taking on the big players in the industry after seeing taxi drivers complain about how much they were being charged for their work.
He told us: “Drivers will be on WhatsApp or Facebook groups giving out about FreeNow or Uber about how they are over overcharging the commissions.
“They always say, ‘We need something of our own. We need a platform where we have our say and we decide what we do.’
“Then one of my friends said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’. So I just went and did it and then I started meeting with people about it and a friend put me together with Lar.”
For customers, Hola looks and feels similar to other taxi-booking apps where you can pre-book or search instantly for a ride.
People can pay for their journey through the app, with drivers then kicking back €1 per booking to the Hola team to run the service.
‘MAINTAINS COMPETITIVENESS’
Uber Ireland said they welcome the addition of Hola to the market.
They told us: “At Uber, we strive to maintain competitive pricing within our industry. We welcome the introduction of Hola Taxi which maintains competitiveness in the Irish market.”
“What Hola really is is a community. That’s what we have in our mind. We don’t want to treat drivers like contractors. This is a community that is driving the service. For drivers, by drivers.”
Lar Kelly
A spokesperson for FreeNow said they pay their drivers bonuses to reward them for their work.
They said: “Rewarding our hard-working driver partners is a priority for FreeNow.
“Drivers regularly receive bonuses in their weekly payments depending on the volume of trips they’ve completed at peak times.”
