{"id":478908,"date":"2026-05-11T09:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T09:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478908\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T09:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T09:09:13","slug":"driver-run-irish-taxi-apps-aim-to-challenge-the-dominance-of-the-markets-big-players-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478908\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver-run Irish taxi apps aim to challenge the dominance of the market\u2019s big players \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rising commissions being charged by the big taxi app platforms and the introduction of flat fare offerings by Uber<\/a> late last year have given impetus to local efforts to organise alternatives, with two Dublin-based operations \u2013 Tap a Taxi and Hola Taxi \u2013 saying they have been recruiting significant numbers of drivers in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Tap a Taxi is the result, one of its founders says, of so many drivers bemoaning their growing dependence on the big multinationals during protests against Uber\u2019s flat-fare move late last year.<\/p>\n

David Knox, a long-time driver himself, and six others decided to come up with an alternative. Within a couple of months, they had the app up and running. Less than two months further on, they claim to have signed up about 10 per cent of Dublin\u2019s nearly 18,000 drivers. <\/p>\n

Hola Taxi, meanwhile, has been in existence for several years but says it has also significantly increased recruitment in recent months as the bigger firms \u201cpushed drivers too far\u201d, according to one of its directors, Lar Kelly. <\/p>\n

He says it has about 1,500 drivers, with the number now growing steadily. <\/p>\n

The two have somewhat different approaches to generating the revenue required to cover operating costs. Tap a Taxi charges drivers a flat \u20ac120 fee per month while Hola Taxi opts for a \u20ac1 commission on every fare.<\/p>\n

Neither charges anything to customers and both avoid the use of tech or priority booking fees. The upshot, they suggest, is that the fare paid should be the metered price and all, or almost all, of it will go to the driver.<\/p>\n

That compares with commissions of between 15 and 25 per cent charged by Freenow<\/a>, and fares offered by Uber\u2019s fixed model that drivers said could result in them getting anything up to 30 per cent below the metered fare. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 26 years at this,\u201d says Knox, \u201cand it\u2019s not the cash cow people think it is. It\u2019s very long hours. It\u2019s antisocial hours. It can be a dangerous job at times. And none of us can afford to take a 25 per cent pay cut in this day and age.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Taxi industry turning into \u2018wild west\u2019 as tech firms seek to take over, TDs hearOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Crucially, both local operators encourage drivers to take part-ownership of the companies, with Tap a Taxi actually requiring it in the form of a \u20ac300 equal share buy-in, payable in instalments. Hola Taxi offers the option for \u20ac100. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery driver is a shareholder, that\u2019s the idea,\u201d says Knox, \u201cand the big difference is that we have funded ourselves so we\u2019re not worried about private investors looking to capitalise on the business by squeezing drivers or customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knox and the other Tap a Taxi founders are engaged in a determined recruitment drive at present. The app, he said on Wednesday, is live in Dublin, Meath, Louth and Wicklow, but there were trips planned over the weekend to Galway, Sligo and Cork to talk to more drivers.<\/p>\n

Achieving some sort of critical mass is essential if the new entrants are to get a real foothold in a market dominated by Lyft\u2019s Freenow, Uber and Bolt, all part of big overseas companies with strong name recognition and very deep pockets.<\/p>\n

Research by the National Transport Authority<\/a> (NTA) in 2024 suggested almost 90 per cent of drivers in Dublin used at least one app (many juggle two or more), with 50 per cent of them saying apps provided 90 per cent or more of their work.<\/p>\n

At the time, the research suggested, Freenow had more than nine in every 10 app-using drivers, with Uber at about 40 per cent and Bolt far behind that. <\/p>\n

How things have changed is hard to be precise about, with some anecdotal evidence of drivers dropping one company or another because of the increased commissions, the flat fares or a separate issue with Uber relating to the need to pay VAT on the commissions because the firm is registered in the Netherlands. But the collective dominance certainly persists.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will go where the work is,\u201d says Kelly. \u201cThat\u2019s the reality. If the multinationals have more work are you going to be there for us? Because it\u2019s all about what you can earn in the day. So you might forget about Hola.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we need to get over that and that\u2019s about trying to change a mindset of fellas, saying to stick with this, advertise it, give out the cards, all of that sort of stuff. But that can only go so far. If you don\u2019t have the work and he gets offered an Uber job, or a Freenow one, he\u2019s going to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so being able to get taxis to people who want them quickly is key and that requires large numbers of sign-ups. Having the work to give drivers in the first place poses a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario.<\/p>\n

Knox believes the absence of significant commissions will give the new entrants some areas of advantage, such as late on weekend nights when there is a general perception that many drivers switch off their apps because street work on which they take the full fare is relatively abundant, or with corporate customers who could potentially save on commissions.<\/p>\n

Both men also believe the system operated by the established platforms under which the drivers are constantly ranked, with those who do the most jobs effectively offered the most work, has created a pool of drivers ripe for recruitment.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Taxi drivers are going to war with Uber. There won\u2019t be any winnersOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of pressure to keep your numbers up,\u201d says Kelly, \u201cbecause if they drop you won\u2019t get the work. And so you see drivers passing by people on the street to do jobs provided by the app because that guy on the street won\u2019t be there tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knox agrees, suggesting that drivers often feel trapped by the algorithm even as others benefit from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a driver\u2019s perspective,\u201d he says of the Tap a Taxi model, \u201cit\u2019s a fair, transparent system. It\u2019s a low monthly fee … the price of a cup of coffee per day and you can do as many jobs as you want. There\u2019s no hoops to jump through. And the closest driver will always be up for the job.\u201d <\/p>\n

Both men suggest the NTA needs to look again at regulations that are based on the 2014 Taxi Regulation Act, with Kelly suggesting that if the flat fare system is allowed to persist, \u201cthey might as well throw the Act in the bin now\u201d. <\/p>\n

He also believes the number of drivers and easing of restrictions on whether they work has also led to oversupply in cities at times and played into the multinationals\u2019 hands. <\/p>\n

Uber says the set fare in its model is offered to the driver. It is their willingness to accept it that makes the whole process compliant as only fares higher than shown on the meter are actually prohibited. But the drivers contend people only go along with it because they need to keep working for Uber.<\/p>\n

That might be about to change but none of the overseas players is likely to take the challenge lying down. <\/p>\n

The prospects of the home-grown challengers might be better also if there was only one of them. Brand identity is a big factor in this business.<\/p>\n

The NTA recently ran a consultation on the dispatch operators system and received more than 500 submissions. Those who suggest the multinationals are undermining the living of drivers here rather than developing the wider business, as the companies contend, will hope the regulators might be persuaded to intervene. <\/p>\n

Ironically, the emergence of Irish players offering an alternative approach just might persuade those who set the rules that the market is working well enough by itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rising commissions being charged by the big taxi app platforms and the introduction of flat fare offerings by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[88086,79,18,209740,209741,19,17,209742,29639],"class_list":{"0":"post-478908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-bolt","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-freenow","12":"tag-hola","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-tapataxi","16":"tag-uber"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116555164725530375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}