In New York City, where Uber and Lyft dominate the ride-hail app market, a newcomer is trying to break in with a model where riders pay less and drivers make more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kay Woo says he has recruited more than 53,000 drivers for his Taxi and Limousine Commission-licensed ride-hail app, Throo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woo is the CEO of Throo\u2019s Singapore-based parent company, TADA. He has been visiting a LaGuardia Airport wait lot trying to convince drivers to sign up, promising they\u2019ll make more money than with Uber and Lyft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Drivers like Stephan Joseph say Uber and Lyft take too much commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou buy your own car, you pay your own insurance, and then you see and you pay taxes, and then you see people taking everything, which isn\u2019t fair,\u201d Joseph said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woo says Throo has no commission, and rides cost less than they do on the other two apps.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe charge a $1 fee for the drivers. That\u2019s it,\u201d Woo said. \u201cSo we are actually creating the driver network, and then when we create the volume, we should be able to manage to make a profit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woo says Throo is already profitable in other markets including Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Thailand after launching in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe, as a platform and technology service, we are actually defining drivers as our customer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’re helping them to run their business with our software.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a soft launch on June 10, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, or TLC, says 2,047 drivers made 2,547 total trips in June for Throo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it has a long way to go to compete with Uber and Lyft, which combined for over 20 million trips that month.<\/p>\n
Throo also has what it says is another positive for drivers: open communication between drivers and the company to resolve conflicts and complaints from passengers.<\/p>\n
Uber and Lyft are currently suing to stop a city law from taking effect that would mandate due process for drivers in those situations.<\/p>\n
Other apps have tried to break up the Uber and Lyft duopoly, like Via, Gett and Revel, but they didn\u2019t have the right business model, according to former TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of those people had the resources and the know-how,” Daus said. “This is a real company that is from Singapore, it’s well-financed.”<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this takes off, and the drivers like it, then you’re going to see the other platforms offering a subscription service, too, and then the model will change,\u201d Daus added \u2014 the subscription charge being the $1-per-ride fee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NY1 reached out to both Uber and Lyft for comment. Only Uber responded, saying in part that legitimate competition makes the industry better.<\/p>\n
Woo believes his app will.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we should think differently to disrupt the existing market,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if we keep on following the same way of doing it, there’s no chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In New York City, where Uber and Lyft dominate the ride-hail app market, a newcomer is trying to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1016015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,7448,23953,38599,405,403,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,37965,52,26304,11900,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-1016014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-app-traffic-and-transit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-samantha-liebman","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-transit","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117136404368908744","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1016015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}