Uber’s Rival Lyft Had A Meeting With Transport For London To Expand
After the recent clashes and ban on Uber’s services in London, its closest competitor Lyft U.S. based ride-hailing services have been repeatedly met with officials in Transport For London (TfL). It seems Lyft is expanding its wings to fly over the city of London in order to expand internationally and London is the market where it can grow fast.
Transport For London (TfL) is the local regulator who oversees taxi and private hire car operators, TfL published the details of meeting with Lyft officials in response to UK government freedom of information request that was made in July.
If Lyft is successful in gaining access to London then Uber would face its first strong competitor in the Europe, Uber’s is currently holding its breath to get the renewal license which is denied by the TfL lately, Uber also said, “It would respond to the TfL decision and fight back to overturn the decision made by TfL.”
Lyft is a well-financed company, raised roughly $2.6 billion in investment including a round of $600 million in April according to CrunchBase a funding tracker, one of the key investors is renowned automaker General Motors.
Transport regulator TFL said on Friday that it will not renew the license of Uber to operate in London for so many good reasons concerning the corporate culture, user’s safety, corporate social responsibility.
TfL further said, Uber is unable to conduct proper background checks on drivers, the company has internal corporate culture which promotes criminal offenses and discrimination, the public security and safety are at stake due to their inefficient corporate culture and social responsibility.
On the other hand, Lyft has already revealed that it is willing to expand outside the United States, “Lyft planned to go international in the near future”, said CEO Logan Green while talking to Associated Press in August.
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However, Lyft official declined to comment on the expansion its timing and the details of meeting with TfL London. Lyft currently operates in more than 600 cities covering almost 95% of the US population.
According to the details from the past, four members of TfL met Lyft’s Chief Strategy Officer Raj Kapoor and director of international government relations Michael Masserman in December 2016. Lyft presented the details of business model in that meeting.
Subsequent follow-up took place between TfL’s director of Transport Innovation Michael Hurwitz and the Lyft executives Masserman and Kapoor over the telephonic conversation in December and January according to the TfL documents.
Another meeting after this follow-up was held in New York in March between their echelons.
This could be seen as an important strategic move between two business partners in order to restrict some players put more control over the business and market. But Hurwitz said in a statement, “We regularly meet companies around the world about innovation which could improve transport in London.
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