Skip to main content

Uber set to enter Japan with first taxi-hailing pilot

Employees work inside Uber's Centre of Excellence (COE) office in Cairo, Egypt October 10, 2017. PHOTO: REUTERS

Employees work inside Uber's Centre of Excellence (COE) office in Cairo, Egypt October 10, 2017. PHOTO: REUTERS
Uber announced Tuesday it would start its first taxi-hailing pilot programme in Japan this summer, as it bids to break into a tough market in the world’s third-largest economy.
The US firm has found it difficult to penetrate the Japanese market, where risk-averse passengers prefer to stick to their high-quality traditional taxi service.
Hailing a taxi rarely takes more than a few seconds in major Japanese cities and there has been a relatively sluggish uptake of services like Uber, where consumers order an unlicensed car via a smartphone app.
But Uber said in a statement Tuesday it would launch a pilot programme this summer to hook up tourists and residents in the western Awaji island with available taxi drivers.

Uber said it aimed to provide local residents and tourists with “reliable and safe transportation” on the small island, which is home to just over 150,000 people.
“I’m very excited that Uber’s technology will contribute to further enhancing the transit environment of Awaji Island,” Brooks Entwistle, Uber’s Chief Business Officer, said in the statement, adding it will be “the first initiative of its kind in Japan”.
Uber is far from alone in targeting the Japanese taxi market, with Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and Japanese telecom firm SoftBank announcing a deal in early February to develop a taxi app in Japan.
SoftBank has heavily invested in the taxi market and recently took a 15 per cent stake in Uber.
And Sony has said it is planning a joint venture to offer artificial intelligence technology to six taxi operators, which currently own a total of 10,000 vehicles in Tokyo.

Coca-Cola's new machine lets you mix drinks using Bluetooth

The technology would use AI to predict demand for taxis and allow companies to more efficiently mobilise their resources.
Carmaker Toyota has also announced an investment of 7.5 billion yen ($70 million) in the JapanTaxi app, which says it is the biggest taxi-hailing app in Japan.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honda Launches the CR-V SUV in Pakistan

The 2018 Honda CR-V has been launched in Pakistan and it looks charming. Honda has finally launched the 2018 Honda CR-V in Pakistan. This Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) has proven to be pretty popular around the world with an average of 300,000 units sold annually. In Pakistan, the Honda CR-V is gaining the popularity and attention of local auto enthusiasts. Honda CR-V 2018 was recognized as ‘2018 Motor Trend SUV of the year’ recently as well. The international model of CR-V has these four variants: Honda CR-V LX (Standard), Honda CR-V EX, Honda CR-V EX-L, Honda CR-V Touring. The CR-V offers pretty great features when you look at it. Let's take a look at what Honda Compact Recreational Vehicle (CR-V) has to offer. Exterior Because of its shiny new sporty-looking exterior, the vehicle is placed in small sports utility vehicle’s category. The exterior, no doubt, makes you want to look twice as some modifications to the previous model have been made. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Develop your own game by learning these free courses

We recently recommended courses you should learn before you will launch your first startup in order to avoid some common mistakes. In Quick Tips today, we’ll recommend you some free courses that will help you make your first game and begin your career as a developer. Before we highlight the details of the courses you ought to take, here are some introductory courses which will prepare you to learn these courses more effectively; Java Programming Basics  – Prepare yourself for programming on Android and the Web Introduction to JavaScript  – Create animations and understand variables and strings. When you have gone through those courses above then proceed to ones given below to develop your first game: 1. Create a 2048 game in just 1 day For those who have zero experience in programming and don’t want to take the above courses, then enroll in this course from Udacity. You will learn the basics of HTML and CSS as well as their interaction with JavaScript. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

New iPhone X SE renders leave nothing to the imagination

iPhone SE 2 or whatever Apple may call it when it will be officially announced, looks quite close to becoming a reality. The Cupertino giant seems to be gearing up the launch of its next mid-range smartphone as the recent renders revealed by  Phone Arena  affirms the previous leak of  Olixar iPhone SE 2018  screen protector. Apple’s iPhone SE 2 that earlier surfaced in a hands-on video with a design quite identical to Apple’s tenth anniversary smartphone iPhone X, has recently been affirmed in renders by Phone Arena with quite an investigative report.  “The iPhone SE 2 is now rumored to have a similar bezel-less design, complete with a notch, just like the X, and is, indeed, closer to reality than ever before” , the report states. Nayatel Partners With Kaspersky to Offer Total Security to Its Users Apple’s iPhone X SE has been previously spotted in sketches posted by  BGR , which shows that the smartphone may featu...
Post a Comment
Read more