Rideshare company Uber has gotten enough signatures to offer its services and begin working on marketing itself in Reykjavík, reports Viðskiptablaðið.
Uber uses a smartphone application to facilitate rides between riders and drivers. Customers use the app to request rides and track their reserved vehicle’s location. Even the payment is done through the app and is usually cheaper than traditional taxi services.
Predictably, this has lead to protests from taxi drivers, taxi companies and representative bodies who believe that ridesharing companies are examples of unfair business practices and compromise passenger safety.
In fact just this week New Dehli banned the service after a driver assaulted a female passenger.
Sæmundur Kristján Sigurlaugsson, CEO of Icelandic taxi company Hreyfill believes that deregulation of the taxi industry in Iceland could lead increased criminality.
“You can just see it happening, man,” said Sæmundur. “What do we keep hearing, with the rapes and this and that and black market antics. Aren’t there loads of examples of men trying to lure women into their cars at the weekend?”
Uber currently operates in 250 cities across 50 countries, though it has been banned in Germany and Nevada recently as well.
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