Uber’s arrival in Yorkshire will have substantial impact, says Arrow chairman

David Richmond, chairman of Arrow Cabs, said he expects to see protests by unsettled drivers in response to new entrant Uber.

The US company launched its UberX product in Leeds on Friday, its third English city behind London and Manchester.

Uber cuts out the middleman by enabling users to book and pay for a private hire car directly through a mobile phone app.

The business is barely four years old, but operates in 223 cities across the world and has a valuation of more than $18bn with backing from heavyweight investors like Google and Goldman Sachs.

But its phenomenal rise has provoked multiple disputes with regulators and taxi firms around the world.

Mr Richmond told The Yorkshire Post: “Until it settles down I think Uber will have a substantial impact in terms of unrest within the industry.”

The unrest will generate publicity, which will lead to more downloads of the Uber mobile app, he said.

Mr Richmond added: “There will be a movement of drivers. Drivers will become unsettled. Some will do go-slows, demonstrations, all sorts of different things, all giving Uber oxygen.”

But within a few months, the market will settle and Uber will be a medium-sized firm, operating mainly in the city centre, said Mr Richmond.

Uber launched in Manchester at the beginning of the year. UK head Jo Bertram told The Yorkshire Post last week that the city has been one of the firm’s fastest-growing ever, but would not discuss figures.

Mr Richmond said he believed that Uber has around 90 cars in Manchester, which, like Leeds, is a very different market to London, where Uber launched two years ago.

He said: “When you speak to the majority of taxi companies, they see Uber as a threat to their very existence. The Arrow view is the opposite. Arrow welcomes Uber to the city.”

Mr Richmond said Uber will help his firm by making credit card payments via mobile app the norm in an industry largely driven by cash.

He said the Uber pricing model lacks transparency, unlike Arrow, which yesterday launched a new fixed-fare app.

Mr Richmond added that the UK private hire market is more sophisticated than the US and has seen greater investment in better booking and despatch systems.

He added: “Companies like ours are embedded in the community. We live here, we employ people here, we support charities here. You have somebody to phone, somebody to speak to, somebody to complain to.

“When it comes down to it, people want to deal with a local business rather than a faceless multinational.”

Mr Richmond acquired Arrow a decade ago after selling his firm Scorpio Print Finishing for an undisclosed sum. He was managing director of Leeds United in 2004.

Mr Richmond built Arrow into one of the region’s largest private hire players with 500 cars and contracts to serve Leeds Bradford, Manchester and East Midlands airports.

The private hire sector is highly fragmented in the UK, with a patchwork of licensing authorities with different regulations, making it hard to establish large firms with economies of scale.

The Leeds market alone has around 4,000 licensed drivers.