And Finally, It's Goodnight From Me...And It's Goodnight From Him

You get nothing in this life given to you on a plate. That's why you did the knowledge. You had to work and fight for that badge.

Now most drivers just sit back and do nothing but complain that no one is fighting for them.

It's no good blaming the orgs because when they've called mass demos, they've been lucky to see 20% of drivers turn up.

When Action4Cabbies asked for £20 donations...only 4,000 out of 22,000 pledge money.

Drivers complain about the LTDA and yet when asked to go to a branch meeting and vote new life into the org, only 50 drivers out of 10,000 showed up. 

Every night I see drivers sitting behind touts on our ranks, young fit drivers who do and say nothing. 

You've allowed small groups of individuals to take full advantage of your apathy, credit card companies and An App company have stuck their greedy fingers into your money bags and are helping themselves to part of your earning, and you say nothing. 

Drivers who have never complained face to face with their org reps, now think it's a great time to join in with the enemy Union, chaired by a man who rides round reporting Taxis for over ranking and who wanted to drive an AddVan through London advertising the exploits of John Worboys 

And now it's nearly all over, they say "stop with the gloom and doom" while sleep walking into a one tier system that is most certainly coming.

I predicted years ago that when the end battle came, all our leaders would have left the battlefield....I was wrong, it's the army who are deserting....

Well good night from me and God bless, it's all yours.

            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First they licensed Uber, and I did not speak out—
Because I was working.

Then the Trade Unionists and Taxi orgs called a mass demo, and I did not go—
Because it was busy and I had to work.

Then, after realising our largest org was doing nothing, two drivers stood up shouting and rebellious...but they were expelled—I did and said nothing, just carried on working.

Then they asked for members to go to a branch meeting to vote against Judas and his WAGs — but I didn't go as I was working 

When they finally took my Badge and Bill and handed it to an Uber driver— there was no one left to fight for me.

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The Great British Bus 'Rip Off' Shareholders Raking In Millions : Profit Put Before Public Safety !

The great British bus 'rip off' with shareholders raking in millions while services are axed

How Britain's bus passengers are being taken for 'rip off' ride

Britain's five big bus companies have given their shareholders £181million a year in dividends while services have been slashed and fares doubled, the Mirror can reveal.

Research by campaign group We Own It has revealed the payouts by region with London and the South East seeing the most cash siphoned off to shareholders.

The big five bus companies: Arriva, Stagecoach, First, Go-Ahead, and National Express, average £1.81 billion over 10 years and researchers say the real figure could be even higher as it only includes the major bus operators, not the smaller operators.

The £181m figure is more than double the amount of money that has been cut from local authority supported bus funding since 2010.

Cuts, amounting to £74m a year have been blamed for 2,400 bus routes disappearing in England and Wales alone.

Bus companies are making huge dividends (Photo: age fotostock RM)

Meanwhile, bus fares have doubled in real terms since buses were deregulated and privatised in the 1980s.

The South East is the region that is ripped off the most, with at least £48.7m a year going as dividends.

London, often praised for its bus system that many people think is publicly run, leaks at least £40m a year to shareholders.

Other regional dividends include; North East (£30.7m), North West (£23m), Midlands (£16.5), South West (£3.8m), Wales (£2m) and East Anglia (£1.2m).

The research, using the firm’s own published accounts, also uncovered some areas where bus companies are making over 15% profit and sometimes profit rates were as high as 20%.

Busways, a subsidiary of Stagecoach which provides bus services in Tyne and Wear recorded profit rates of 20.29% in its most recent accounts.

The South East is the region that is ripped off the most, with at least £48.7m a year going as dividends

The research comes as the government plans to debate the Bus Services Bill, where it is expected that they will continue to attempt to force through a complete ban on councils setting up new public bus companies.

The Lords voted against the ban when the Bill came before the Lords last year, but it is expected that the government will attempt to reinsert the clause as it goes through the House of Commons.

Campaigners will hand in a petition signed by more than 20,000 people on Thursday (9th March) at Westminster, calling on the government not to ban new public bus companies.

There are 11 publicly owned bus companies in Britain and they often win awards. Nottingham City Transport was recently awarded Best UK Bus Operator for the fourth time.

These public bus companies often provide high levels of investment in services because they are publicly owned.

Reading Buses is able to invest an additional £3m a year in the bus network (around 12-15% of its annual turnover) because it doesn’t pay out dividends to private shareholders.

London Bendy Bus

If the ban on new public bus companies is forced through it could scupper the chances of places like Bristol, whose Mayor, Marvin Rees, is exploring setting up a city-wide bus company.

Cat Hobbs, Director at We Own It, said: “Our new research shows bus services in Britain are being run like a racket.

“We are told that privatisation brings competition, but just like we see on the railway, it’s often a virtual monopoly, with huge companies benefiting from government subsidies whilst also taking passengers for a ride.

“People are right to ask how good could our buses be, or would my route have been cut, if we weren’t lining the pockets of shareholders?”

“Buses are an essential public service that people need to visit their families and friends, or get to work. They should be run in the interests of passengers, not shareholders.

“Those places where buses are publicly-owned, like Reading and Nottingham, show it’s possible to stop dividends trickling away, so that profits are reinvested in the services people use.

“We are calling on the government to abandon its plans to force through this ridiculous ban on new public bus companies so that other councils can dream of copying the best bus operators in the UK.

A Stagecoach Group spokesman said: "Commercial bus routes run by operators outside London have remained relatively stable in the past decade despite a very challenging economy. In contrast, council-funded routes have been cut by 26% in metropolitan areas and by 40% in non-metropolitan areas.

"Dividends to shareholders provide a return on their investment in helping fund significant improvements for customers. Stagecoach has invested more than £1billion in around 6,500 more accessible buses and coaches for local communities in the last 10 years, as well as offering the lowest bus fares in Britain. Our transport services also support around 35,000 direct jobs in the UK and thousands more in the supply chain."

A spokesman for First Bus said: "We share the aim, alongside our local authority partners, to get more people out of their cars and using buses. The current industry model works as bus companies like us bear running costs, take revenue risk in operating services and can invest appropriately in our fleets, whereas alternatives would require substantially higher levels of public sector investment.

"First Bus has invested £455m in 2,500 new buses over the last six years as well as developing technology such as contactless and mobile ticketing and improving the punctuality of our buses. Additionally, industry-wide market conditions continue to be challenging with mixed high street trading and congestion facing bus operators today.”

A spokesperson for Arriva said “Arriva is a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, and since being acquired in 2010 has not paid any dividends to our parent and has retained profits to fund investment back into the business. In fact since being acquired in 2010, Arriva has invested £585m into our UK bus and train businesses."

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Final Nail In Our Coffin? ... Uber Given NHS TaxiCard Account.

Every day I wake up to be greeted by another nail in our coffin. Our readers ask why we don't concentrate on the good news...well truth is, there isn't any.

Today on LBC news, we were told that UBER would now be aiding a NHS service , starting with 5 hospitals in the Barts NHS trust along with Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon....who will all be using uber assist and uber wav. 

The deal hasn't been done directly with Uber, but with Cera who will then outsource the work to uber. 

This will dramatically reduce Taxicard use considerably, currently undertaken by Licensed Taxi drivers, the majority of whom are suburban licence holders. This will almost certainly kill off the suburban Taxi service. 

More than that, this also points to the fact that its more than likely a fait-accomplite and uber will be re-licensed, come what may. 

So they've finally taken away the disabled account completely, question is ... Do we now need an expensive wheelchair accessible vehicle. 

Will Uber Assist and Uber WAV be given access to the parts on London the licensed Taxi trade are to be banned from, i.e. The Tottenham Court Road scheme, the Bank Junction exclusion zone etc. 

Will they be allowed to use bus lanes?

Will the shelved TfL plan raised by Ed Thompson where WAV PHV would share mainline taxi ranks resurface? 

Look at an UBER hospital job. £6 

How the hell can we compete with this?

The saddest fact of all is that this compan is also offering metered Taxis !!!

So, why are we currently having to pay in excess of £ 45k for a WAV?

What they at saying in Social media:

The sad truth is the trade will roll over again. As predicted, all our leaders have left the battle field. 

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WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WHY and WHO ... By Lee Ward

Let’s look at Capping of Licenses

I was a bugger when I was younger, for example, in Maths class when they told me that 1 + 1 = 2 I wanted to know why, who said so… I mean, how do we know that a single unit is actually called one and not called a unicorn?

Then a teacher called Mr Heinz gave me a book to read by Rudyard Kipling called The Elephant’s Child and I learned a great thing from it but I am still certain he gave me the book because he was sick to death of retrieving his eraser for the black board that he constantly threw at me…. Great times, you could even call it a black board and no one tutted..

What I learned was this;

I keep six honest serving-men: 

(They taught me all I knew) 

Their names are What, Where, When, How, Why and Who…

You see, what I love about this is that anything that was told to me from that day, and especially things that I didn’t grasp, or understand or even simply believe what I was being told, I had the weapons to get the answers that I needed, those small, simple but extremely powerful six words WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WHY and WHO.

You cannot answer a question when it starts with these words with a simple yes, no or because I said it is…oh no, you have to explain and explanations are what helps to dissect and understand a problem.

So, the problem we have is a saturation of the market and this is where I got my friends to help me;

What is the Problem?

The market is saturated.

Why is it saturated?

The market is saturated because too many licenses are issued.

Who is issuing the licenses?

​The Local Authorities are issuing the licenses.

Why are they not capping the licenses?

​Because they are not allowed to.

Where does it say that they cannot cap licenses?

​In the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 Section 48

When was this decided?

During the debate in the House of Commons and Lords when the Act was in a state of a Bill.

How can we change this?

​It can be changed by proving that the Act is no longer fit for purpose and that the reasoning behind the decision to cap licenses is no longer valid.

Well, there you go, my six friends to the rescue again. But how do we find out why this decision not to cap licenses occurred and what was the reasoning behind it?

We use the power of the internet and the great pages of Hansard, where we can re-read the arguments and discussion while turning a Bill into an Act.

By the way, they don’t half talk a lot in the Lords and the Commons, I had to read through approximately 60,000 words to find the information that I needed, but by reading it all I also found information that I require for something else, so all’s good.

Anyway, back in 1976, June 29th in the House of Lords a certain Lord Airedale said…

In the case of taxi drivers I suppose there is an ingrained, well established principle that only a certain number of taxis are licensed in a particular area...

This shows that even way back then they accepted that Taxis should be capped because the local area understood the supply and demand, well that’s a good thing and a good place to start. 

He then went on to say;

... But it would be a new departure if the same restriction by numbers of private hire operators were to be operated by district councils, and the question arises as to whether a district council is well placed to gauge the number of private hire vehicles that a particular district can accommodate…

Now I can see where he is coming from and what he is saying, but they did not have the perfection of Unmet Demand Survey’s back then, and even if they did, I am confident that they were nowhere near as accurate as they are today. But then he went and spoilt it, although we do have the power of hindsight I guess...

If a potential private hire vehicle operator thinks that he can make a living by running his one car, which is a good suitable car, as a private hire car, then who are the district council to say, " We, in our wisdom, have decided that the market is saturated in this district and that you will not succeed if you are licensed to use your car as a private hire car "? 

I simply do not believe that this would be a proper method of approach by a district council in deciding whether to issue a licence, and I trust that it will be accepted that sheer numbers will not be the criterion in any case whether or not a district council issues a licence.

Now I guess we have a bit of a stumbling block here, because lets be frank about this, Government are more than happy to have fewer people off the unemployed register and on the self-employed register, but fail to mention that these same people (and now people who were in the Taxi and Private Hire sector before saturation) are claiming Benefits to make ends meet, because that’s what saturation does when demand does not change, it lowers the takings/profits/wages of the workers.

One of the problems from the discussion on whether to put a cap on Private Hire was that back in 1976, many of the drivers were part time workers, and they even referenced this in their debate, but that is not the case anymore. You simply cannot have the over heads of a car, insurance, fuel, maintenance, road tax, base/radio rent or commission and expect to earn a wage by just working a few hours at the weekend for beer money, it’s impossible.

They did however reference this...

After all, district councils are not empowered to restrict the number of shoe shops in a particular area. If they were, I very much doubt whether there would be nearly as many shoe shops in Oxford Street as there are. Presumably they all make a living. 

And my friends, I think that THIS is where we get a change in this Act, because a shoe shop will not have an effect on PUBLIC SAFETY, apart from some stupid designs, but that’s not the main issue.

As a trade, we are all now having to work longer hours to cover the overheads mentioned and that is a public safety issue if ever there was one.

And this is where it gets even better, not only for London, but the whole of the country.

When EVERY Licensing area has an Unmet Demand Survey to determine the amount of vehicles that are licensed, it is based on the vehicles both licensed AND working in that area, therefore drivers cannot get licensed in one area to work in another, because the Unmet Demand Survey would become flawed for each area.

Don’t start screaming that all those cars will come back to London, or one of the area’s that have been as guilty as the TfL in issuing licenses, they won’t, and this is why.

These same drivers cannot be arsed to pass the local tests, so they are NOT going to commute a hour or more a day to work in an area that would be saturated beyond doubt, they are not that type of person, and to be honest, I see an automatic cull in the drivers who are not in this for a career but for a fast buck (well, that fast buck backfired).

You see, a career driver cares about the trade, and the customers. They respect the authorities that they are licensed by, they respect each other even…to a degree.

Add this to the requirement that I believe should be an industry standard which was

Enhanced DBS check

• Driving Standards test

• Local knowledge test

• Intended use policy

• Applicants to LIVE within 20 mile of the area to be licensed

• NVQ or BTEC Professional Taxi & Private Hire Driver Qualification

• Group 2 Medical

• Proof of eligibility to work within the UK

• English Language Test to level CEFR C1 minimum

• Maths Test to level OCR Functional Skills minimum

 

Note:

I have taken out the section that stated to LIVE within 20 miles because as a previous comment mentioned, it is difficult to live and work in or close to London, my bad…Yorkshire thinking on my behalf lads…

 

So, to recap…

 

We introduce the requirements of all drivers, we put a cap on all licenses with immediate effect until the Unmet Demand Surveys are in, and if an area has too many licenses already, then the suspension of applications is made until nature takes its course with the licenses already active.

 

Like I said further up, I am not an educated man, and I respect any suggestions or comments, I would even be more than happy for any Organisation to take this and run with it, but it’s a starting point to take forward, and not just a load of drivers moaning that the job is fooked…

 

Till then, I will keep punching…

Lee Ward.

 

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TfL's Mandate Is Aiding And Abetting Credit Card Thieves

Banks race to fix security flaw in contactless cards as it's revealed that thieves can use them for MONTHS after they’ve been reported stolen

Banks are urgently trying to close a dangerous security loophole in millions of contactless debit and credit cards.

Virtually all ‘tap and pay’ cards – which can make purchases under £30 without the need for a PIN – can be used by thieves even after they are reported stolen.

In some cases, criminals have been able to use cards for up to eight months after they were cancelled, say watchdogs.

The problem stems from the fact contactless cards can authorise purchases ‘offline’. This means payments are automatically approved without the reader connecting to the customer’s bank to check a card is valid.

    

The use of contactless cards has soared in recent years and ‘tap and pay', accounting for one in four payments

Banks have refused to say how many times a card can be used after it has been cancelled, citing security reasons.

Some indicated the cards could only be used for a ‘low number’ of purchases up to the value of £50.

But lawyers say banks’ failure to warn customers about the security risk means they could be breaching industry regulations. Watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority said it was ‘urgently’ working to solve the problem.

A spokesman told the Daily Mail: ‘In a limited number of circumstances, it is possible for a cancelled contactless card to be used by fraudsters. While there are controls in place and the overall risk is low, the FCA has been urgently working with card schemes and banks to ensure this issue is fixed.’

The use of contactless cards has soared in recent years and ‘tap and pay’ now makes up one in four of all card payments.

There is a grey area regarding who takes responsibility for money that goes missing from a customer’s account after a contactless card is stolen. In theory, the bank should pick up the transactions and refund the money automatically, but it seems some expect the customer to spot them.

In some cases, banks do not even tell customers when their stolen card has been used. Andy Stamp, 34, a local councillor from Medway in Kent, said around £50 of transactions – including in McDonald’s and KFC – went through after he reported his debit card stolen.

   

Banks have refused to say how many times a card can be used after it has been cancelled

Lawyers claim most customers have no idea about the security loophole. Cindy Dorrington, of London firm Bivonas Law, said: ‘The cards need to come with a warning. By not providing one the providers are being reckless.

‘Financial institutions are meant to have systems in place to prevent fraud but the way contactless payment cards are set up at the moment makes it very easy.

‘It seems to me that banks are in breach of their contract with the individual customer: that they should be doing everything they can to prevent fraud.’

Data from industry body Financial Fraud Action shows that 152,727 cards were lost or stolen in the UK in 2015. The longest recorded gap between cancellation and fraudulent contactless use was eight months.

The UK Cards Association, which speaks for banks and card firms, said: ‘Every card has an in-built security check which triggers the need to enter a PIN at certain points. While opportunistic fraud for a handful of low value payments remain rare, we are not complacent and are working with our members, the FCA and the card schemes, on ways to improve the already-robust security features for contactless cards.

While UK Cards Association says, customers will never be left out of pocket if they are the victim of this type of fraud, merchants such as shopkeepers and Taxi drivers are at the mercy of third party pay back schemes. 

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Can You See Yourself Being Able To Pay For Your Daughter's Wedding In Five Years Time Given Or Current Situation?....by Harry Wall.

Earlier this week I posted about Ron Kalifa, TFL director who's company Worldpay were advertising £16 off the first Uber journey from the Worldpay Benefits Club. So, not only is this man responsible for our credit card nightmare but his company is obviously being paid to advertise our illegally licensed competitor, not content with that, he also has an input in our regulation.

Since then a video of a meeting between the London Assembly and Tom Kearney has surfaced in which a culture of complete and total disregard for public safety is revealed as the norm within TFL and London's bus network.

(See below)

Chairing the meeting was Caroline Pidgeon who was joined by Kieth Prince, Transport Committee,

David Kurten, Transport Committee and Caroline Russell, Transport Committee.

Tom Kearney has become a prolific safety campaigner since he recovered from injuries received in a horrific accident involving a bus in December 2009 on Oxford Street.

He punctured both his lungs and was in a coma.

The meeting took place on 28th February 2017 and Tom began by revealing that TFL doesn't have a bus operators license, which given the fact Leon Daniels and Garret Emerson are directors of London Buses LTD and London Bus Services LTD, I found that quite strange. However, it makes perfect business sense given the bus safety record as TFL cannot be held responsible or liable for damage or injury in cases of accidents, crashes or serious incidents along with negating the need to take responsibility for driver's actions. Knowing how sneaky and devious they are I would imagine this arrangement to be by design.

He goes on to say that the Bus Benchmark Group compared TFL with 15 other world city authorities and rated London 11th in the accident category from 2007-14. It seems TFL have created a culture of excessive speed and corner-cutting in the bus network in order to reach timetable targets which has resulted in a callous disregard for public safety.

If drivers fail to meet the targets set or are consistently late they simply lose there jobs, this unbearable stress creates the obvious incentive to take dangerous chances on London's streets and speed through junctions to make up time lost in traffic, sometimes with dire consequences.

This ridiculous pressure is created by TFL managers who pressure the bus operators who in turn pressurise the bus drivers. The reason for it is financial, TFL managers are on a promise of huge bonuses on production of bus performance.

It's simple, if the buses perform well and meet all the targets, Daniels and Co are hugely rewarded financially.

The downside of this neat little arrangement is that although TFL claim London's Bus network is one of the safest in the world, someone is killed or seriously injured roughly every 2 days involving a bus. Figures show that 180 people have been victims of bus accidents since 2014. 

The fact that during driver training the drivers are told to expect to crash sooner or later as a casual acceptance of fact is testament to TFLs attitude to public safety. Even the investigations into an average of 68 collisions per day are carried out by their own insurers guaranteeing a win-win situation. 

I now fully understand why Bank Junction is so important to them, especially when bus revenue has reportedly dipped due to traffic congestion. It's no wonder they want us out of that junction, we're costing them money, threatening their bonuses so they latch on to the safety argument and pump in £250k to safeguard payday.

TFL have created a superb environment to make huge amounts of money whilst absolving themselves of any responsibility to public safety, yet proclaim it's their utmost concern. 

Now apply the same principle to the cab trade.

Why would they want to cap the number of PH?

It doesn't make business sense to do so, £300 per license and 600 licenses per week means £180k every single week.

Why worry about a few accidents, rapes and traffic chaos involving Uber drivers if a fatal bus accident every 2 days doesn't move you to change your ways?

They've created a monster, a culture of reckless endangerment in pursuit of financial reward resulting in the public becoming victims and considered as nothing more than acceptable losses.

Now it all becomes clear.

When George Osborne was sacked we thought we'd seen and heard the last of him. He had huge input in Uber coming here along with Bojo and Cameron. He's recently joined Blackrock fund managers in a lucrative six figure advisory role, but remains an MP. He's obviously registered this appointment with the register of interests but I wonder if he's mentioned that Blackrock have invested in Uber?

Presumably on his advice.

As an MP who's sworn an oath of allegiance to the crown and having previously served as chancellor, a relationship with an American investment fund who've invested in an American transport company which has decimated a British icon and industry would surely constitute a conflict of interest.

Blackrock have also invested in Geely to the tune of 6,163,931 shares at 10.70 per share amounting to just shy of £66m. Seeing as Osborne flew to China personally to broker trade deals when chancellor, I'd say he was well placed to predict the future of our industry and perhaps we're seeing the master plan entering its final stage.

Geely have invested £250m in a facility outside Coventry in order to build the new TX5 electric/hybrid taxi. A welcome boost for the area with 1000 jobs created. TFL welcomed the deal as Bojo decided after 2018 all new taxis had to be zero emissions to help make London a "greener city".

In March 2016, Geely announced a deal to expand the business and supply 1000 new TX5 taxis to Australia and New Zealand over the next five years.

In May 2016 the Australian government deregulated the taxi industry and legalised Uber in an attempt to create a level playing field. Uber have devastated the Australian taxi industry.

Think about it, is it me or is there a trend here?

TFL have no intention of changing their ways, it doesn't pay them to. They'll do everything they can to scupper any attempt we make to fight them. They have enormous backing from government with members of the previous administration having paved the way for an extremely aggressive business plan, giving them carte blanche to do whatever they want.

Geely announce a deal to invest in the London Cab Trade.

A former chancellor joins Blackrock, Blackrock invest in Uber and Geely. 

Geely expand into Australia and shortly after the Australian government deregulate the taxi trade.

Does anything sound scary about that paragraph?

The writing's on the wall. 

We're told by our orgs that we have to wait until Uber is granted the second license to go for a judicial review.

The barrister that said that can afford to wait, I can't, we can't. It's obvious to me a plan to remove us from London's landscape has been in place for years. 

Osborne's Blackrock investment in Uber and Geely confirm my suspicions that the intention is to replace us with robots who conform to every authoritarian whim without question.

Why bother supplying 25k Hackney carriage drivers with cabs when hundreds of thousands of prospective customers exist? 

All it takes is deregulation, the gateway to unimaginable riches opens at the cost of the few, a small price for a people to pay.

We don't have the luxury of time.

When the demos restart, and they will, please be ready to fix bayonets and fight.

I'd like to think I've proven in this post that it is all about the money, nothing else matters to these rats. The only sure way to inflict maximum damage and pain on them is by a complete, total shut down of London. I hope I've proved that buses are essential to TFL and that any disruption to the schedule impacts greatly on their bonus and public safety.

So if direct action is to be successful it has to be concentrated on the most important part of TFL, which is anywhere a bus goes.

Our achliies heel is we haven't struck fear into TFL, they need to crap themselves at the thought of the cab trade and until that's achieved, we will achieve nothing. For that to happen we need to be decisive and relentless, proactive not reactive.

Ask yourself one question:

Can you see yourself being able to pay for your daughter's wedding in five years time given our current situation?

I can't.

If not, you need to wake up and smell the coffee and stand ready to fight your corner when the call comes.

Nobody is going to help us, the legal route will take too long.

Please think about this year as being the most important year of your working life because it is.

Don't waste your time hoping other people will save your trade for you because those days have gone.

Stand up and be counted.

Be lucky.

    

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Uber Uses 'Secret Program' Greyball To Hide From Regulators

Uber has been using a secret program to prevent undercover regulators from shutting down the taxi-hailing service in cities around the world.

The software, called Greyball, was developed to help protect the company from "violations of terms of service".

But data collected through Uber's phone app was also used to identify officials monitoring its drivers.

Uber has acknowledged that Greyball has been used in multiple countries, the New York Times reports.

The tool has enabled the company to monitor users' habits.

But it also identified regulators posing as ordinary passengers while investigating whether Uber was breaking local laws governing taxis.

The software works by collecting geolocation data and credit card information to determine whether the user is linked to an institution or law enforcement authority.

A "fake" version of the app would then allow those individuals suspected of attempting to entrap drivers to hail a cab, only to have their booking cancelled.

The existence of the Greyball program was revealed in an article published in the New York Times on Friday, which attributed the information to four current and former Uber employees, who were not named.

"This program denies ride requests to fraudulent users who are violating our terms of service," Uber said in a statement.

"Whether that's people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret 'stings' meant to entrap drivers," it added.

It comes in the same week that the chief executive of Uber, Travis Kalanick, was forced to apologise after a video emerged of him swearing at one of the company's drivers. Just two weeks earlier he apologised for "abhorrent" sexism at the company.

Uber used these methods to operate in cities like Boston, Las Vegas, Portland, and even Paris, France, without the authorities or city officials finding out. When an officer tried to request an Uber, the app would display “ghost” cars, which would never pick them up. In some cases, authorities will not see any cars on the app at all.

In 2014, the ride-hailing service began operating in Portland without the city's permission, violating the city’s Private For-Hire Transportation Regulations and Administrative Rules.

     

Erich England, a code enforcement inspector in Portland, Oregon, posed as a customer, trying to catch a ride in order to build a case against the company. England and city officials recorded themselves requesting multiple rides through the app, each of which was quickly canceled.

Unknown to England, he was already tagged by Uber’s software, and all of the rides he saw were fake.

Three days after launching, Uber was sued by the city for operating without a permit, and the company agreed to suspend its operations in Portland for a period.

Uber claims this software was developed to protect its drivers from code enforcers that are working with taxi interests.

“This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers,” Uber said in a statement, according to the New York Times.

The company also allegedly watched people that were opening and closing the app near government offices, searched through users’ social media profiles and credit card information, and used several other indicators to single out any police officers or individuals that might be associated with government agencies.

Those individuals were then “Greyballed,” or blocked from accessing the real app.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said he is still “very concerned that Uber may have purposefully worked to thwart the city’s job to protect the public,” according to a statement released on Friday after the New York Times report.

At least 50 Uber employees knew about the existence of Greyball, which was approved by their legal team, according to the report.

Uber has also been in legal battles over sexual harassment charges and allegedly stealing intellectual property from Google parent company Alphabet's self-driving car company, Waymo.

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