The transport service has 400 users in the Czech Republic now.
There are no trams you could take to get home after hanging out with your friends late at night and you don´t want to spend money on taxi? You can use the Uber app to call an Uber driver. There are over two thousand people who do.
“We saw a 340 percent grow this year compared to last year. The average trip is shorter than four minutes,” stated Tomáš Peťovský, Uber´s general manager in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
He added: “During our three years on the Czech market, we have achieved a significant change in the individual transport field in Prague. Three quarters of all app downloads in this field is the Uber app.”
Peťovský also listed some specific cases. “According to our statistics, there are over 500 rides to and from the Chodov area every day, mostly between 7am and 10am, the majority of them around 8am,” said Peťovský.
Many foreigners who are familiar with the app from their home countries also use it. The app used to be available in Brno as well, but it is no longer allowed to operate there after the court´s decision.
The Regional Court in Brno filed an interim measure in July preventing the company from providing transport services in Brno. The interim order had been made once before, but the Supreme Court in Olomouc overruled it for lack of reasoning and sent the case back to Brno.
Uber won´t be expanding to other cities for now. “We´re focusing solely on Prague and we believe that we´ll be able to start offering our services in Brno again,” stated Peťovský.
All against Uber
- Brno isn´t the only place where Uber has been a source of conflicts. Taxi drivers in Prague have been complaining for a long time and there´s even a petition. The situation is similar abroad.
- The General Advocate of the European Court of Justice stated that Uber fits in the transport services category. That means it is possible to impose an obligation on it to obtain a license according to the laws of the country in which it is operating. That is why the company is to be sued in France.
