New Dublin-based, driver-owned taxi app aims to provide fairer deal to taxi drivers and customers

At his desk in his small office in Mespil House in Ballsbridge, taxi driver Kamal Gill talks about the long road to this week’s launch of his new taxi app Hola Taxi.

He started thinking about it, and working on it, in 2021, Gill says. There were “lots of ins and outs, we should do this, we should do that”, he says.

There was also plenty of scepticism from drivers, he says. “Some thought, ‘He’s trying to make millions off us.’”

But with his pitch of a fairer deal for drivers and passengers, he says he’s signed up a “fleet” of “six or seven hundred” taxis – and they’re ready to start a marketing push to compete with FreeNow, Uber and other established players.

It’s hard to get taxi drivers to switch apps, given the penalties the big apps impose on drivers if they refuse jobs, and the incentives they offer for drivers who are dependably available to them, Gill says.

But Gill says FreeNow and Uber are unnecessary middlemen in the industry, charging drivers commissions of 15 percent and 12 percent.

His vision is for hundreds of drivers to buy into Hola Taxi as partners, and share in its profits as it grows, Gill says.

“So whatever the money this industry makes, it goes back to them,” he says. “That will make them happy, save them more money, they’ll serve better.”

Other taxi drivers who don’t want to buy in, can still use the app to get jobs, and Hola Taxi will take a lower commission than FreeNow and Uber – 8 percent, he says.

For customers, the lure will be a promise of simple standard fares without add-ons. “There’ll be no other layers, no technology fees, no priority fees,” Gill says.

The “taxi shortage”

Hola Taxi is not meant to be a solution to the so-called “taxi shortage” in Dublin – because there isn’t one now, Gill says.

“There is no problem except for the rush hours, okay?” he says. “Taxis are waiting at the ranks. It’s a media hype that was created.”

At peak times, customers might have to wait a bit for a taxi, Gill says. But it’s normal to sometimes have to wait a little for a service.

“That happens with anything, if you’re waiting for a bus, waiting for a pint, waiting for a coffee,” he says. “But taxis are supposed to be like that” – he snaps his fingers.

A spokesperson for the National Transport Authority (NTA), which regulates taxis, did not directly answer a query as to whether there is a shortage of taxis in Ireland and, specifically, in Dublin.

He pointed to statistics the NTA publishes on small public services vehicle (SPSV) licences and SPSV driver licences. SPSVs are mostly taxis, but also limos and things.

These stats show that the number of active SPSV vehicle and driver licences dropped off sharply between 2019 and 2020, after Covid-19 arrived in Ireland. But they’ve since bounced back most of the way, as of the end of July.

A February/March 2024 survey of 1,005 taxi users in Ireland found that 76 percent of respondents in Dublin found it either “easy” or “very easy” to get a taxi. This was worse than 85 percent in May 2023, but similar to 78 in October 2022.

A group called the Taxis for Ireland Coalition in mid-August sent out a press release talking about “the urgent need for concrete solutions to address the taxi shortage, which is causing significant disruption to the public”.

If there’s no shortage, why does this group say there’s a shortage? Gill, of Hola Taxi, points to the membership of Taxis for Ireland in explanation.

The group’s press release says it includes “the Restaurants Association of Ireland, Vintners’ Federation of Ireland, Licensed Vintners’ Association, Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, Bolt and Uber among its members”.

“What do these restaurant people know about taxis?” Gill asks. And as for Uber and Bolt, they are talking down the current system of traditional taxis as part of an effort to convince the Irish government to allow paid ride-sharing by drivers of private cars, like what Uber does in other countries, he says.

This is an argument People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett raised in the Dáíl in February.

“There is deep concern among taxi drivers about a campaign that seems to involve some of the ride-hailing apps, including Uber and others, suggesting that we are chronically short of taxis and implying we need to deregulate the taxi industry and develop the Uber model that exists elsewhere, “ Boyd Barrett said.

While Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar, then the Taoiseach, had in 2022 signalled an openness to bringing in ride-sharing, in answer to Boyd Barrett in February of this year he seemed to have changed his mind.

He’d used ride-sharing apps while abroad, but has “concerns about deregulation” in Ireland, he said. There’d be no vetting of drivers or checking of vehicles “by a public authority”, he said. “We do not propose to go down that road.”

Asked whether the talk of a taxi shortage was part of a long campaign to get the government to allow ride-sharing apps, and whether Taxis for Ireland wants to see these introduced, a spokesperson for the coalition did not respond directly.

Instead, they issued a statement on their proposals for addressing what they said were “dwindling taxi numbers”, and said Hola Taxi was welcome to join their coalition to help find solutions to “the shortage”.

Hola Taxi

On Friday, in his office in Ballsbridge, Gill was not thinking about joining the Taxis for Ireland Coalition. He was planning something bigger.

On a big whiteboard in his office he’s written in black and green, “Why Hola Taxi”. And under that, he’s listed out his pitch. He’s also had flyers printed up with the details.

“Irish owned platform”, they say. “For the drivers | By the drivers”.

The first 500 drivers who sign up as co-founders and pay €100, will pay no commission on their first 5o fares, and pay a commission of €1 per job after that, it says. And they’ll get to “Share 75% of the app’s profits”, it says.

Any driver who doesn’t want to kick in €100, or doesn’t get into that first 500, can still sign up. They’ll have to pay an 8 percent commission to Hola Taxi for jobs they get through it – a lot lower, Gill says, than what they’d pay FreeNow or Uber.

And for customers, if they book a taxi through Hola Taxi, they’ll pay the regular metered rates, without the €1 “technology fee” that FreeNow adds on, the priority fees it asks for to get a taxi faster, or any of that kind of thing, Gill says.

So far, he says he has “two hundred plus” drivers paid in as partners so far in Dublin, and a total of “six to seven hundred” drivers signed up to use the app altogether.

“We have drivers signed up who are Irish, African, Eastern European, Pakistani,” Gill says. “They all need a solution.”

Having them driving their cars around with big signs on the side advertising Hola Taxi will help get the word out, Gill says. He has other marketing plans too, of course, he says.

Hola Taxi is a regular limited company – and not technically a co-op – because it’s simpler to set up that way, Gill says. But the profit-sharing agreement with “co-founders” or “partners” is integral to the model, he says.

Why doesn’t he just take a more traditional approach? “One of the guys just asked me the question, what are you getting from this?” Gill responds. “So when I die, you’ll remember me.”

“Like, what do you need? I have a family … I’m happy when I can fulfil what they want, that’s good enough,” he says. “You won’t live 200 years, but your legacy will. So tomorrow when I die they’ll be like, this guy’s gone – he should have stayed longer.”