Uber shares London trip data in advance of new rules
The ride-hailing service gets a jump on new private hire guidelines while it fights to reinstate its London license.
Uber shows how the closure of Tower Bridge affected journey times.
Uber might have had its license to operate in London revoked last September, but it's not letting a small thing like that stop it from introducing new services in the city.
The ride-hailing company announced the launch of its open-data platform Uber Movement in the UK capital on Thursday in a blog post. The software, first unveiled last year, gives city planners (and anyone else who fancies a peek) a look at anonymised data of journeys made by Uber passengers across a number of cities.
Uber is currently appealing to have its license reinstated in London after regulator Transport for London deemed it "not fit and proper" last year. It should find out whether it has been successful in April. Meanwhile, it continues to operate and has been fighting hard to keep its drivers on the roads.
TfL released updated private hire rules last month that will apply to Uber if its appeal is successful. One new rule states: "operators should share travel pattern data to improve understanding of their services." This is something Uber has clearly taken on board and may have spurred it on to bring Uber Movement to London.
"We've heard feedback from the cities we operate in that access to some of our aggregated data could help inform transport policy and future investments," said Fred Jones, head of UK cities at Uber.
With the launch of Uber Movement in London, the company published a blog post detailing the impact of the closure of Tower Bridge on the city for three months in 2016. The service will also be rolled out in London and Manchester in the coming months.