A band of entrepreneurs and tech developers is giving fresh hope to New York City’s struggling yellow and green taxis with a new app called Arro to rival Uber. The app will initially work with only half of New York’s 20,000 yellow and green taxicabs, since those are the ones with payment systems built by Creative Mobile Technologies with whom Arro has a partnership.
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Speaking to Crain’s, Arro’s director of product management Mike Eply said “We thought that there was a void in the taxi industry, certainly in New York and in other big cities”.
“…when a potential rider opens Arro, a nearby cab driver will get the rider’s name, address, and cross street”.
However, this is not the first time a startup has promised to fend off competition from ride-sharing apps. Arro’s app will not charge the $2 fee that Uber now tacks on when customers hail a taxi-and will be devoid of Uber’s surge pricing. The driver will see your name and location on the cab’s built-in payment system, and you’ll see the driver’s medallion number so you can spot the correct cab. Now taxis in NYC are planning to fight back, basically by becoming a lot more like Uber. The app saves credit card info, letting passengers pay the metered fare and tip automatically.
Arro comes as on-demand ride companies like Uber and Lyft are getting a lot of attention for their impact on public transit. Hailo launched in NYC in 2013 pledging to save the yellow cab industry in the city, and the rest of the U.S. But last autumn the app was forced to abandon its North American business, citing the “astronomical marketing” required to chase Uber.
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Arro will be available for download on iOS and Android in the coming weeks. “It’s not that we aren’t growing there, but the profitability of the market and the type of environment [that other taxi-app companies] are setting up – both on the driver and passenger side – ceased to make sense to us”. The two agreed to work together on a study of the effects the service has on the city. However, Arro hopes to set itself apart by integrating the service into the existing payments and infotainment systems in cabs.
