Uber uses licensed livery drivers for their main service. UberX is their ride-sharing service.

Also, Taxi Magic is pretty bad. It's been out for years and I've tried to use it repeatedly, but you still end up dealing with the same issues that make Seattle cabs suck: no show or late drivers, wildly inconsistent credit card policies, and generally poor quality of service.

This is one of those issues that kinda cuts both ways. We want some regulation and safety, but it is clear that there are not enough cabs, and those cabs are usually not in the right place/handy to get to for a lot of the demand.

Seattle cabs are expensive, relative to other cities of our size, have a non-ideal track record of service, and once you get outside of the urban core are hard to get, hard and slow to schedule, unreliable, etc. So consumers find work-arounds. That is how capitalism works.

Be careful those illegal for-hires and town cars look like taxi. Don't become victim of rape or rip off or pick pocketed ....watch out illegal scams of many illegal cars infested seattle. Yellow cab and orange cab and farwest cabs are legal ..regulated and highly monitored by the authority. Watch out !!!! Out-of-town taxis and illegal for hire that stealing and scamming you because u r not aware of them ....good luck

Go ahead, use one of these unlicensed unregulated services. Enjoy trying to get their insurance company to pay for your medical care when you become a paraplegic after an accident in one of these death cars.

Here is why cabs never show up when dispatch says they will: http://valleywag.gawker.com/i-know-in-my…

Does anyone *enjoy* taking a cab somewhere? From an informal polling of my friends, cabby customer service is mediocre at best. They pitch a fit if you bring out a credit card to pay. They drive uncomfortably fast. These new ride sharing services seem to go out of their way to make your experience fun. Lyft gives me snacks and drinks, let me play my own music (not that I've taken them up on the offer), and best yet the price is lower.

This is completely one sided.For Hire vehicles(those two-tone cars that kinda look like cabs)are regulated EXACTLY LIKE CABS,why not give them same rights.

@jac For someone that is criticising markets, maybe you should look into a better app ecosystem.

@3 and @4- I appreciate your commitment to your clear vested interest, but maybe stop with the bullshit and weirdo fear mongering. If local cab companies weren't such pieces of shit there wouldn't be such a strong market. Get your shit in line and we'll all be more sympathetic to your attempts to derail competition. Hey, how about taking a credit card without turning into a squalling child.

Collaborative consumption is the new model, is the only sustainable model in a world of increasing density and declining personal wealth, and you'd do well to adapt.

I'm a Taxi Cab owner but in the Mountain West part of the country in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. I've just started using iTaxi Rider. I like it as a driver because they were willing to add our small town to their list of cities served and enable our customer's here to e-hail a cab just like our counterparts in other parts of the country. Now in my opinion the biggest problem for you guys and your taxi drivers is that they all work for themselves, if they worked for someone else they'd treat you better and provide better service. They work when they want and how they want. They honestly don't want and don't care about the the small fares that add up and pay the bills at the end of the day. They want those long fares, the airport fares or a taxi fare that go from one end of the city to the next and back. They know that the average customer don't care and or respect them and so dont dont care and don't respect the average everyday hard working customer. As a small town, small taxi company owner, I would love to have you guys here calling me for a taxi cab, I take care and respect you and with that I know you'd take care and respect me, good luck in your travels and e-hail but hey try the iTaxi Rider App and well you can find out more about it @ http://www.itaxi.ws/

Watch out !!!!! There are so many rogues illegal black town cars posing themselves as uber. you should also watch out..!! out-of - town taxis and illegal for-hire that soliciting or picking up...unaware flaggers in down town Seattle. Do you know that Yellow cab fires a lot of bad drivers every years and these drivers switched to drive illegal town cars and for-hires. They don't have meter.. Their service is pre arrangement but they don't obey the rules. They rip off the customers and they charge what ever they desire .. They victimized so many unaware flaggers.

@12
Sherif,

We get it! You're a pissed-off taxi driver with a natural self-interest in the discussion.

But please shut the the fuck up about the plethora of dangers on the dark side.
It just makes you seem stupid and desperate. And since you seem to have missed the point made previously, here it is:
If getting a cab in Seattle didn't suck so much, the only thing you'd have to bitch about is why so many people complain that your car smells like an Hindustan whorehouse or why so many people demand to use a credit card even though you have a VISA logo on your goddam window.

So fix your shit or get the fuck out of the way.

Yeah if Yellow Cab didn't have the WORST SERVICE in the world maybe I would feel for them. Did you know it is their policy to NOT take passengers who are drunk? Not to mention the fact that they are on their phones the entire time, often don't know where they are going, and charge you for it.

These app based services ARE insured, charge less, and provide service that is a million times better.

I think you exciting FAD....I understand you are human being, you always like new innovation ...fads always fads.. I am sure the way you are insulting Yellow cab, you r going to insult the shitty app service two years from now.. You brain is like the brain of duck.. Uber is expensive and they abuse you.. When u try to cancel they charge cancelation fee. That is the worst abuse.if..you cancel yellow trip..,they will never charge u anything...they gonna say to thank thank sir/madam that how they treat u. If u are honest ...impeach the cancelation fee and excessive charge fee... It is madness. Your grandma and grandpa and your father used to consume and ride yellow cab..and now you are saying shit about the yellow cab. Shame on you. App generation's brain are inorganic..and weird

To the taxi rider, a taxi demand study makes no sense. What consumers want is taxi dependability and availability. Demand is there but it's beastly hard to get it satisfied.

Here's your demand study: customers want cabs to show up on time operated by drivers who know how to drive and how to deliver us to our desired destinations without endless jabber on cell phones trying to figure out how to get there.

Improve service and customer experience, as Uber et al. do, and demand will increase without a study. Just please get out of the way of entrepreneurs and their use of modern technology.

Car2Go is the way to go. Avoids all this driver crap.