Uber’s Taxi App Given Green Light To Help Hail Cabs In NYC

Uber’s taxi app has finally been given the ok to operate inside New York City. That means that people trying to get around the city that never sleeps will be able to do so using their smartphones by hailing cabs right from inside the mobile application.

Applications that allow people to do just that have been trying to get clearance in New York for quite a while now. GetTaxi was thought to be arriving in NYC last year but couldn’t ever get final approval.

It seemed for quite a while that this particular application wasn’t going to get approval either. The makers of the car service application and the New York Transit Authority haven’t exactly been best of friends.

Uber’s taxi app getting launched before the correct authorities approved the app had a chilling effect that the company has now been able to overcome. Travis Kalanick, co-founder of this app has said that with the approval, cab hailers across the city will be able to take advantage of his service “momentarily.”

The ability to offer up applications like this is actually quite a victory for several startup companies. Traditional cab companies had actually filed an injunction in New York City claiming that the application gave these companies unfair advantages.

A judge ruled this week that those claims were based in reality and that was the final hurdle towards getting the pilot program that allows Kalanick’s company and others the chance to move hailing a cab into the 21st century.

This application might be the first to get approval in New York but it hardly seems like it will be the last to go into operation in the big city. The commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) announced in a recent statement that there were plenty of companies in various stages of approval for their own cab hailing applications.

Uber’s taxi app has certainly managed to get a leg up by being first, but they’re going to have competition soon.