On July 31, Mayor Adams and the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) negotiated a deal between Uber and Lyft to phase out access restrictions – better known as “lockouts.” According to the TLC, Uber promised to immediately ease restrictions, with the goal of ending them entirely by Labor Day, provided that Lyft maintains a utilization rate (UR) – or the amount of time a driver spends transporting passengers – of at least 50%.
“Those of you logging into Uber should already be seeing better access and that should continue to improve,” noted TLC Chair David Do. “Lyft may continue their platform restrictions in the short term, as theirs were implemented a few months after Uber’s. But in the long term there’s another part of the deal that should also help across both platforms: an onboarding pause.”
Both companies formally agreed to pause the onboarding of new drivers, Do said.
“Is this deal a perfect solution that ends lockouts forever?” noted Do. “No, and I’m not pretending otherwise. It was the fastest way we could provide drivers some immediate relief. Should it become necessary, we will introduce new rules.”
Source: NYC TLC
