App Helps Hail Cabs to Compete With Uber

A new smart phone app called Flywheel is promising to change the way you hail a taxi in San Diego, and it’s giving some taxi drivers real hope they can finally compete with Uber.

Flywheel, based in San Francisco, sent employees to the Gaslamp Quarter Tuesday night to promote the technology. Much like Uber and Lyft, Flywheel requires users to download the app and sign up with credit card information ahead of time. The app lets you orient to your current location and then hail the nearest cab.

“The big difference with us is we have no surge pricing and worked licensed vehicles in the cities, so you know the drivers have been well vetted by the city’s requirements,” said Ryan Nobrega, a Flywheel spokesperson.

Right now Flywheel is the only real player in the taxi smartphone app game. They say they’ve contracted with about 75 percent of local cabs and are optimistic the numbers will continue to grow. The company charges a $1 service fee on all exchanges.

“We lost business the last two years. Now we’re getting help” said taxi driver Bashir Warsame. “I think Flywheel is helping us as a business.”

Not everyone is as excited about the new technology however.

“On paper it sounds very good,” said Chris Morse with the United Taxi Workers of San Diego, a nonprofit dedicated to drivers’ rights. “We see an app like Flywheel coming in almost as another iteration of Uber coming in to provide its expertise in a way that might blind side some drivers into agreeing to terms not beneficial to their long term interests.”

The UTWSD is currently working on its own app, which they say will give drivers a better deal.

“We are 100 percent for the cab industry” said Nobrega. Flywheel is already operating in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Seattle.

The company’s San Diego launch took place at Tuesday night’s Mardi Gras celebration in the Gaslamp with free cab rides all night long to San Diegans.

Flywheel negotiated rates with cab drivers which they say are 33 percent lower than the typical fair you’d receive when hailing a taxi the traditional way.