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Uber expands into Italy’s taxi market with new partnership

Uber on Friday launched a new partnership with Italy's biggest taxi dispatcher, meaning it’s now possible to hail a cab via the app.

Published: 29 July 2022 16:43 CEST

Uber expands into Italy's taxi market with new partnership

Rome's residents and visitors now have a new option when booking a taxi. Photo by JavyGo on Unsplash

The new service was launched in Rome on Friday after the city became the first in Italy to agree to allow Uber to enter the local taxi market, according to Italian media reports.

While the ride-hailing app does exist in Italy, it’s currently only available in Rome and Milan – and only in the form of the more luxurious Uber Black.

READ ALSO: Why can’t I get an Uber in Italy?

The usual, cheaper Uber service is not allowed to operate in Italy, due to concerns about unfair competition for taxi drivers. The update on Friday doesn’t change this.

But the new addition to the app in Rome does mean the city’s residents and visitors have another option available when booking a cab.

Taxis can be summoned via the app, which gives an estimate of the cost upon booking. However the final price of your journey will be determined by the taxi meter.

It should soon be possible to book a taxi via Uber in dozens more towns and cities across Italy under a deal made in May between Uber and dispatcher IT Taxi.

READ ALSO: Rome vows to crack down on ‘rip-off’ airport taxis targeting tourists

However it’s not clear exactly when the service will become available in more cities, with local taxi drivers’ unions across the country reportedly still fighting to block the approval of the agreement.

Rome’s taxi drivers staged a series of protests in recent weeks against the planned expansion of Uber and a new decree containing provisions for deregulating the highly protected taxi sector.

Uber’s move came days after local authorities in Rome pledged to crack down on overcharging by unscrupulous taxi drivers operating at the city’s airports.

Member comments

Anonymous - 5 August 2022 at 12:23 CEST

Uber Black is available in more than Rome and Milan now. I noticed ads for Uber in Bologna Airport recently and I checked and it is available in the city. It definitely wasn’t available when I first moved here so I don’t know when it started in the city.

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Reader question: How common is air conditioning in Rome apartments?

Question: ‘I’m thinking of moving to Rome next year. With the effects of climate change and summers getting hotter, are air conditioners becoming more common in homes? If so, how does that work with the peculiar Italian system of consumption of electricity?”

Last summer was a scorcher in Italy, and Rome last July registered its hottest temperature since records began, at 41.8 degrees Celsius.

Yet despite warnings from Italian health authorities to drink water and stay inside, one object was missing from most homes in the capital: an air-conditioning unit.

READ MORE: Seven tips for surviving (and enjoying) Rome in summer

Air conditioning is far from guaranteed in apartments in Italy in general: partly because of the amount of energy they use, but there’s a long-standing fear of cold air (colpo d’aria) and a belief that if you stand near cold currents, you will be ill.

While this may be true for some people, soaring temperatures suggest this fear will increasingly be put to rest – and the most recent data suggests that it somewhat has.

A growing number of homeowners are looking at installing air-conditioning units in Lazio, the region where Rome sits, with a six percent rise in enquiries from 2021 to 2022.

This increase was attributed to the launch of Italy’s bonus condizionatori, a state incentive launched in 2022 for the purchase of more efficient AC units, as well as to rising temperatures.

The trend seems to be nationwide, with certain types of air conditioning units seeing a 27.9 percent increase in the first half of last year, according to association Assoclima.

READ ALSO: What are the rules for installing air conditioning in your Italian home?

However, this doesn’t mean it’s getting much easier to find an apartment with air conditioning: in Rome, their absence is still all too apparent

If you go into most restaurants, particularly outside the city centre, you will not find it. If you are going on holiday, a lot of places advertise having AC when perhaps it should be a given.

And if you’re renting or buying a property, chances are you’ll be advised to buy a fan and close the shutters on the windows during midday.

Finding an apartment with air conditioning in Rome is possible, but still a rarity. Real-estate search portal Idealista recently surveyed the percentage of properties up for rent or sale in each city which had air-conditioning. Rome did not even make the top 20.

What’s more, it’s hard to know what will happen when air conditioning becomes more common in Rome. There were blackouts last summer in the Rome quarters of Torpignattara, Alessandrino, and Marconi after people turned up their air conditioners in an attempt to keep cool.

Rome isn’t the only part of Italy where this happens: widespread blackouts in Milan in 2022 were blamed on soaring air conditioner use amid extreme heat.

There’s also the fact that standard household power capacity in Italy is set at 3.3 KW (3,300 Watts), which many find is too low to run more than one power-hungry appliance at a time. This limit can be increased by your electricity provider, for a fee, but the expense is often prohibitive.

For all these reasons, air conditioning is still not common in Rome, but it is on the rise. If it’s a must-have for you it’s always necessary to double-check before leasing anywhere.

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