The case of Uber in Spain: from UberPop to VTC

Uber operates in Spain today as a VTC platform: the app connects travellers with drivers who work under VTC licences (private-hire vehicles with a driver). It was not always like this. It arrived with UberPop, a service in which unlicensed private individuals carried passengers in their own cars, and that model was halted by the courts. The company later returned with a different set-up, in line with the regulations for chauffeur-driven transport.

The case sparked heated debate in the taxi sector and among the public, and it is still useful to know about it to understand why taxis and VTC now coexist under different rules.

The idea behind UberPop was simple: anyone with a car could sign up to the app and charge for carrying passengers. The problem is that in Spain carrying passengers for money is a regulated activity. To do it you need a taxi licence or a VTC licence, with their requirements for the driver, the vehicle and the insurance.

The taxi associations went to court and a Madrid commercial court ordered UberPop to stop operating in Spain as an interim measure. The underlying debate went all the way to the Court of Justice of the European Union, in a case referred from Barcelona, which concluded that a service such as UberPop is a service in the field of transport and not merely a digital intermediation service. That allows each state to regulate it as transport.

After that stage, Uber switched to working with professional drivers who hold a VTC licence, like other platforms. Since then the debate is no longer whether it can operate, but how the market is shared between taxis and VTC: how many licences there are, whether they must be booked a certain time in advance, where they can wait and what they can do on urban journeys. Those rules have changed several times and some of the powers have been transferred to regional governments and city councils, so they may vary from one city to another.

If you want to see in a table what sets each model apart today, you have it in the differences between taxis and VTC. And if you are interested in the wider context of this competition, we cover it in the fierce competition in the taxi world.

Uber was not the only platform to put transport rules to the test. Cabify, founded in Madrid, also works with VTC, and car-sharing between private individuals ended up in court with the lawsuit against BlaBlaCar, where the key was to distinguish between sharing costs and providing a professional service. In every case the underlying question is the same: which activities require a licence and which do not.

Beyond the controversy, the practical points are these:

• Uber is legal when the car and the driver have a VTC licence; a private individual who charges to drive you without one is not.
• A VTC cannot pick you up in the street or at the airport taxi ranks: it has to be booked beforehand.
• The price is set by the platform and can vary with demand; the taxi price follows official fares.
• For Barajas, taxis have a fixed fare of €33 to and from the area inside the M-30.

We compare what weighs most in the decision in five advantages of taxis over Uber. If you are setting off from the centre, see the Inside M-30 fare; and if you live further out, you can book your airport taxi with a fixed price for your area.