1. Those hailed on the street or found waiting at a taxi stand/rank. These are metered services. They drive you somewhere and you pay the amount shown on the meter. In London, and some other parts of the UK, these are known as Black Cabs (because the vehicles have traditionally been painted black).
2. Pre-booked services. Essentially a passenger phones to make a booking, informs the service of the pick-up address and destination, agrees a price, then waits for the taxi to arrive. These are known as Mini Cabs.
Both these services are licensed and regulated in the UK.
Uber very clearly falls into the second category. They're just a Mini Cab firm with a fancy app.
But again: all these terms are just effects of the madness that is a local monopoly on one type of ride service (typically, but not always, the one that can use taxi stands and be hailed without pre booking on the street).
This has made people associate "taxi" or "cab" with just that one type of ride service, in their city. Which is understandable - but it makes no sense when discussing laws across a continent, or worldwide. "Taxi" has a very simple definition: it's a vehicle for hire with a driver. An Uber is a taxi service even if it's not (yet) allowed to perform the same services as a yellow cab in new york, or a london taxi
No that's what I mean. You can put a label on then depending on local regulations for monopolies which is why in some cities there are lots of silly distinctions such as cab/minicab/"black car" or whatever.
But all those distinctions have just appeared because of the local monopoly - not becasuse they are inherently differnent. From an insurance/employment/etc. standpoint they are "cars that take people from a to b for money" - and whether you call that "cab firm" or call it "ride service" or something else is irrelevant.
> Also taxis don't hire people, people rent taxis and then drive them.
Again - this is a local phenomenon. There are places where cab firms are one man businesses, co-ops, owned cars/rented cars etc. It doesn't really matter either.
Over here they very much do hire people, taxi drivers are normal employees. The same company is also contracted for temporary work by the local bus company and by the municipality for bringing disabled kids to schools, that sort of thing; it's all the same drivers.
Things are not the same everywhere.
Technology really blurs the line, and for most purposes, they act and fulfill the market that is provided by Taxis.
Uber claimed they weren't. They were claiming to be just an infrastructure service without any influence over the transportation part of the business. They wanted to do this since transportation services are subject to the local regulations as a specific exception to the normal Single Market rules on the provision of services (where you only required to follow your home regulations).
P.S. Your home regulations will include all the common European regulations but customer local regulations could be different.
Also taxis don't hire people, people rent taxis and then drive them.