Uber’s India team leads tech for 3rd-party cab booking in UK

'Local Cab', is currently being piloted in Plymouth and Oxford in the UK that allows residents to book third-party cabs offered by Autocab, through the Uber app.

Bengaluru: Ride-hailing platform Uber on Thursday said that its Bengaluru-based mobility engineering team is currently leading an integration with Autocab, a third-party cab aggregator in the UK that Uber acquired last year.

‘Local Cab’, is currently being piloted in Plymouth and Oxford in the UK that allows residents to book third-party cabs offered by Autocab, through the Uber app.

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The India team integrated the Uber app with Autocab’s marketplace with the help of third party application programming interfaces (APIs) developed for local cabs, the company said in a statement.

“Offering riders a chance to book cabs through the Uber app even in cities where we aren’t present goes to show the ease of use that comes with the platform,” said Manish Bharani, Engineering Manager, Rides Engineering at Uber.

As part of the integration, riders in Plymouth and Oxford will see the option to book a “Local Cab” on their Uber app, and upon requesting a ride, will be routed to the Autocab marketplace, which will pair it with an available operator.

The routing to the Autocab marketplace will happen at the backend, with the booking interface continuing to be that of the Uber app, said the company.

Earlier, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had cleared Uber’s takeover of Autocab after its initial investigation found the deal would not affect the taxi-booking market in the country.