Uber also has launched a cheaper Uber X service, and an UberTaxi service, which operates with yellow cabs.
FORBES: Taxi Regulators Want To Shut Down Uber--And Mobile App Usage
City officials said they expected to prevail with what they see as an innovative option for snagging one of the city's famous yellow cabs.
Until now, yellow cabs haven't been allowed to take pre-arranged fares.
Under the pilot program -- approved earlier this year but mired in legal drama ever since -- services like Uber and Hailo could be used in NYC's approximately 13K yellow cabs.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission is currently in the process of mandating a technological update for all yellow cabs -- even if the drivers may not like it.
But the apps challenge a central tenet of the New York taxi market: Yellow cabs can accept customers who flag them down on the street, but cannot "prearrange" a fare by phone or radio.
The yellow cabs get Hallier, chief executive of Show Media, all fired up because his outdoor ad company sells backlit ad displays on top of 3, 000 New York cabs--25% of all those on the street.
Dave Jordan was part of a colorful tradition of concrete riders, outsize characters who understood not only wheel sets and brake pads, but also the way a brilliant racer could be molded by a frantic city, rushing among the yellow cabs and the thrilling slivers between trucks and curbstones.
Owners of yellow-taxi medallions saw allowing livery cabs to pick up street-hail passengers as a serious infringement on a right that would cost many of them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Owners inevitably paint the exteriors in a cheerful riot of bright red, green, orange, blue and yellow and line the un-air-conditioned cabs with teakwood to keep them cooler in India's searing heat.
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