These London taxi drivers have made an app like Uber to save black cabs

The app has been built by black cab drivers to allow passengers to book and pay for a black cab like they would through Uber

Sean Paul Day was a psychotherapist before he became a black cab driver 18 years ago.

“I’ve probably given more therapy to passengers than I ever did to patients,” he laughs. Recently he’s added another profession to his CV. Day is the co-founder of Taxiapp. The founders, who are all black cab drivers from Hackney, London, claim this is the only ethical taxi app among the competition - and the only one that gives black cabbies a fair chance against the aggressive pricing of Uber and similar apps.

The industry sorely needs a digital platform to compete with Silicon Valley upstarts. The number of black cabs on the road has been declining since hitting a peak in 2011. Transport for London licences for private hire cars outnumber those for black cabs by more than four to one. “The black cab trade is a vital industry in London, it’s the only taxi trade not losing money,” Day says. “It’s a travesty to see this iconic taxi go from London.”