Car ride service Uber launches in third Romanian city, plans further expansion

Popular car ride service Uber launched its operations in Romania’s Brasov mountain resort on Thursday, November 17. Brasov is the third city in Romania where the service is available, after Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca. Uber only launched its UberX basic service in Brasov, with a base fee of RON 1.5. The price per minute is RON 0.2, the tariff per km is RON 1.5, the minimum fare is RON 7, and the cancellation fee (if the passenger cancels the trip after more than five minutes) is RON 6. The first Brasov resident who tried the new service is Marius Vintila, one of the most well-known radio producers in Romania. Brasov is the second Romanian city in which the service became available this year, after Cluj-Napoca. Uber entered the Romanian market in February 2015, with the launch in Bucharest. In Cluj-Napoca, Uber is also present with its UberX service, while Bucharesters can choose from three services, namely UberX, UberSELECT, and Uber Child Seat. Uber also announced that it plans to expand to a fourth Romanian city: “We want to get to all the cities where people need us and want to use Uber. We see high interest from Timisoara’s residents, so we want to launch the service in Timisoara soon.” In late-September this year, Uber also launched its Scheduled Rides service in Romaniaafter receiving many requests for this option from local users. The car ride service reached 120,000 users in Romania. Uber's fast growth on the local market has made taxi drivers in Bucharest very angry. They say that Uber drivers are breaking the law and not paying taxes and have asked the Government to take actions against transport "piracy". Romanian transporters plan large protest against Uber in Bucharest Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com