Working three jobs and studying, one of Busselton’s first Uber drivers Lucio joined up as a driver to earn extra income.
One of Lucio’s jobs is full time, the other two are casual. One is seasonal and the other is on call, being an Uber driver offers him flexibility to work around his schedule.
Lucio had previously worked as a chauffeur and already held the driver’s licence required to be an Uber driver, so it was an easy decision for him to sign up.
He does not believe Uber will have a huge impact on the taxi service in Busselton, rather it will offer another service to people who may not necessarily use taxis.
“There will not be less people using taxis, it will be a different group of people using Uber. Some people who use taxis will not necessarily know Uber,” he said.
Lucio said the service was great for tourists who already had the the app on their smart phones, especially for those who could not speak English because they did not have to make a phone call.
“There are many reasons why Uber is actually a cool thing for the community rather than worse for the community,” he said.
From a customer’s perspective, Lucio said Uber offered people a cheaper service and young people who could not normally afford a taxi could now use Uber.
“If we want to look at both sides, young people who could not afford $50 for a taxi because they ‘drunk’ it all before, could now get home with $12,” he said.
He said people chose Uber because of the cost, which customers agreed to when they booked and could save passengers up to 50 per cent for transportation.
“People save money which they can go spend somewhere else, if people spend less money the more keen they are to take transportation because it costs less.”
For Lucio being an Uber driver offered him flexibility in his busy schedule, he is able to control how much money he earns, knows how much money he has earned and how much he could earn in the next few hours.
At the moment there are 12 drivers n Busselton and Dunsborough with another two going through the registration process.