Passengers’ Rights and Consumer Protection

Abstract

The following Chapter deals with the topic of protecting the rights of passengers arranging their transport by using services provided by Uber. Taking into account the fact that Uber, according to the relevant ECJ decisions, provides services in the field of transport as well as the fact that taxi passengers are consumers too, Chapter briefly elaborates protection of these passengers established by the transport regulations as well as by the consumer legislation. It is pointed out that at the moment there is no applicable EU transport legislation regulating taxi passenger rights. Therefore, this topic is regulated under the sources of national transport legislation adopted in the Member States. Uber has to obey national ius cogens regulating the performing of his services. It has to be on the principles of professionalism, licensing, registration and technical and personal education and authorization. On the other hand, some Uber Terms and Conditions may be treated as unfair and as such, they are not in line with the EU consumer protection legislation. Legislative action should be taken by the national legislators in different states (and hopefully soon by the EU legislator) in order to precisely regulate the rights of the users of services provided by Uber. There are examples of the amendment of the Uber Terms motivated by the amendment of the national taxi transport legislation in a specific state where Uber provide his services. That is the way to make Uber’s Terms and Conditions more consumer-friendly.