The London Tube is not running today courtesy of a walkout by staff in protest of pay and conditions.
I’m impressed that both Uber and Hailo got the obvious idea of sending out marketing material to remind users to use taxi services to ease their commuting pain.
Uber sent out an email (pictured above) with a link to a blog post that shows heatmaps of which parts of London were the busiest during the last strike during the am and pm rush hours. I’m not sure why this would be helpful, but it’s interesting data anyway.
Hailo seems to be trying to push their pre-booking feature at every opportunity, and the Tube strike is one. They pushed it as a notification on my phone. I can see how this could be useful.
Hailo wins this round in my opinion. The heatmap is interesting, but an alert with a call to action to pre book a taxi is super clever. I might even have used it if I was commuting today, which thankfully I am not.