The Brussels public transport company, STIB, has denied accusations by protesting taxi drivers that it has undertaken promotion of the Uber ride-share company.
About 40 of the taxi drivers demonstrated at about 6:00 AM outside the STIB warehouse in Haren to denounce the fact that Stib had spotlighted the U.S. transport platform during the presentation of its 2018 annual report. The protest ended without incident at about 08:15 AM, the Brussels police told Belga news agency.
STIB said on social networks that it had never promoted anyone and that the slide in its presentation to which the taxi drivers referred just showed the various actors in the transport sector in Brussels, “without saying anything about their services or legitimacy, in a context of alternative mobility to individual cars”.
“During his presentation, the CEO referred to all mobility solutions in Brussels,” STIB Spokeswoman Françoise Ledune explained to Belga.
STIB Vice-President Lofti Mostafa also reacted in a personal capacity. Noting that he had been asked by many people about a possible partnership between STIB and Uber, he said he in no way approved any such initiative, which was against the social project he advocated. “For me, the only possible partners in passenger transport are the Brussels taxis,” he wrote on social media.
The Brussels Times
