IATR 39th Annual Conference Early Bird Pricing Until Aug 15!

AV City: Autonomous Mobility

Las Vegas, Nevada | September 14–17, 2026

Vdara Hotel at ARIA | 2600 W Harmon Ave, Las Vegas, NV

Early-bird pricing extended until August 15

Hotel room block available through August 14 – availability limited

Sponsorship opportunities available until August 14

Shaun Abreu, City Council Majority Leader and Chair of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

They’re conning congestion pricing!

An unlicensed rideshare company may be ditching tens of millions of dollars worth of Manhattan congestion tolls — and it’s time for the MTA to do something about it, a top city official said.

City Council Democratic Majority Leader Shaun Abreu is calling on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to investigate discount rideshare company Empower, which has been skirting the toll to enter Midtown Manhattan that competitors like Uber and Lyft have to pay and bake into the cost of a trip.

Taxis and livery vehicles have to pay for each trip into the congestion zone, while regular vehicles only pay once — and Empower has allegedly been ditching tolls because it’s operating without a city license.

“Yellow taxis and licensed for‑hire vehicle companies collect these charges from their passengers,” Abreu wrote in a letter to MTA Chair Janno Lieber on Tuesday.

“Empower, however, appears to be offering rides without collecting either the state congestion surcharge or the MTA’s Congestion Relief Zone toll,” said Abreu, who chairs the council’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. “This allows Empower to advertise artificially lower prices while other transportation providers and their drivers continue to follow the law.”

MTA Chairman Janno Lieber claimed the MTA has been trying to recoup the lost fees from Empower.

“They’re ripping off the public,” Lieber said at an unrelated press conference Wednesday. “We have to find a way to make sure if they found a loophole it has to be closed.”

Source: New York Post

Click Here to Read More

Kay Woo, the chief executive of TADA, personally tries to recruit drivers, including Anwar Hossen, left, to use his ride-sharing app, Throo.

Image: Angelina Katsanis

Kay Woo, a Korean tech executive, wants to break into New York City’s multibillion-dollar ride-share industry.

So, naturally, in a city of 8.5 million potential customers, he’s courting his most valuable prospects: cabbies.

For the past few months, Mr. Woo has made recurring trips to a shadeless parking lot at LaGuardia Airport, recruiting drivers for his company, TADA. His efforts have paid off: He says he has persuaded about 50,000 drivers since March to install the company’s ride-hailing app.



The goal of the new app, called Throo, is to offer an alternative to the higher-commission model that drivers are used to when working with companies like Uber and Lyft. By charging drivers a smaller fixed fee per ride, and reducing charges that otherwise get passed onto passengers, Mr. Woo’s company promises better pay for drivers and cheaper fares for riders.

So far, Throo, which started offering rides in June and is authorized to operate in New York, is undercutting the bigger apps on some fares. A standard trip from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan to Kennedy International Airport was $80 with Throo; a similar ride with Uber would have cost about $136, and Lyft asked for $134.

TADA, based in Singapore, is among a small number of upstarts offering discounted rates and using slick marketing techniques to try to cut into what is effectively a ride-share duopoly. Uber and Lyft make about 80 percent of all for-hire and taxi trips in the city, with Uber completing roughly 70 percent of that share, according to the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Source: New York Times

Click Here to Read More

Gig Platforms Gain As Insurance Costs Fall

Gas prices aren’t the only expense taking a bite out of gig workers’ earnings. A new report from our partners at Gridwise Analytics looks at another major, and surprisingly chunky, line item baked into the price of a ride: insurance.

Click Here to Read More

NHTSA Denies Tesla Door-Release Defect Petition, Opens New Door Rules

NHTSA has denied a petition asking it to open a defect investigation into the hidden manual door releases on the Tesla Model 3. But in the same decision, the agency agreed to start writing new door-safety rules for the entire auto industry.

Click Here to Read More

Will Mamdani ‘Stop the Chop?’ Helicopter Foes Look to Mayor to Quiet the Skies.

Longtime opponents of helicopters in New York City are hoping Mayor Zohran Mamdani will end their decades-old battle against noise by keeping a campaign promise to restrict flights from city-owned heliports. In a new twist, some are appealing to Mamdani’s political identity as a democratic socialist willing to clash with billionaires. While many of the flights buzzing around Manhattan and Brooklyn cater to tourists, critics of the choppers cast them as vehicles for the elite.

Click Here to Read More

Tesla Hints at Robotaxi Expansion to Canada and South America with New Job Postings

According to job postings on Tesla’s Careers website, the company is seeking AI Safety Operators in Ottawa, Ontario, as well as Colombia and Chile. While Tesla has not officially announced Robotaxi launches in any of those markets, or any market beyond the United States for that matter, the responsibilities listed in the postings suggest autonomous ride-hailing service in these countries is around the corner.

Click Here to Read More

Windsor City Council Temporarily Extends Lifespan of 5 Accessible Cabs

Windsor city council has voted unanimously to grant a temporary, one-year road safety by-law exemption to local taxi operators, allowing 31 aging taxicabs to stay on city streets past their legal lifecycles. While most are standard vehicles, five are specialized wheelchair vans owned by Canadian Checker Cabs — which is more than half of the company's eight-van accessible fleet. Replacing just one of these vans can cost upward of $100,000.

Click Here to Read More

Gordie Howe International Bridge Opens over the Detroit River

Eight years after ground broke, the Gordie Howe International Bridge is now open to vehicle traffic crossing between Detroit and Windsor. It comes amid political tension between Canada and the U.S. American officials were disinvited to a ribbon cutting ceremony for the span held in Ontario, after Donald Trump placed 50% tariffs on Canada. Still, Canadian leaders are highlighting the Gordie Howe Bridge as a testament to the relationship between the two countries.

Click Here to Read More

Ministers Under Pressure to Hand TfL Full Control of London’s Robotaxi Trials

The government is facing mounting calls to give Transport for London full regulatory control over driverless taxi trials, as robotaxis edge closer to London’s streets. Under the current system, the Department for Transport authorises self-driving vehicles for use on public roads nationally, while TfL only holds licensing power over paid passenger services within the capital — meaning any commercial robotaxi operation would still need TfL’s sign-off before it could start charging fares. The DfT previously said it would fast-track small-scale testing of driverless “taxi and bus-like” services without a safety driver during 2026, ahead of a wider rollout planned for 2027, and in May this year it opened applications for operators to run self-driving taxis commercially across Britain.

Click Here to Read More

Alphabet’s Waymo Targets Germany in Next Phase of Robotaxi Rollout

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle subsidiary of tech giant Alphabet Inc. has legally registered a local corporate entity in Germany, signaling an aggressive push to scale its driverless ride-hailing technology across the European continent. The Silicon Valley company quietly established "Waymo Germany GmbH" last month, according to corporate filings first disclosed by German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and then Bloomberg. The entity received its formal, official registration approval on June 15, 2026.

Click Here to Read More

Renault to Face Criminal Trial in France over Dieselgate

Renault will face a criminal trial in France on aggravated fraud charges over accusations that devices in its diesel cars were designed to cheat clean air laws, the prosecutor's office told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The French carmaker will be the second referred to criminal court in France after Volkswagen over what has become known as the dieselgate scandal.

Click Here to Read More

Peace Deal Signed Between Taxi Industry and South Africa’s Richest Province

The Department of Roads and Transport in Gauteng has met with the province’s taxi industry leaders to sign an agreement to resolve key challenges within the sector and ensure uninterrupted public transport services. Kedibone Diale-Tlabela, the province’s Roads and Transport MEC, met with representatives of the taxi industry last week, following threats of a province-wide shutdown.

Click Here to Read More

Hong Kong Steps Up Support As Premium Taxi Fleets Face Driver Shortage

A top Hong Kong transport official has pledged to step up efforts to help the city’s premium taxi fleets recruit drivers, conceding that the number of vehicles on the road remains about one-third below target a year after the scheme was launched. As the five taxi fleets offering premium service marked a year of operations in July, the government said on Tuesday that more than 2,000 fleet taxis and about 2,400 drivers were currently in service.

Click Here to Read More

Middle East Conflict Is Accelerating Africa’s Shift to Electric Ride-Hailing

As concerns over disruptions to Middle East oil supplies pushed global fuel prices higher, ride-hailing operators across Africa are increasingly looking to electric vehicles as a way to shield drivers from volatile petrol costs. That trend is already becoming evident in South Africa, where Uber’s partner in Africa’s first low-cost electric ride-hailing service says demand is accelerating, with plans already underway to expand beyond the country’s borders.

Click Here to Read More

Image: Ulysses Muñoz

Empower, a ride-hailing Uber and Lyft alternative billed as a better deal for both drivers and riders, may have to close up shop in Maryland.

Public Utility Law Judge Amy Schaeffer issued a cease and desist order against the company this week, writing that Empower “presents severe and ongoing risks to public safety” by facilitating rides without submitting to regulatory oversight.

Schaeffer sided with state regulators who raised several concerns about their inability to access information about Empower’s drivers, including details of their auto insurance.

Schaeffer gave the company 15 days to request a further hearing on the matter or the order will become final.

Source: The Banner

Click Here to Read More

RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP FOR 2026:

Weekly news snippets

Access to the membership database

Videos and files from recent conferences

Discounted rates for future conferences, and more!

Renew your membership at http://www.iatr.global or email info@iatr.global for any questions!