Background information

Liftago is a Czech company connecting licensed taxi drivers with passengers using its own free application. The company's approach differs from established start-ups, such as Uber, in that it uses existing taxi drivers and also in that the price of transport is not set by Liftago, but by the transport provider, i.e. taxi driver or company with dispatching for which taxi driver works. As part of the pilot project, the company also tested the delivery of consignments using taxis. The company has been operating in the Czech and Slovak markets since 2013.

Content of measure

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the company recorded a decrease in transport services by 34% in 2020, when the demand for passenger transport fell to 10 to 15% in the spring of last year alone. The company managed to mitigate the decline in sales by starting to transport consignments in addition to passengers. The number of shipments delivered during 2020 was less than hundreds of thousands. This represented an increase in the number of delivered consignments by 6,000% compared to previous years when the company tested the delivery of consignments by taxi. During the test period, taxi drivers delivered only thousands of consignments a year. The software and established contacts to companies in the field of e-commerce within the pilot project focused on testing the transport of cargo helped the company to quickly reorient itself from the transport of persons to the transport of goods.

Use of measure

In terms of transported goods, these were packages from e-shops, courier services, food delivery from restaurants, as well as medical supplies, protective equipment, and other items for the needs of social services. During the epidemic, the company came up with a new service "Purchase", where the driver buys the customer in the store according to the shopping list in the mobile application and the purchase brings him home.

Contents

• Work organisation

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Solo-self-employed Other businesses Start-ups Contractors of a company	Applies to all citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
Company / Companies	Companies

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	No involvement
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: Company level

Involvement

Social partnetrs weren't involved.

Views and reactions

Social partnetrs weren't involved.

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 04 May 2020: Ondřej Krátký (Liftago): Budujeme novou profesi, která se jmenuje „přeprava všeho“ (www.lupa.cz)
• 19 January 2021: Covid stál Liftago kvůli poklesu přepravy desítky milionů korun, firma ale rostla v přepravě zásilek (www.lupa.cz)