PRAGUE, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Taxi drivers here launched a protest against rival transportation company Uber on Monday, blocking the main access roads to and from the international airport, which led to a three-hour traffic jam in the airport vicinity.
Before the protest, Prague Mayor Adriana Krnacova met a representative of the Czech Taxi Drivers' Association.
Krnacova said that Prague had no powers to ban Uber and that a meeting of the Government Office's expert group to seek solutions was scheduled for Thursday.
Taxi drivers partially admitted that the solution was up to the government and the respective ministries, but they set out for their protest ride anyway, she said.
The protesters said that drivers working for Uber breach laws by driving customers without having a taxi-service licence. Taxi drivers want to exert pressure on the responsible institutions and at the same time make people aware that the Uber services are in violation of the law.
Using a cell phone application, people can call an Uber driver to take them where needed. Uber says it does not offer taxi services, but rather a shared drive on the principle of shared economy.
Seventy taxi drivers drove to the local airport in Brno, where a court issued a preliminary ruling to ban Uber.
There are currently 2,000 Uber drivers in Prague, most of them work for the UberPop service. According to municipal data, there are 5,000 taxi drivers in Prague.
