Lock-in is a commercial outcome, not a technical one
At an LSE Cities panel — Beyond the Car Divide: fair transport policy for an autonomous mobility future, 24 February 2026 — Professor Glenn Lyons of UWE Bristol described how it happens: “We knew for example when Uber arrived on the scene in many cities globally that we were getting artificially suppressed fares… But of course, seduced beware — because once you're in a captive market, ultimately one has to assume private sector players in the mobility space are looking to make profit.” He warned the same sequence could repeat with autonomous vehicles.
The London Assembly's Transport Committee names the same concern, proprietary lock-in, in its call for evidence on driverless taxis. Worth noticing what it implies about the remedy: if lock-in arrives through commercial structure rather than technology, technical standards will not prevent it. What prevents it is whether an operator can reach more than one source of demand, and whether that choice stays theirs. Recording: youtube.com/watch?v=cBcOXIJ-v70
Where we sit
That closing sentence is the reason this exists. A dispatch layer with no demand of its own to protect has nothing to gain from anyone being locked in.
Omnia is built for both sides of that. A party with work connects once and reaches any fleet it has agreed terms with. A fleet connects once and is reachable by any source of work it has agreed to accept. Neither gives up control of who it deals with.