The taxi thread
 

Taxis are an important part of our transit infrastructure.... so we should probably have a thread about them....

Here's a story to start things off with:

It works in Manitoba...

Euh... Scary Larry, it's obvious that it is zillion times more dangerous for taxi drivers then for passengers and that the camera is necessary for the driver's safety ... AT FIRST. 4 cabbies were robbed in one week possibly as a backlash over the camera issue.

I think that the cameras were made mandatory inside cabs not because of the security issues for drivers but because of that incident in Kanata in which someone was dragged on the 417. But it was one of the passengers that was acting erratically causing safety concerns for the driver which is why he drove away without knowing that one person was around too close and go clipped and pinned under the cab.

This comment by Scary Larry is as bad as the '''Pigeon Gate''' comment and another example of how most of the council are more pro-suburban classes and will little regards to the people of lower classes.

Taxis and ridesharing in Ottawa
 

The service has been launched in Ottawa, according to a CTV article posted today.
http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/uber-offici...this-1.2033212

I'm curious to know what other people think of this new service. There is a lot at stake: Will revenue to The City of Ottawa be impacted? What measures will the city take to ensure drivers are licensed? Will Ottawa taxi companies take to protesting as has happened in other cities? Could reduced "ride sharing" lead to reductions in the use of public transit? I'm sure there are other issues I've not listed.

Speaking for myself only, I don't see this as a service I would use. While I can appreciate the desires of people to pay less for a service, I can also appreciate that the costs we pay now constitute some level of revenue to the city. If there is a reduction in fees paid to the city, what options does the city have to recoup that revenue?

Your thoughts?

My understanding is that the City welcomes companies like this, however they are subject to licensing just as any other taxi service is. To the best of my knowledge, these guys aren't yet licensed in this city, but have opted to begin operations anyway.

This is roughly the situation. They actually are not technically doing anything against the rules as long as their freebee launch goes on (basically through this weekend)

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It's an interesting issue. On one hand the city's taxi system has created some good things for the city like accessible cabs for wheelchairs that a service like Uber is unlikely to create.

The problem with the city saying they need to be licensed is that the city has created deliberate system of scarcity around taxi plates, making it rather difficult for some sort of new service (or even just new taxi company) to start up in any size or scale.

The other problem is the city's taxi system uses a regulated price which makes it difficult for anyone to come in with a service that uses a different business model than the current taxi system.

Therein lies one big problem. While the city might state it welcomes a new service, that welcome mat applies only to companies that comply with city regulations. And those regulations include licensing. The license is dependent on using the fixed rate structure.

It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.

I guess this is like the airbnb of taxis?

This service is very prevalent in London UK where I spent the past year living.

Very cool service. Fast, efficient and best of all, very cheap. They make great use of technology too allowing you to track exactly where your car is on your phone and even sends you a picture of the driver so you know not to get into anything sketchy.

Safe and easy to use. I loved it. Hopefully it blows some smoke up all the current Ottawa taxi companies charging such ridiculous amounts...

On the flip side, within those high taxi fares are significant fees paid to the city.

I guess we shouldn't complain about the city not being able to fund various programs. We should also then see some layoffs in the various city departments that manage the various licensing fees pertaining to taxis.

Nothing is free in life. If things are cheaper, it's usually at the expense of somebody else.

I'm not trying to start a flame war. I've no pony in this race. It's just an observation. Everyone has the right to do what they think is right.

Perhaps the city will reply by reducing spend on road infrastructure? Though I would think layoffs should be in order. Not because that is what I want to see, but rather if the work load is reduced, so too should the workforce managing that work.

Ottawa's crap cab companies need to be deregulated to within an inch of their lives.

How "significant" are they, in absolute terms, and in the context of a $2.5-billion budget?

If Ottawa decides that taxis aren't an area of commercial activity the government needs to regulate, or that regulations should be loosened than so be it. Maybe we should deregulate, other places have done so successfully. But there will always be consequences that should be considered. Just because a website makes something cheap and easy to access, doesn't make it legal. Personally I find the current system with $100,000 cab plates kind of bizarre.

Significant enough, I'd say. Enough to employ unionized city employees.

As someone else stated, the cost of the license is $100,000/year.

Assuming 1000 current taxi drivers, that would equate to $100,000,000.00

Certainly not chump change.

Something else comes in to play too, which will be interesting. Right now, taxi drivers can travel across to Quebec to drop off a fare, but cannot pick up in Quebec. If UberX drivers start doing this, aren't there federal / provincial laws that come in to play?

I thought the licenses were about $100,000 to *buy* outright. I don't believe this is an annual fee to the city.... someone correct me if I'm wrong.

That's correct. That's the supposed going rate for resale. That's also the reason it is NUTS that the city insists of protecting the economic incumbents in this industry.

No. That's the resale market price for existing taxi plates. The city does NOT make $100-million a year from taxi licensing.

I rode UberX today. This is my second time, I tried it in Washington DC this past summer.

I don't particularly like Uber as a company, but here in Ottawa they're the lesser of two evils. I don't mind a regulated taxi market so long as there is competition, but with Coventry Connections having basically locked up the entire market it's time for change. My ride today came with hand sanitizer and bottled water in the car.

Uber in many markets offers a variety of services. Licensed limos, Licensed limo SUVs, licensed limos with child seats, UberX, UberXL(suvs), UberX Family (child seats) and regular taxis charging metered rates through Uber are all available in Washington. In Philadelphia this week they launched accessible services. It's really nice to know when you have a group of 5 you can get a vehicle big enough to fit everyone in.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

Part of the problem is the city has never enforced very high standards on cabs in terms of cleanliness, air conditioning, dress code, age of the vehicle, smell, knowledge of the taxi driver of the road system, knowledge of the taxi driver of an official language, etc. At least with uber, presumably customer ratings of drivers would force these things.

I wonder though what the actual availability of drivers with uber would be. If someone is in Kanata on a Tuesday afternoon I wonder if an uber driver would be around.

I know someone who tried last night in the market area around 10:30 and the app reported Uber as not available. I suspect this is less of real launch and more of a launch to force the legal issue and give the company an opportunity to fight the city regulations.


---------------------

That said my thoughts on the regulations and how to fix them.

The first question is whether Uber is a taxi. My answer to that is yes they are and therefore they should be subject to regulations. BUT our regulations need to work.


The first problem with Ottawa's taxis is that we have created an artificial scarcity by severely limiting plate sales. In Ottawa right now it would be very difficult to even start of a new traditional style taxi company never mind something like Uber.

The first change I would propose is that the city should have an annual auction to a decent number of new plates. Say somewhere between 25-50, with say 10% accessible plates. This would also raise money for the city.

This is why we have the quasi monopoly by Conventry Connections. A government should not have regulations that protect one company over all others.

The second issue is what we regulate. There are certain things like safety, employment standards, environment regulations, civic order etc that it makes good sense for government to regulate.

For taxis this includes things like the visible identifications of cabs by numbers and signs (also good advertising for the company), cameras in cabs, standards for the vehicles etc...

Ottawas taxi regulations extend far beyond what is needed in that they dictate the actual business model taxi companies use...right down to the pricing model and prices they charge (they can't even do things like offer discounts say during a slow time...or to compete with Uber). Worse than that the regulations only allow for a single business model. One way business differentiate themselves is with there model. Someone may want to start a taxi company that uses fare zones in stead of meters, or a flat rate model or a model based demand (busier time = high price), etc.. Right now they can't do that.

So the second change is only to regulate what is needed for safety and order and allow for evolution into new business models.

No it is not an annual fee to the city.

The city only considers taxis legal of they hold a taxi plate, and it only issues a limited number of plates. I suppose the rationale for this is to limit the supply of taxis in order to allow each plate holder to earn a reasonable living.

However, the number of plates is artificially limited, but they can be resold (from an existing plate holder to a new would-be plate holder- the city is not involved with the resale of the plates). The value of the plates has increased with their scarcity.

If the city decided that it would eliminate the cap and give a taxi license to anyone who wants one, Uber would presumably be allowed, BUT the value of the existing plates would collapse overnight, and there would be lots of very angry taxi plate holders.

Anyone have any idea how many plates are individually owned? and how many are owned (and leased out) by Coventry Connections?

I don't have any stats. It's a bit more complex than that. There is cab ownership, plate ownership, and dispatch service ownership.

Coventry Connections has a near monopoly on the dispatch services. Uber would basically compete there mostly but they would need plates and licenses to operate cars (if they are found to be a taxi...it sounds to me like the would like debate that in court) . The plates and licenses could work similarly to the way they work on the other cabs.


Any cab you get into falls into one of three categories

1) The guy driving bought the car, and bought the plate. He would need to pay Coventry a fee for dispatch services and the city a few fairly small licensing fees to cover inspections and stuff.

2) The guy driving bought the car and rents the plate from someone. That someone could be Coventry or could be a third party. There would be some small licensing fee as well as dispatch fees to Coventry

3) The guy driving rents the car and plate from someone. That someone could be Coventry, a third party, or another driver that falls into the first two groups. There would be licensing fees to the city and probably the owner of thing covers the rest.

So for example someone could buy a car and plate work all day and the rent the car and plate out to another driver to do the night shift and make more money off their rather large investment.

Coventry seems to at least on the surface encourage plate ownership by drivers - although the cost is rather steep, I gather they have financing and such. I have heard of drivers that own say 2 or 3 plates - driving one and renting the other out.


Basically both the car and driver need to be licensed and you need a dispatch service. Other than Coventry there is only Executive Cabs (which I think only have maybe like 25 cabs)

Why manage the supply of taxis, and not anything else municipally-licensed, like restaurants or retail establishments?

Open up the licensing, and the market will sort out the "reasonable living" issue on its own: anyone who can't make one, will exit the industry.

In the immortal word of the Grumpy Cat: GOOD.

I agree with you, but the plate owners will freak out if the licensing is opened up because the plate that they paid $100K for would now be worth far, far less. There would doubtless be lawsuits.

I can even understand the plate owners perspective: they entered in good faith into the licensing regime that the city established; to have an asset you paid a significant amount of money for become instantly worthless would be difficult to swallow.

The sting might be eased if the city provided some kind of transition payment to existing plate owners, but I'm not sure how much this would cost. I'm sure it would be in the 10's of millions easily.

The trick is to find a way to wind down our stupid system without causing economic collapse to people who invested five or six figures in it.


My gut is the best way to open supply up on a GRADUAL basis. Say 25-30 plates a year. Have an annual plate auction at city hall. 25 regular plates and 5 accessible ones.

This way there is an opening for a company like (or their drivers if they prefer that model) or any other new players to come in and obtain plates. They will still be worth a decent chunk of coin so the bottom won't fall out on the plate market. You could even restrict them to new players not dispatched by the other existing companies (which are mostly owned by coventry) - sorta like the feds did with the wireless spectrum with Bell, Rogers , telus etc.

The problem right now is the city has not old any new plates in years. The last batch was the accessible ones (which were initially free). Regular plates have been an awfully long time. Only the resale market.

I thought the plates were worth much more - like $300,000. I could be wrong, but wasn't there a bunch of things passed a couple of years ago that favoured the taxi drivers and their union?

I might add that people aren't eager for an alternative to Ottawa cabs because of issues like cleanliness, promptness, or pleasant driver conversation - it's about money. It's about not being gouged while the driver slows down ahead of a green light in the hopes it turns amber and he can come to a tire-squealing stop just to drive up the meter. Or detours down the streets that will move slower and have more lights, all to get that extra buck out of you.

And it doesn't help that the taxi union tries to push its weight around to stop better transit access to the airport in order to protect their own financial interests. It also doesn't help that the city seems very, very close to the taxi company. Remember when Councillor Mark Taylor introduced a motion on behalf of them, to their benefit? This is a councillor who sits on the committee that oversees them, and has accepted campaign donations from them.

Yes, a councillor is allowed to accept donations from the cab company/taxi union, but the optics stink. If we're going to make a stink about councillors accepting donations from developers, this should be no different.

But never a peep out of people about this, after all, Watson (who used to employ Taylor) touts him at every turn. And anything Watson loves must be great!

Frankly, Ottawa l(and Ontario as a whole) looks more and more like the City of Laval each year.

I vaguely recall a couple of years ago that City Council had a "golden opportunity" to revamp the taxi licensing system... I don't recall the details, but the media was all over it as a positive way forward. But in the end council voted for the status-quo, and all I remember is the owner of Coventry Connections doing a big fist pump for the cameras. Couldn't help but wonder about campaign financing and all that... but that's pure speculation on my part.

On a more practical note... It just seems plain silly to me that $100,000+ (or whatever) * 1000+ cabs = $100,000,000 that is tied up in financing pieces of paper (and tiny bits of sheet metal)... when that money could be better spent directly on the industry itself. This could be in the form of newer cabs, lower fares, etc...

While I empathize with the stakeholders facing a capital loss.... seems to me like an industry shakeup is due.... now only if Uber did not request access to my phone pictures for their app... I might have jumped already :rolleyes:

So if I bought a plate, would I be able to start a 1-man cab company (ex: Jim's Cab Co.), or would I be forced to join an existing cab company?

Keep Uber and shut down all the existing cab companies. That said, taxis are terrible in every city - I avoid them like the plague no matter where I am.

Good question.

Technically I think you could be a 1-person cab company, but what number would people call if they want a cab? That is the dispatch service that Blue Line provides.

If you registered yourself with Uber and owned a plate, I don't think there would be any problem. In that case Uber would be providing your dispatching service.

EXCEPT: if you are a licensed plate owner, I think you are required to charge the city-approved taxi fare rates. Uber is lower than the city approved rates so I think you could face a fine for charging cheaper rates.

So what is the difference between UberX rideshare and kangaride/amigoexpress? Other than one is within a city and the other is long distance travel?

https://www.kangaride.com/

Nice summary. Thanks.
The plate system seems to be the anachronism and the sticking point in this. It places an artificial limit on the number of cars.
Scrap the plate system and license the drivers. Drivers and dispatchers alike can compete in an open market.

I'd place a threshold on what makes you a cab driver requiring a license though. It has to be more than 2 rides a day. I should be able to offer a ride share back and forth to work without a taxi license.

One of the things I don't like about this city council/mayor is that despite constantly patting themselves on the back for being progressive in one way or another, they fiercely reinforce the status quo in areas like this.

It's like the province and booze.

As the commenters on this forum have pointed out, it shouldn't have to come down to an argument of having a monopoly OR the wild west. Opportunities for healthy competition and possible savings/convenience for residents is possible, if only the city would slide the dowel rod out of its behind and become just the slightest bit flexible.

Fat chance.

[QUOTE=S-Man;6755115
As the commenters on this forum have pointed out, it shouldn't have to come down to an argument of having a monopoly OR the wild west. Opportunities for healthy competition and possible savings/convenience for residents is possible, if only the city would slide the dowel rod out of its behind and become just the slightest bit flexible.

Fat chance.[/QUOTE]

There's just something about a nanny-style Gov't that this city clings to. I don't blame the City or the Councillors. I blame the electorate for consistently voting in the same old, same old....

For example, Watson's platform for election is based solely on desire, not practicality. He's assuming the other levels of Gov't will support his dreams. If they don't, he'll blame those other levels of Gov't. He's not campaigning on plans, he's campaigning on desires and wishes. If the other levels of Gov't can't, or won't provide the financial support then all he has to say is "hey they won't play in my sandbox".

Anyway, great information about Uber and the complexities of the current state of taxis in Ottawa.

Which they would lose.

They entered the secondary market. The city is under no obligation to preserve that market, which only exists because of their own idiotic command-economy policies.

In Washington DC, there are many independent cabs, but other regulations. They all have the same taxi sign, and as of the past year have begun standardizing on one paint scheme. They also get to choose a dispatching service if they want one, and Uber is one of their choices. In the app you can choose taxi, UberX or a number of options and see which one can get to you quickest. If you choose Taxi, the driver punches the final meter rate into the Uber app, it adds tip (you choose the default tip) and charges you accordingly.

This might be how Uber has to proceed in Ottawa. There have to be enough cabbies upset with Coventry to get a good start on things, an then they benefit from people using the app and having a choice of multiple options. The cabbies benefit from not having to worry about getting paid and they can still do curb pickups.

Baird tweets support for Uber in frustration with no-show cabs

Carys Mills, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 5, 2014, Last Updated: October 5, 2014 11:44 AM EDT

As Ottawa officials prepare to investigate whether Uber is breaking taxi regulations, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird tweeted some support for the ride-sharing company on Saturday.

Uber, the app company that connects drivers with customers, was already in more than 200 other cities when it started up in Ottawa this past week.

Baird tweeted on Saturday night, suggesting he’s among Uber’s supporters in the capital, unlike Mayor Jim Watson.



On Monday, the city is expected to start enforcing taxi rules against Uber and the drivers working with the company. Susan Jones, Ottawa’s general manager of emergency and protective services, has said the city may resort to undercover investigations and fines could be as high as $20,000.

Free promotional rides, up to 10 per customer and worth up to $20 each, are due to end on Sunday. Once rides are being provided for a fee, Jones said Uber should be complying with taxi rules, including having a broker’s licence, hiring licensed cab drivers and using vehicles licensed as taxis.

Company spokeswoman Lauren Altmin disputes this, saying Uber is a technology company.

“It’s unfortunate the city has chosen to ignore that reality and view the new ridesharing industry as a traditional taxi company,” she said in an email. “We welcome the opportunity to work with city officials to develop smart regulations that open up competition on the streets of Ottawa and give residents the transportation options they deserve.”

Even if Uber calls itself a technology company, Watson told reporters the company needs to follow taxi rules. “They’ve been told very clearly, they have to follow the rules and regulations,” Watson said hours after Uber launched.

[email protected]
twitter.com/CarysMills

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...h-no-show-cabs

Did anyone see last week that Invest Ottawa tweeted a welcome to Uber, only to delete it a few hours later? David Reevely made mention of this.

I can only assume a stern phone call was placed from His Worship that sent them scrambling to erase the greeting.

Got an email from Uber this afternoon that they'll be extending the free rides "indefinitely."

Game on.

:previous: Here's why:

So with the plate you would have accomplished the hard part since they are of limited supply.

You would need to license your dispatch service (Jim's Cab Co.) - Not limited supply so mostly paparwork.

You would need to license yourself (or whomever you want to drive the cab) as cab operator/driver -Not limited supply so again mostly paparwork



Finally you open for business! With all the licenses there are a bunch of rules you need to follow. The most major one is you have to use the city approved prices and pricing model (this would be a issue for Uber). You would also need a bunch of stuff like the cab meter, number of side of car (in a certain font :-) ), roof sign various info posted on the back of seat and the security camera that is required in all cabs (Uber would also be lacking most or all of this stuff)

Are Watson and his bi-law cops after kangaride local too?
https://local.kangaride.com/

Kangaride is really just carpooling, which the City of Ottawa already encourages through their website. They just want to make life as miserable as possible for somebody who wants to hire a vehicle on demand.

This is carpooling under the Public Vehicles Act
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/sta...es_90p54_e.htm

Although it has only been legal since 2009
http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=...6-de59c5f54179

If carpooling is safe and virtuous, so is Uber

Brian Lee Crowley, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 10, 2014, Last Updated: October 10, 2014 11:35 AM EDT

Can you blame Uber for being a little confused?

Uber is a smartphone ride-sharing app that allows people looking for a ride to connect instantly with available drivers. This technology is being rolled out around the industrialized world, including in Canada.

High-tech ride-sharing represents a huge threat to the taxi industry, which is a cosy collusion between incumbent service providers and municipal governments. Cities limit the number of cabs, driving up the price of a taxi ride and creating inevitable shortages at periods of peak demand. In return, the lucky owners of taxi permits give their political support to the chummy politicians who keep this game going.

In Ottawa, the latest city to see Uber open for business, a taxi permit sells for over $250,000. Just like that other conspiracy against the consumer, supply management, the sky-high value of these permits reflects the ability of their owners to eliminate competition and capture unjustified profits.

It was frustration with such consumer exploitation that led John Baird, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, to tweet in Ottawa the other night, “75 minutes. 5 calls. No cab. Tonight I see the need for more competition with @Uber”. The taxi operator disputes Baird’s version of what happened.

But the city and the taxi industry, like many of their peers across Europe and North America, are not going down without a fight. And the ground on which they like to fight is that they alone are the defenders of the public’s safety in a dangerous world. They require that drivers be trained, taxis be insured and inspected and consumer complaints be investigated.

Uber, says the city, endangers the health and safety of Ottawans by heedlessly exposing them to the risk of unqualified and possibly dangerous drivers and uninspected cars.

I’ll get to these claims in a moment. But first here’s why Uber might be confused.

If you Google Ottawa and carpooling, you quickly land on a city webpage touting the benefits of ride sharing. Cut costs! Be green! Destress! Meet new people! “Carpooling is one way that the City … is working towards addressing traffic congestion and making the most of our transportation network.”

Not a word about the awful dangers you might face. Has the city licensed the drivers? Checked for a criminal record? Required proof of suitable insurance? Inspected the cars? Nope; I know because I registered as a driver. Caveat emptor prevails. Moreover the website discusses quite openly that money will change hands “to cover expenses.”

So if we take the city at its word in its crusade against Uber, by its own admission Ottawa is proudly promoting rides in rolling deathtraps with unknown wackos about whom it can know as little as a generic e-mail address. What rank hypocrisy.

Uber, by contrast, has a more rigorous screening process for drivers than Toronto’s (its website doesn’t offer a comparison with Ottawa’s requirements, but Uber’s background checks are serious). The company and its insurers offer $5 million worth of bodily injury and property damage coverage on every Uber trip. That’s in addition to any coverage the driver has. Uber’s app allows you to rate your experience with a driver and so to build up a more comprehensive view of drivers over time than you get stepping into the average anonymous cab.

Aside from the fact that Uber counts their driver’s time and the company’s service as costs to be reimbursed, there is no significant difference between the ridesharing promoted by the city and Uber’s except that Uber’s is actually efficient and rewards drivers for turning their empty passenger seats into valuable transport capacity.

Yes, this disruptive technology will force cities across the land to confront the mess they have created by trying to confer benefits on cab licensees at the expense of consumers. They’d better get on with that unavoidable job and stop trying to pretend that they are the valiant and disinterested guardians of public safety. They are only embarrassing themselves.

Brian Lee Crowley (twitter.com/brianleecrowley) is the Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think tank in Ottawa: www.macdonaldlaurier.ca.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...ous-so-is-uber

Tale of the taxi tape: Uber vs. traditional cabs

Carys Mills, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 13, 2014, Last Updated: October 13, 2014 4:57 PM EDT

App company Uber is getting a lot of attention in Ottawa, but at least one cab driver isn’t too worried.

“It depends what the public thinks about their safety. . . . It’s your life, you make your choice,” said Daniel Simil, 38, who has been driving a taxi for about two years, renting his taxi plate from its owner and working almost every night.

People will have to make up their minds about how insurance for taxis and Uber drivers compares, for example, Simil said. He’s also following government responses, not only in Ottawa, but throughout the world where regulators are trying to crack down on the company for not following taxi rules.

But since UberX started up in Ottawa earlier this month at least one other taxi driver, who asked not to be named, has gone against taxi union and Uber rules to work for both at the same time. Faced with bills of almost $2,000 each month to operate a taxi, the driver said he was only left with about $1,300 to take home in September, and even less after buying gas.

“This is a way I was going to make extra money,” said the driver. He stopped driving for Uber after a few days. “It’s a very good app. It’s wonderful. But the thing is it’s still against the law.”

So how do taxis and Uber compare for customers and drivers?

Price

Taxi: The city now sets fares at $3.45 for the first 150 metres, $0.16 for every extra 86 metres and $0.16 for every 24 seconds of waiting time. Earlier this year, Ottawa’s taxi union said it wanted a fare increase of seven per cent. But Susan Jones, the general manager of emergency and protective services for the city, said that won’t go to committee until at least June 2015.

Uber: Regular prices for Uber include a $2.30 base fee, $1 “safe rides” fee, $0.90 per kilometre and $0.30 per minute. Like taxis, which Uber says it’s 40 per cent cheaper than, there is some variation according to traffic. The app doesn’t accept tips. Then there’s surge pricing. It means there’s a higher fee when there’s a shortage of drivers compared to demand. “If there’s a certain area of the city that a lot of people are requesting rides and there are not enough drivers on the platform, our algorithm notifies our partners that surge is in place,” Uber spokeswoman Lauren Altmin said. That situation hasn’t happened yet in Ottawa.

Insurance

Taxi: The city requires drivers to have $2 million in commercial insurance, although Jones said the industry standard is actually $5 million. The insurance covers both drivers and passengers. This can cost drivers about $7,000 annually, said Hanif Patni, chief executive of Coventry Connections. “They have to have it,” he said. “They couldn’t possibly drive for us (otherwise), because we check this continuously.”

Uber: How insurance works for Uber drivers in Ontario is creating some confusion. Pete Karageorgos, director of consumer and industry relations for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said there’s a “grey area” around what kind of insurance drivers need to carry, particularly whether commercial insurance is necessary. Uber spokeswoman Altmin said drivers should check their personal insurance policies, although “every ride on the UberX platform in Canada is backed by that $5-million contingent auto liability insurance” covering the driver, customer and pedestrians. That insurance kicks in from when the trip is accepted until it ends, she said.

Pay

Taxi: Earnings vary by the number of hours drivers work and the fees they pay. Someone renting or leasing a plate could make in the range of $25,000 to $30,000 a year if they work six days a week, Patni said, adding drivers who own their plates and cars make more than $50,000. Taxi union president Amrik Singh, who owns his own plate but works through Blueline, said earnings vary significantly by time of year and that they have been hurt lately by federal job cuts.

Uber: Drivers were guaranteed $20 per hour during Uber’s free period in Ottawa, which ended last weekend. Exactly how much a driver makes in the future will be variable, “It’s kind of earning an income on their own flexible schedule,” Altmin said, adding that in Chicago UberX drivers earn almost double the minimum wage. Uber says it will be taking 20 per cent of each fare here in Ottawa.

Tax

Taxi: Self-employed cab drivers must have a HST number and collect the 13 per cent from their fares, Singh said. Taxi drivers whose fares are regulated by the province or municipality are required to register with the Canada Revenue Agency for GST/HST purposes and to charge GST/HST on their fares, a CRA spokeswoman said.

Uber: The CRA spokeswoman said she couldn’t provide a conclusive response about whether Uber drivers need to pay HST without specifics. When passenger transportation fares aren’t regulated by the province or municipality, drivers are only required to register and charge GST/HST if their worldwide annual taxable revenues exceed $30,000, she said. Altmin said drivers are responsible for complying with “all relevant taxes and regulations” required by law.

Training

Taxi: Ottawa taxi drivers have to go through a 30-day course at Algonquin College that covers customer service, geography, the bylaw and accessibility, Jones said.

Uber: The company says its drivers learn how the app works through training and videos.

Vehicle

Taxi: Taxis can be a maximum of eight years old. They’re inspected once a year if they’re less than four years old or twice a year if they’re older. There can’t be any damage and there needs to be a spare tire in the car.

Uber: Vehicles, which aren’t inspected by the company but must be photographed for Uber’s files, can’t be more than 10 years old and in good condition. “Our rideshare partners are responsible for maintaining and ensuring inspections are conducted in accordance with local laws,” Altmin said, adding feedback through the app means customers can flag any vehicle concerns.

Security

Taxi: Drivers have a police record check and need to provide a recent provincial driving record. When something does go wrong, Patni said, his company works with the police to retrieve ride data and photos from the cab camera. Patni said a case in the past year, involving a driver allegedly abusing a woman, GPS information was retrieved quickly.

Uber: The company says it does local and RCMP police record checks. “The Uber platform has unprecedented safety and accountability built into the app,” Altmin said, in part because both the driver and customer see information about each other and can rate each other. Altmin also pointed out that no cash is exchanged during an Uber trip, because the system uses credit cards.

Accessibility

Taxi: Taxi brokers are required to provide accessible service. “If they can’t provide the accessible taxi cab service that’s being requested they have to call up another one,” Jones said. Drivers are trained on providing accessible rides as part of their training and the city has 187 accessible plates.

Uber: A product called UberAccess, which uses accessible vehicles and training, is available in some U.S. cities but not Ottawa. “As our presence in Canada continues to grow, we hope to bring that option to the residents of not only Ottawa but everywhere we operate,” Altmin said.

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Taxi regulation a problem of council's own making

Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 13, 2014, Last Updated: October 13, 2014 5:35 PM EDT

Jim Watson doesn’t want to acknowledge that Ottawa has a taxi regulation problem.

And why would he? It’s a messy situation that the current council has made slightly worse in this term.

That Uber’s tumultuous entrance into the Ottawa’s taxi market hasn’t become an election issue is hardly a surprise. While some councillor candidates have declared their support for the rogue taxi-app company, there’s been scarce discussion of it among mayoral candidates.

That may be because only three of those candidates meet with any regularity — Watson, second-place contender Mike Maguire and challenger Anwar Syed are the only ones who show up to most debates.

And there are certainly bigger fish to fry when it comes to city issues: the future of light rail, the size of the municipality’s debt, how often the garbage should be picked up.

Watson has successful dodged the question of the need to re-vamp the taxi regulations. He points out that Uber is breaking the rules — “It can call itself a technology company, but if it acts like a taxi company, it’s a taxi company” — and this is true.

It’s also not the point.

That Ottawa appears to have welcomed Uber with open arms indicates a dissatisfaction with this city’s taxi service, from the fares (the highest in North America for a ride longer than 10 kilometres) to the sometimes poor familiarity with street names and neighbourhoods.

The demand for more competition in the taxi business will compel the city to revisit the arcane and complex way it’s regulated the industry, and it’s hard to see any fix that won’t end up in court or cost taxpayers many millions — or both.

The regulation of the taxi industry is a mess of council’s own making, however.

As the Citizen’s Carys Mills reports, most cities regulate cabs in some way. But Ottawa has added another level of complexity — and barriers to entry — by allowing taxi plates to be tradeable.

Ever since municipalities began regulating the taxi industry, the limited number of regular taxi plates issued have been traded on an underground market. Ottawa’s pre-amalgamated cities turned a blind eye.

After amalgamation came a years-long pitched battle to fix this. Councillors of the day had neither the political courage to eradicate the selling of the plates — including the court challenges that would have inevitably ensued — nor the deep pockets needed to buy the plates back.

Of course, buying back the plates would have been a much cheaper option a decade ago than it is today. These days, a taxi plate can sell for $250,000 or $300,000. Because the city allows a limited number of taxis on the streets, in part to guarantee that taxi drivers and owners can make a decent living and hence take care of their vehicles, new taxi plates are hardly ever issued, making it virtually impossible to break into the business without a few large to invest.

Until 2002. That’s when, faced with the shameful reality that the city had only a single wheelchair-accessible cab, the municipality issued a limited number of accessible taxi licences annually for $400 a pop — the first time licences had been made available to the general public in decades.

At the time, council fought to make those plates non-tradeable, arguing that it was the first, albeit minuscule, step to one day phasing out those tradeable plates. The city would steadily, if slowly, issue new, non-tradable plates over the years and eventually the tradeable plates would lose their value.

Except that in 2012, Coun. Mark Taylor — with the full support of Watson, but not of veteran councillors — moved to make these newer plates tradeable. It’s worth noting that the city’s taxi union gave Taylor a $750 campaign donation after he became chair of the committee that presides over the city’s taxi bylaw. (Taylor has called taking the donation “a rookie mistake” during this campaign season.)

So council, and Watson in particular, hasn’t done itself any favours by giving in to the taxi industry’s demands.

Watson allows that “There’ll probably be some desire to look at how technology is affecting the taxi industry,” but that’s just the start of it.

The city shouldn’t just let Uber waltz into the Ottawa operating above (or under) the rules. But pretending that its entrance into the market isn’t a game changer for long-term regulations is a head-in-the-sand way to govern. Incumbents may be succeeding in avoiding the taxi regulation question now, but it’ll be waiting for them after election day.

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Demand for Uber puts spotlight on Ottawa's taxi system

Carys Mills, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: October 13, 2014, Last Updated: October 13, 2014 5:38 PM EDT

Five minutes after a cab was supposed to pick up Jasmine Attfield, she started to panic. The taxi, which she booked the night before her big interview, wasn’t there. When she called she was told a Blueline taxi would not be coming.

Attfield, a 25-year-old University of Ottawa law student, got to her appointment late after flagging down a stranger for a ride. It turned out her interviewers were also late.

Despite the stroke of luck last week, the experience shifted the way Attfield sees taxis and Uber, the app-based company that started operating in Ottawa this month and has put the taxi industry and city officials on high alert. Uber doesn’t follow city taxi regulations, arguing it’s a technology company, not a cab firm.

The city disagrees and has so far charged two drivers. But that doesn’t sway Attfield’s new support for Uber. “I realized that you’re always getting into a stranger’s car,” Attfield said, adding she’d rather be able to track the driver on an app and rate them, as Uber allows her to do.

Taxi operator Coventry Connections chief executive Hanif Patni said he’s sorry for what happened to Attfield, which was “extremely rare” and due to a “freak rainstorm,” when 1,003 calls were processed in less than two hours.

But the demand for Uber shows there’s something wrong with current systems, not just in Ottawa but everywhere the company has disrupted the industry, said Joshua Gans, a University of Toronto professor of strategic management.

“The fact that they have any traction at all is telling you that there’s something wrong with the existing regulations,” he said.

So just what does Ottawa’s taxi system look like now and how could it improve?

Plate required

To legally drive a cab in Ottawa, drivers need a taxi driver license, a vehicle licensed as a cab and they must work with a licensed broker. They also need one of the city’s 1,188 taxi plates, which is how the city limits the number of cabs on the road. Most plates are standard but there are 187 accessible ones, which require the driver be equipped for disabled passengers. They’re the only type of plates that have been added to the road in more than a decade.

There are 2,641 licensed taxi drivers in Ottawa, meaning more than two drivers for every plate. Some use their own plates, others rent them full-time or share them with another driver. Capping the number of taxis is the norm across North America, although systems differ. Ottawa has a population formula, but final decisions rest with city council.

“At the end of the day, for us it’s important the plates are in operation and they’re with licensed drivers,” said Susan Jones, the city’s general manager of emergency and protective services.

A plate’s worth

There are 488 drivers on the city’s waiting list for accessible taxi plates, anticipating the next release. But when an existing plate owner decides to sell, their private sale isn’t regulated by the city, so price is left up to the market.

Patni said the vast majority of drivers are first-generation Canadians and likened plates to retirement funds.

Despite business being up from this time last year, Patni said Uber has created a lot of uncertainty.

“Before Uber came and kind of destroyed their livelihoods and the value of all the work they’ve done, I would have said that a taxi plate would have gone for about $300,000,” said Patni, whose company owns Blueline and operates other Ottawa brands. “It’s like buying a mortgage and investing in the plate and this, of course, was a system that was sanctioned and arranged by the regulators and by the city.”

He said Coventry owns about seven per cent of Ottawa’s taxi plates. His company also dispatches drivers who own their plates or are renting elsewhere, for a fee. “There’s a misconception here that Coventry controls all the cars, it has a monopoly and it gets all the revenue,” Patni said. “It’s simply not the case.”

Why is this so complicated?

If you’ve ever had trouble getting a cab, you might wonder why the city limits the number of plates.

“There’s a good reason why we limit the number of taxis, and it’s just particularly to avoid market collapse and a flood of new entrants when there’s an economic depression or recession,” said Dr. Dan Hara, president of Ottawa-based Hara Associates. “But of course, once you do that, monopoly issues ensue.”

Hara has studied taxi regulation across North America for more than 20 years. Some cities experimented with total deregulation in the 1970s, but it was “disastrous,” Hara said, adding that most cities turned back to regulation because of public safety considerations, plus the number of taxis went down and prices went up.

Ottawa doesn’t seem to have the issues some other cities do, said Hara, who last studied Ottawa’s taxi supply for the city in 2004. Some other cities have neighbourhoods where cabs won’t go. Others have vast cab shortages, such as San Francisco, the birthplace of Uber and competitor Lyft.

But there’s a more widespread problem emerging throughout North America. On weekends and holidays, older people are more responsible and opting not to drink and drive, while young people no longer see car ownership as a right of passage, Hara said.

“Suddenly the profile of demand is shifting.”

What now?

Hara said that, with modern technology, it would be possible to introduce part-time drivers to alleviate heightened demands on weekends, without the massive kind of city enforcement that would have required in the past. Cab companies now track where their drivers are and when they’re working, Hara said, which is data that previously would have required an army of bylaw officers.

Beyond that, he said, it’s likely time to re-examine taxi regulations overall, to allow greater flexibility and competition without abandoning lessons of deregulation. One possibility would be shifting from capping the number of taxis to requiring fees be paid to the city, which are high enough to deter excess entry but not so high that taxi demand is suppressed.

“What we do need to do is not only modernize our legislation to recognize the distinction between shared ride and a taxi — and to make sure a shared ride stays a shared ride — but we also need to recognize the changing demographics that are driving the need, not only for more taxis but for licensing them differently,” Hara said. “And we need to achieve all this while respecting the investment that the current drivers and taxi companies have in the industry.”

Jones expects to report back to council on an existing taxi review, which includes whether there’s a way to collect money on plate sales, early next year. Uber can then explain what kind of regulations it wants, Jones said. As well, she said that if people are having trouble getting cabs, they need to speak up. “We haven’t had a lot of complaints,” she said. “But if we start looking at having more complaints, where service levels can’t be met, then you look at different models.”

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Hail-O has now pulled out of North America (closing it's 2 Canadian bases - in Toronto and Montreal), according to the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hail...real-1.2798283

In one of the earlier articles above (from last week, I think), there was mention that Hail-O was actively trying to get into the Ottawa market, and has been for the last year at least. They were trying to figure something out with the local cab companies. I could see them pulling out of Ottawa since we don't have a cab-centric city, but it's a bit surprising that they'd pull out of N.A. completely...