Up-Lyfting News. Ride Sharing FINALLY approved!

[JimDandy]

It appears the taxi copanies are not giving up without a fight!

https://globalnews.ca/news/6470324/lower-mainland-taxi-companies-lawsuit-licences/

JD

 

[sexpanther69]

Same here and it’s uplyfting too!

Surrey though is protecting Cabbies by saying Ride Hailing drivers can be ticketed with a $500 infraction.

https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/01/26/uber-surrey-fines-bylaw

Seems McCallum is also in the back pocket of the Taxi industry.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/doug-mccallu...ervices-still-not-welcome-in-surrey-1.4783095

McCallum is a goof, no chance he's getting re elected, the taxi community ain't big enough... This guys talkin majority of city doesn't support it... Take away the taxi drivers and where are the majority of the so called non supporters..... Anyone you talk to in Surrey says the exact opposite

 

[MissingOne]

:nod:

You got that right!

Number of times someone near me has been harassed by (insert description - drunks, druggies, perverts, and flat out a**holes). And this has been around the dinner hour. I’d hate to be aboard during the late night hours.

I have taken many rides on the Canada Line very late at night or very early in the morning, because the flights that I typically use depart or arrive at those hours. Mostly the train is almost empty. I've never seen a problem. It's almost as though I'm using a different train than other writers.

Before the Canada Line, I used to rely on $80 taxi rides from the further reaches of the North Shore to get to the airport. Some drivers were OK; some were downright scary. When the Canada Line went into operation I decided to give it a try. I took a bus downtown and the train from there to the airport. I've been using that mode for airport trips ever since. It's fast and reliable and I don't have to worry about being in a car with a dangerous driver. Mind you, I travel with carry-on luggage only. My way wouldn't be fun for a person with a lot of luggage.

Are ride-hail drivers any better, on average, than taxi drivers? I have no idea. I'll probably try it sometime, when I need to go somewhere that I can't easily get to on transit.

 

[Miss Hunter]

I’ve never had any issues on the Canada Line either. I use it almost daily. I have a car but I live beside a Canada Line station so if it takes me where I need to go I prefer it over driving.

I’m not a fan of buses though. When I lived in East Van years ago without a car I had no choice but to use transit. The 20 Victoria was an Insane Asylum on wheels.

 

[rlock]

I’ve never had any issues on the Canada Line either. I use it almost daily. I have a car but I live beside a Canada Line station so if it takes me where I need to go I prefer it over driving.

I’m not a fan of buses though. When I lived in East Van years ago without a car I had no choice but to use transit. The 20 Victoria was an Insane Asylum on wheels.

Yeah, I would expect it more from the Expo line.

And yes, the #20 or the #14 anywhere east of Granville.

I think someone actually wrote a play about the #20 bus being this way. Someone I know saw it.

 

[rlock]

It appears the taxi copanies are not giving up without a fight!

https://globalnews.ca/news/6470324/lower-mainland-taxi-companies-lawsuit-licences/

JD

I have no dog in the fight between taxis and ride hailing, but I have driven for a living, so I know what owner-operators face in terms of costs, and the small margins of actual earnings.

I'm not surprised the taxis are fighting this. There is some very big (out of province) corporate money pushing Uber and Lyft in the media & political scene. Ride hailing is just a different kind of dispatch & billing system, but what they do is basically the same as taxis. The public generally doesn't see it, but taxis, couriers, and so on pay about twice as much to operate their vehicles as normal drivers do. In terms of fuel & mechanical service, taxi companies are about as efficient as one can be. Uber & Lyft (etc.) undercut the taxi companies by breaking the usual laws on inspections, driver training / licensing, vehicle licensing, and (the biggest expense) insurance. They are trying to run a passenger carrying service under "normal car & driver" regulations - that's how they can beat the taxis on costs. Taxi companies have to also provide a certain percentage of wheelchair accessible cabs, and ride hailing doesn't. Uber and Lyft are also in trouble for mistreating / cheating their employees (who they do not like to call employees), but that's another issue that people like Global TV never talk about.

So is a level playing field needed - one set of sensible but unavoidable laws to govern the whole industry? Absolutely !

I understand why the public is pissed (a taxi cartel inflating ride scarcity & costs); I understand why the taxi companies are pissed (being undercut by companies that compete by breaking the law). I understand why Uber/Lyft are pissed (having to satisfy a mish-mash of provincial laws, and also a legion of namby-pamby municipal governments).

What I do not understand is why the provincial government doesn't get off their ass and transform the industry, making it fair and taking it out of the hands of municipal mini-me's and putting it into the hands of Metro Vancouver / Translink.

It's really not that hard to imagine. Just a few principles could solve it:
- Taxis or "ride hailing" face the same laws regarding drivers & vehicles & licensing & type of insurance. Whether more stict or more lax, the same rules must apply to everyone. (And that will equalize the costs.)
- Class 4 licenses & training should be the norm, but the BC government should at least divide class 4 so that guys driving normal-sized cars or mini-vans are not being asked to learn rules & procedures designed for buses and stretch limos.
- The system of commercial plates and business licenses should be region-wide, for taxis, ride hails, and other similar businesses, and more-or-less governed by Translink.
- Open up the total number of vehicles licensed, but require them to be all EV's.
- All of them have to obey the labour code and WCB - out-of-province operations liek Uber and Lyft do not get to dodge the law by having foreign HQ's and claiming their drivers aren't employees.

Transparent. Abundant. Fair. Clean. BOOM.

If I can come up with all that in 10 minutes, why can't they in 10 months?

 

[chico1]

Sorry but I don't buy this. If it can work in the rest of the world it can work here. I don't see why not. Vancouver is the only major city in North America that did not have Uber until a week ago. And now Surrey major and Taxi companies are trying to fight it.

All the reasons "why" are the pure BS and at the expense of the consumers. So sorry, but suck it up and adjust living in the 21st century.

 

[Newb808]

rlock, you're incorrect on a number of points.

Ride sharing/ride hailing companies are going to have to operate in a similar manner to taxis. I looked into this when the rules were first proposed. Drivers will need, at minimum a Class 4 licence. Under ICBC rules, there are two types of Class 4 licences (a Restricted Licence; which basically allows you to drive cars/vans - and the Unrestricted, which is smaller buses). Drivers will need to have appropriate insurance, not just personal/pleasure use - significantly more expensive.

A restricted class 4 license is basically a formality with no special training required. I passed the written and road test first try with a few YouTube videos and a practice written exam as study reference. That was years ago mind you but I’ve heard it hasn’t changed much. Same road test as a class 5 but you have to perform a pretrip safety inspection around the car and under the hood. Anyone with basic automotive knowledge could pass the test. The knowledge test is a bit trickier as there are questions related to truck, taxi and school bus driving. Some questions about gears, tires and a few other points as well, but nothing serious and mostly common sense.
I imagine it will be the same here, but all my Uber receipts from my last trip to Mexico were footnoted “ All your trips are insured by AXA.” With a corporate logo. Just a hunch but I’m guessing Uber provides commercial insurance from the moment you log on until the moment you log off. This way operators and Uber don’t have to worry about liability.

 

[MissingOne]

... I’m not a fan of buses though. When I lived in East Van years ago without a car I had no choice but to use transit. The 20 Victoria was an Insane Asylum on wheels.

Yeah, with the buses it really varies with your route. I often take buses from the North Shore to downtown. Typical loads consist of working commuters, shoppers, students, and from West Van, nannies and other house-servants on their days off. The bus may be crowded, but it's mostly people who are moving ahead with their lives.

Conversely, I sometimes find myself of the B-line along Hastings Street going to or from Burnaby. That has the working commuters, the students and the shoppers, but it also serves people of the downtown East Side, many of whose lives are kind of off the rails. The ride can be a bit of an adventure. I usually get off that bus thinking "There but for some very good luck, go I".

By the way, I should put in a good word for the Hastings Street bus drivers. Most of them are courteous to everyone from the up-and-comers to the down-and-outers. I've seen them be very kind and considerate to the many disabled people who use that bus route. I could not do that job.

 

[rlock]

rlock, you're incorrect on a number of points.

Ride sharing/ride hailing companies are going to have to operate in a similar manner to taxis. I looked into this when the rules were first proposed. Drivers will need, at minimum a Class 4 licence. Under ICBC rules, there are two types of Class 4 licences (a Restricted Licence; which basically allows you to drive cars/vans - and the Unrestricted, which is smaller buses). Drivers will need to have appropriate insurance, not just personal/pleasure use - significantly more expensive.

A restricted class 4 license is basically a formality with no special training required. I passed the written and road test first try with a few YouTube videos and a practice written exam as study reference. That was years ago mind you but I’ve heard it hasn’t changed much. Same road test as a class 5 but you have to perform a pretrip safety inspection around the car and under the hood. Anyone with basic automotive knowledge could pass the test. The knowledge test is a bit trickier as there are questions related to truck, taxi and school bus driving. Some questions about gears, tires and a few other points as well, but nothing serious and mostly common sense.
I imagine it will be the same here, but all my Uber receipts from my last trip to Mexico were footnoted “ All your trips are insured by AXA.” With a corporate logo. Just a hunch but I’m guessing Uber provides commercial insurance from the moment you log on until the moment you log off. This way operators and Uber don’t have to worry about liability.

I know that the ride hailing companies resisted class 4 for a long time, and it was only after much pressure the province imposed it on them. For a while they even tried claiming the province had no jurisdiction because they were tech companies, not transportation companies.

If there are already 2 kinds of class 4, then why does the media run so many news stories about car drivers being forced to learn about bus safety measures? Why, it's almost as if Global were just running pressure stories on Uber's behalf. (LOL.)
I already know insurance is more expensive; it's the same for couriers (which I worked as) - they figure the more you drive, the more risk you incur; then for taxis and such, add liability risk to passengers. Yikes!

My point is, Uber and Lyft have resisted all those regulations (provincial, municipal, ICBC) at every turn; it's a matter of dodging all those extra costs (training, licensing, inspection, insurance). Yes, that's an expense the drivers have to pay out of pocket, but for Uber & Lyft, it discourages "amateurs" and part-time drivers, who are very important to their peak business.

Perhaps if they spent their efforts complying with the existing rules instead of fighting against them, there might have been ride hailing months ago. I mean it is good to see the taxi industry shaken up, or reformed, but Uber and Lyft are taxi services, and the province should treat them that way and get on with it. Wimpiness will not win them any applause.

In any case, it was the Greens being pro-ride hailing that forced the NDP to accept what (in the election campaign) they had originally promised to ban. (Surrey politics = foot dragging, I agree.)


BTW: There are only 2500 taxis operating in Metro Vancouver. Or maybe that's 2500 licenses, I'm not sure. Probably about 700 which can serve the airport (which has a unique call-up system for its taxi lineup, to keep things sequential & send cabs back & forth to their home regions). The taxi companies hoard them like a dragon hoarding gold. That has got to be expanded to the point where they aren't trading taxi licenses like it was real estate or something.

There's also there is a taxi bill of rights. All the taxi drivers have to follow it, and drivers and the companies can get punished for not doing so. Also, airport standards are even higher, so any time they break rules there, they can get suspended from serving the airport.

I wonder if the province will also require Uber & Lyft drivers to obey the same rules of conduct. (I know those companies have internal COC's, but it's not really the same thing.)

 

[badbadboy]

I have a Class 4 for a volunteer gig I had a few years back. My licence does not have any sort of different endorsements of the class 4. Just a “4”, so I guess I’m to assume it’s unrestricted?

The course I took was all about driving a 12 passenger van. I had to know basic troubleshooting and knowledge of safety features, cones, flares etc. Very basic automotive engine, brakes and drivetrain info. The road test was a clusterf**k with the tester getting me to drive the bus near a hospital with ambulances coming and going. I did more pulling off to the roadside than driving. The tester was trying to rattle me when I had to back up the van.

 

[MissingOne]

I have a Class 4 for a volunteer gig I had a few years back. My licence does not have any sort of different endorsements of the class 4. Just a “4”, so I guess I’m to assume it’s unrestricted?

The course I took was all about driving a 12 passenger van. I had to know basic troubleshooting and knowledge of safety features, cones, flares etc. Very basic automotive engine, brakes and drivetrain info. The road test was a clusterf**k with the tester getting me to drive the bus near a hospital with ambulances coming and going. I did more pulling off to the roadside than driving. The tester was trying to rattle me when I had to back up the van.

I had a class 4 for many years. Mine was restricted. I forget if the limitation was based on passenger count or size of the vehicle, but effectively I was limited to vehicles no longer than about 20 feet.

I took the test in the small town where I live, so the examiner really had no place to put me through the sorts of paces that BBB describes. It was a pretty easy test, although I nearly failed for driving too fast past a playground.

I don't have the class 4 anymore. I don't need it and it was getting costly to maintain it. However, I would agree that anyone carrying paying passengers for profit should be required to have it. I don't think having a class 4 makes one a better driver, but if one group of professional drivers is required to have it, then they all should be required to have it, to keep things fair.

 

[uncleg]

BTW: There are only 2500 taxis operating in Metro Vancouver. Or maybe that's 2500 licenses, I'm not sure. Probably about 700 which can serve the airport (which has a unique call-up system for its taxi lineup, to keep things sequential & send cabs back & forth to their home regions). The taxi companies hoard them like a dragon hoarding gold. That has got to be expanded to the point where they aren't trading taxi licenses like it was real estate or something.

There's also there is a taxi bill of rights. All the taxi drivers have to follow it, and drivers and the companies can get punished for not doing so. Also, airport standards are even higher, so any time they break rules there, they can get suspended from serving the airport.

I wonder if the province will also require Uber & Lyft drivers to obey the same rules of conduct. (I know those companies have internal COC's, but it's not really the same thing.)

That's 2500 cabs in total....Vancouver has Four Licences/Four companies. Burnaby has Two Licences, both owned by One Company...etc.

Airport cabs are not dispatched so that they work to and from home territory....it's first come first served. They line up in the weeds, first in, first out.

Interestingly the COC was introduced by Kevin Falcon because he couldn't get a cab to take him home at shift change, to Chilliwack. Keep in mind this was well after TaxiHost was forced on the industry because of the level of complaints. Now with Uber and Lyft on the road the TaxiHost program has been scrapped.....should be interesting how that works out.

I have a Class 4 for a volunteer gig I had a few years back. My licence does not have any sort of different endorsements of the class 4. Just a “4”, so I guess I’m to assume it’s unrestricted?

Nope, you're restricted. Unrestricted applies to 15 and over to a max of 24. After that you have to go to a Class 2.

 

[rlock]

That's 2500 cabs in total....Vancouver has Four Licences/Four companies. Burnaby has Two Licences, both owned by One Company...etc.

Airport cabs are not dispatched so that they work to and from home territory....it's first come first served. They line up in the weeds, first in, first out.

Yeah, I know the airport taxi setup; I used to work there. Poor bastards used to sometimes wait in the taxi holding area for like 2 hours, only to end up with some $5 fare; that's why the airport switched to flat rates, but it still sucks for them to get short-fared. The only time you'll ever see no taxis at the airport is when there's a huge burst of customers and even the holding area is completely empty. Then the cab stand controllers will even start scooping cabs at the departure level that are just dropping people off.

What I really wonder is where they will fit Uber and Lyft into that airport system. Maybe they'll also have to park in the holding area and wait in sequence to be summoned to the terminal.

 

[PuntMeister]

YVR seriously needs to get their shit together on taxi flow. It’s so-so at best for U.S arrivals (random-slow loading sequence), but god help us poor domestic arrivals travellers. 48 people in the taxi line and they call in 2-3 taxis at a time. Incompetent mahem. Horrible customer experience compared to aby other international airport I have visited.

Great airport. Stoopid inefficient taxi management system.

Please keep ride hailing separate from this wasteful arrangement.

Seriously YVR. Fix it. Don’t fuck it up worse.

 

[uncleg]

Yeah, I know the airport taxi setup; I used to work there. Poor bastards used to sometimes wait in the taxi holding area for like 2 hours, only to end up with some $5 fare; that's why the airport switched to flat rates, but it still sucks for them to get short-fared. The only time you'll ever see no taxis at the airport is when there's a huge burst of customers and even the holding area is completely empty. Then the cab stand controllers will even start scooping cabs at the departure level that are just dropping people off.

What I really wonder is where they will fit Uber and Lyft into that airport system. Maybe they'll also have to park in the holding area and wait in sequence to be summoned to the terminal.

Used to be that if you got a short haul you got to back to the front of the line, then that was getting abused so flat rates and take your chances.

Uber/Lyft have three designated spots in the tunnel and at Domestic arrivals. Cars have to check-in at the weeds and get called up for their clients.

YVR seriously needs to get their shit together on taxi flow. It’s so-so at best for U.S arrivals (random-slow loading sequence), but god help us poor domestic arrivals travellers. 48 people in the taxi line and they call in 2-3 taxis at a time. Incompetent mahem. Horrible customer experience compared to aby other international airport I have visited.

Great airport. Stoopid inefficient taxi management system.

Please keep ride hailing separate from this wasteful arrangement.

Seriously YVR. Fix it. Don’t fuck it up worse.

Always been problematic, probably will continue to be. Cabs come from weeds to tunnel ( International Arrivals ) and then are sent from there as required to Domestic. If International is busy then they just stay put until it drys up before moving to Domestic.

 

[rlock]

Used to be that if you got a short haul you got to back to the front of the line, then that was getting abused so flat rates and take your chances.

Uber/Lyft have three designated spots in the tunnel and at Domestic arrivals. Cars have to check-in at the weeds and get called up for their clients.



Always been problematic, probably will continue to be. Cabs come from weeds to tunnel ( International Arrivals ) and then are sent from there as required to Domestic. If International is busy then they just stay put until it drys up before moving to Domestic.

Yup. If international has literally no cabs in the tunnel, then that means domestic has none either. Walking from international to domestic to get a cab is always a mistake. Cabs may bypass the international lineup to go to domestic only if the controllers send them; if they are sending them, that's OK - it just means there is a lineup at domestic too and they have run out of cabs too. Then they send like 50/50 to domestic & international. Otherwise domestic maintains a "float" of usually 5 cabs, most of the time; the loading area there cannot handle more than that, and they can't call too many to domestic and clog up the other loading areas or roadway.

 

[Deguire]

A couple of months ago we flew into YVR and took a cab home. What the driver told us was very interesting, and I'm assuming it's true. He could take us to Vancouver but could not pick up in Vancouver and take somebody to the airport so he went back empty. Further, there are cabs that can take you to the airport from Vancouver but are not allowed to pick up there and have to return empty. So half the cabs are deadheading empty and then we complain that we can't get a cab when we need one. Dear God! If some evil genius had thought up a scheme to double the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere, they could hardly do better than this. This is insane. How do we fix it?

 

[badbadboy]

A couple of months ago we flew into YVR and took a cab home. What the driver told us was very interesting, and I'm assuming it's true. He could take us to Vancouver but could not pick up in Vancouver and take somebody to the airport so he went back empty. Further, there are cabs that can take you to the airport from Vancouver but are not allowed to pick up there and have to return empty. So half the cabs are deadheading empty and then we complain that we can't get a cab when we need one. Dear God! If some evil genius had thought up a scheme to double the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere, they could hardly do better than this. This is insane. How do we fix it?

Assuming the cab was not a McLures, Yellow, Black Top or Vancouver Cabs; it’s the way the Cab Companies, Municipalities and other Govt entities set up the system. They are protecting their turf and that’s how they came to agreement.

Vancouver has 4 licenses, North Shore 2, Burnaby 2 etc

Throwing in Ride Hailing companies; the taxi companies want them to abide by their rules. Will every ride hailing driver pony up $500 to work within these municipalities? I agree, it’s insane.

 

[rlock]

A couple of months ago we flew into YVR and took a cab home. What the driver told us was very interesting, and I'm assuming it's true. He could take us to Vancouver but could not pick up in Vancouver and take somebody to the airport so he went back empty. Further, there are cabs that can take you to the airport from Vancouver but are not allowed to pick up there and have to return empty. So half the cabs are deadheading empty and then we complain that we can't get a cab when we need one. Dear God! If some evil genius had thought up a scheme to double the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere, they could hardly do better than this. This is insane. How do we fix it?

Basically, yeah that sounds true. Airport cabs are run with a transponder system that works only at YVR. It exists so they can be counted and also so certain companies or types of cabs can be called up. They have to stick to the order they are lined up in, both in the taxi pickup area and out in the weeds. It's done that way so that it's fair, so taxis aren't trying to race and ram each other to scoop up customers ahead of the others. (And yeah, it would be chaos at the airport if it was every cab for itself.)

Any taxi from anywhere in Metro Vancouver can take passengers to the airport, but only airport taxis can pickup at the airport.

The airport is one of the biggest sources of passengers, especially during holidays or tourist season. (Same goes for the port of vVncouver / convention centre.) SOmetimes though, business is low there and taxis might be waiting 2 hours for a fare, while a regular taxi would be free to roam and pickup passengers at will in other places. The total number of airport taxis is limited so the airport taxis aren't waiting too long that it's not economical for them; on the other hand, this limit produces scarcity at peak times, which can irritate customers who might think that the airport always has too few cabs. I suppose it averages out, between too many at some times and too few at others. Uber and Lyft, on the other hand, raise and lower their fares depending on whether it's peak period or not, which taxis cannot do; so the effect for Uber and Lyft is probably to cause demand to rise or fall by encouraging or discouraging people with their price level.

So in any case, different companies have different proportions of airport taxis in their fleets, depending on how close their home base is to the airport.

Richmond Taxi is unsurprisingly the most common airport taxi; I think all or most of their cabs can do airport service because they have the Richmond license already, and it always makes sense to have an inbound fare that then leads you back towards Richmond. They also pick up more short fares, to airport hotels and whatnot.

I think Yellow is quite common at YVR; Black Top / Checker. Vancouver Taxi (the orange ones) used to be quite rare at YVR too, for some reason. But some of the outlying cab companies (North Shore, Delta, Bonny's, Royal City, etc.) might have only a small number of airport taxis, but as you can imagine, they are likely to pick up fares going to their home region and the fares for such distances might be quite large.

However, some taxi companies do not bother with having airport taxis at all. They might be from too far away to justify it or just would rather not deal with the airport system and extra licenses.

In general, though, the taxis are also limited to picking up in any municipality they have a license for. The rules are weird and a bit archaic, but I think it's also so taxis don;t just cluster around downtown Vancouver and ignore the outlying suburbs completely.

Once Uber and Lyft are fully integrated, I expect it will be much the same. It does present a nice opportunity to do away with some of the more useless rules that are holding the taxi companies back as well.