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Regulators Demanding Uber Price Increase to $75 Minimum in Vancouver

52 points by imack 14y ago

steve8918 14y ago
This is unfortunately turning into an example of "you can't fight City Hall". In a city like SF, where the taxi cab service is the worst I've ever experienced (empty taxis just driving past you, or never honoring a commitment to pick you up even if you call in), Uber is something that is necessary. But the status quo's long term experience with enforcing a monopoly through laws/regulations, etc, will make it really hard for Uber. Uber will need to spend a great deal of time and energy trying to get those laws to change, which will likely be at a glacial pace, if ever. I'm sure there's a huge amount of interest for this in SF, and taxi service is so bad, you might even be able to make this an election issue. But other cities like Vancouver I'm sure don't have as bad of an issue, so it might be harder to make it an issue that politicians will take notice of.
- untog 14y ago
  This is Uber's issue in a lot of places, I think. They're trying to apply the SF model to cities that doesn't care about it anywhere near as much. I rarely have issues getting a cab in NYC- at peak times you do have to wait, but 5-10 minutes- I doubt an Uber car would get there much quicker and would cost a ton more. I also had no issues getting cabs in Vancouver.
- mkenyon 14y ago
  I've lived for years in both Vancouver and in SF. I can't say I prefer one's taxi service over the other. At least in SF, I have the option of Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar. I would love to have Uber back home, but not for $75 a ride.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  "I'm sure there's a huge amount of interest for this in SF, and taxi service is so bad, you might even be able to make this an election issue. But other cities like Vancouver I'm sure don't have as bad of an issue, so it might be harder to make it an issue that politicians will take notice of."& I've lived in Orlando, DC, SF (Santa Clara, but went to SF regularly) and Boston. All of those cities have major issues with cabs. My experience in NYC is better, but I have never lived there. At any rate, Uber is doing well, in part because cabs are terrible.
mtgx 14y ago
What business does the Government have to fix the prices of a private company so arbitrarily like this? Surely this isn't constitutional?
- cbr 14y ago
  Price floors are dumb, but I don't see where Canada's constitution would prohibit one. (I don't see what would prohibit a US city or state from enacting one either.)
- freshhawk 14y ago
  It's because you need to be regulated to be allowed to operate a taxi or limousine service. That's because of the history of horrific things people do to each other when taxi's aren't regulated. As to what logic is behind this other than protecting their members against the new guy I have no idea.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    What do people do to each other? Or was that a joke?
    - freshhawk 14y ago
      Most common is fare scams (driving in circles, pricing scams and various types of extortion), assault and sexual assault. Then you have things like all the types of discrimination you can think of as well as safety issues (having seatbelts, having tires with tread on them) and so on.
      - StavrosK 14y ago
        Ugh, I see. Thanks.
      - aneth4 14y ago
        Fare scams still occur on metered taxis, and these scams are any more widespread in taxis than any other industry. Nothing distinguishes transportation, from say, overpriced crappy old model cameras on Fisherman's Warf, Dead Sea cosmetics, or any other scam - other than that it's easy for the city to claim it needs to regulate. A simple licensing and complaint system is all that is necessary.
makhanko 14y ago
As Uber's similar difficulties in New York show, the governments both North and South of the 49th parallel consider city transportation to be their exclusive domain and are not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers. In Vancouver, Canada the quasi-government regional transportation authority is heavily subsidized by taxpayers and is still running in deficit. They are not exactly happy about competition from the companies like Uber.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- graeham 14y ago
  I don't think translink and Uber are serving the same market.
- freshhawk 14y ago
  You should know that Translink (aka the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority) has nothing whatsoever to do with Taxi's. That's regulated at the provincial level. > quasi-government (sic) aka, the corporate structure used by participating municipalities to operate a unified public transportation system in a metropolitan area > heavily subsidized by taxpayers That's literally what the "public" part in "public transportation" means (gasp! that's socialism!) > and is still running in deficit Like every public transportation project everywhere? A valid and important criticism of Translink but at least a robot drives me to work on a monorail every day faster than I could drive there on empty roads, never mind in traffic. All of this is completely irrelevant to the actual story unless you think that Uber is in competition with public buses, but you don't seem that confused. > not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers You've clearly never lived somewhere with a booming unregulated taxi market. Do you take things like not getting extorted, scammed, robbed or raped when jumping into a strangers car in the middle of the night for granted? You can thank the people regulating the taxi industry. Regulatory bodies, like any group of people given some power, public or private, will try to expand it's power base and will abuse that power but taxi regulation was brought about by people looking out for consumers. I think this decision in particular is outrageous protectionism but your take on things made me think an adult opinion was warranted.
nekojima 14y ago
Would a long-term promotional deal for a $10-40 gift certificate to Indigo, Marks, BestBuy or somewhere else (or a debit card) of the customer's choice be a possibility to overcome this issue?
- cperciva 14y ago
  Almost certainly no. Canada is less tolerant of loophole-exploitation than the USA, and more likely to invoke the clear intention behind rules rather than their literal meaning.
- biot 14y ago
  Likely not. "Certificates must not replace or interfere with the requirement that licensees charge Board-approved rates ..." Source: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/operational_policies.htm#V_5 http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/operational_policies.htm#V_5
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
Vancity- 14y ago
""" Mary Polak ‏@MaryPolakMLA Passenger Transportation Board is an independent decision maker so gov’t does not influence decision. #bcpoli #UberVanLove """ This makes sense, actually. At first I was angry because there was no system in place for the public to complain/appeal this, but this has nothing to do with public services. If it had to do with buses or other forms of public transportation, then there would be a way to publicly appeal. However, this is a matter dealing with private companies- as such it makes sense that the PTB is outside the public domain. Unfortunately, this makes it much harder for anyone outside an UBER rep to affect things one way or another. A cursory glance at http://www.ptboard.bc.ca/ http://www.ptboard.bc.ca/ confirms this- the appeals appear to be for the user/company directly, and the only contact to the PTB appears to be snailmail, which nobody on HN is going to use for any reason. As for the actual rates information itself: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/documents/rule_limo-min-rates.pdf http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/documents/rule_limo-min-rates.pd... Best they could do is $75 * .15 discount, not enough to be viable. UBER can appeal for the board to approve company specific rates, but I'm not sure exactly how they'd justify it or what's involved in the process. Worst case scenario is waiting until the rules end date comes (June 30, 2013) and see if a campaign to rewrite it is within the public domain.
- opendna 14y ago
  For those still following, it turns out that Uber has nothing to appeal because they never submitted an application to the PTB. The PTB did not reject a request by Uber. It now appears that the PTB barely knew that Uber existed until they started getting hate-mail from angry users. (The same is true, incidentally of the City of Vancouver. Uber doesn't have the business licenses required to sell bicycle courier services in Vancouver, never mind limousine services.) The limo drivers and companies who worked with Uber, however, are being hit with fines and other enforcement actions.
simonh 14y ago
How about Uber set aside $20 per ride in a fund and issue customers with claim card, a bit like a store rewards card. If the law ever gets changed so that Uber can refund the money then they commit themselves to do so, perhaps up to a limit of 5 or 10 years. Soon the city will be full of people owed hundreds or thousands of dollars in refunds, a pretty solid reason to push for changes to the law, and demonstrate to the public just how much they're getting ripped off.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  That's a clever concept.
  - simonh 14y ago
    Perhaps, but I'm not sure how practical it is. The high charges will reduce the number of people choosing Uber over their competitors, so they'd be giving up a competitive advantage and the higher margins that might offset it. On the other hand, if the legislation never gets changed they get to keep the money, hence the cut-off period. I've not idea what the financial reporting implications of this might be.
- aneth4 14y ago
  Great idea. Puts the incentives in the right places.
netcan 14y ago
I'm sure it's easier to get people to email or tweet, it might help to also give addresses & phone numbers.
tomjen3 14y ago
And this will go on until somebody starts to do violence in defence of these kinds of businesses. When enough taxi drivers gets shot, they will change their tone. //Legal disclaimer: the above is a disclaimer of fact and should not be read as inciting violence.
- sillysaurus 14y ago
  Violence begets violence. Violence doesn't solve anything unless you're an entity which can totally dominate another entity. And in this case, the entities we're talking about are (rather large) businesses. So applying violence in this domain is the surest way to undermine your own goals.
- opendna 14y ago
  Vancouver taxi drivers have as little power to change BC's vehicle hire laws as Walmart greeters have to change the company's sourcing policies. The taxi drivers are victims of the taxi license cartels: the only power they have is to stop driving and find another livelihood. If you asked the drivers (or did the most cursory google search) you'd find out that they want reform too. #1 on their list: issue more taxi licenses & smash the cartels. So, no, if "enough taxi drivers get shot" and "change their tone", it still will NOT change the legal or regulatory environment for Uber.
graeham 14y ago
For those still following, "#ubervanlove" and "Uber" are trending on twitter in Vancouver right now. Mayor Gregor Robertson (@MayorGregor) says: "Getting lots of @Uber_VAN tweets. City Hall not involved, BC govt appoints Passenger Transportation Board. #UberVanLove"
Steve79 14y ago
The law is a funny thing. It is set up not to protect taxi companies or drivers. I it is set up to make sure the public has a reasonable priced service that has to provide service to the entire community. The reason you have an hourly rate for sedans is to differentiate between the two services. The sedan business is lightly regulated and is open market. Uber has set up and illegal service and believes they can bully city hall. Problem is the city realizes that it will be destroyed the taxi industry who the city will expect to do all the unprofitable trips. So if you are bogging her about how you want uber - realize this is a skimming operation. The regulators understand this and the reason you have the 75 rate per hour to start. Uber is not a small company. I think is back by vc groups and wall street investors who do not care that much the taxi cab business is based on public need and necessity.

52 points by imack 14y ago

This is unfortunately turning into an example of "you can't fight City Hall". In a city like SF, where the taxi cab service is the worst I've ever experienced (empty taxis just driving past you, or never honoring a commitment to pick you up even if you call in), Uber is something that is necessary. But the status quo's long term experience with enforcing a monopoly through laws/regulations, etc, will make it really hard for Uber. Uber will need to spend a great deal of time and energy trying to get those laws to change, which will likely be at a glacial pace, if ever. I'm sure there's a huge amount of interest for this in SF, and taxi service is so bad, you might even be able to make this an election issue. But other cities like Vancouver I'm sure don't have as bad of an issue, so it might be harder to make it an issue that politicians will take notice of.

untog 14y ago
This is Uber's issue in a lot of places, I think. They're trying to apply the SF model to cities that doesn't care about it anywhere near as much. I rarely have issues getting a cab in NYC- at peak times you do have to wait, but 5-10 minutes- I doubt an Uber car would get there much quicker and would cost a ton more. I also had no issues getting cabs in Vancouver.
mkenyon 14y ago
I've lived for years in both Vancouver and in SF. I can't say I prefer one's taxi service over the other. At least in SF, I have the option of Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar. I would love to have Uber back home, but not for $75 a ride.
wtvanhest 14y ago
"I'm sure there's a huge amount of interest for this in SF, and taxi service is so bad, you might even be able to make this an election issue. But other cities like Vancouver I'm sure don't have as bad of an issue, so it might be harder to make it an issue that politicians will take notice of."& I've lived in Orlando, DC, SF (Santa Clara, but went to SF regularly) and Boston. All of those cities have major issues with cabs. My experience in NYC is better, but I have never lived there. At any rate, Uber is doing well, in part because cabs are terrible.

mtgx 14y ago

What business does the Government have to fix the prices of a private company so arbitrarily like this? Surely this isn't constitutional?

cbr 14y ago
Price floors are dumb, but I don't see where Canada's constitution would prohibit one. (I don't see what would prohibit a US city or state from enacting one either.)
freshhawk 14y ago
It's because you need to be regulated to be allowed to operate a taxi or limousine service. That's because of the history of horrific things people do to each other when taxi's aren't regulated. As to what logic is behind this other than protecting their members against the new guy I have no idea.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  What do people do to each other? Or was that a joke?
  - freshhawk 14y ago
    Most common is fare scams (driving in circles, pricing scams and various types of extortion), assault and sexual assault. Then you have things like all the types of discrimination you can think of as well as safety issues (having seatbelts, having tires with tread on them) and so on.
    - StavrosK 14y ago
      Ugh, I see. Thanks.
    - aneth4 14y ago
      Fare scams still occur on metered taxis, and these scams are any more widespread in taxis than any other industry. Nothing distinguishes transportation, from say, overpriced crappy old model cameras on Fisherman's Warf, Dead Sea cosmetics, or any other scam - other than that it's easy for the city to claim it needs to regulate. A simple licensing and complaint system is all that is necessary.

makhanko 14y ago

As Uber's similar difficulties in New York show, the governments both North and South of the 49th parallel consider city transportation to be their exclusive domain and are not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers. In Vancouver, Canada the quasi-government regional transportation authority is heavily subsidized by taxpayers and is still running in deficit. They are not exactly happy about competition from the companies like Uber.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
graeham 14y ago
I don't think translink and Uber are serving the same market.
freshhawk 14y ago
You should know that Translink (aka the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority) has nothing whatsoever to do with Taxi's. That's regulated at the provincial level. > quasi-government (sic) aka, the corporate structure used by participating municipalities to operate a unified public transportation system in a metropolitan area > heavily subsidized by taxpayers That's literally what the "public" part in "public transportation" means (gasp! that's socialism!) > and is still running in deficit Like every public transportation project everywhere? A valid and important criticism of Translink but at least a robot drives me to work on a monorail every day faster than I could drive there on empty roads, never mind in traffic. All of this is completely irrelevant to the actual story unless you think that Uber is in competition with public buses, but you don't seem that confused. > not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers You've clearly never lived somewhere with a booming unregulated taxi market. Do you take things like not getting extorted, scammed, robbed or raped when jumping into a strangers car in the middle of the night for granted? You can thank the people regulating the taxi industry. Regulatory bodies, like any group of people given some power, public or private, will try to expand it's power base and will abuse that power but taxi regulation was brought about by people looking out for consumers. I think this decision in particular is outrageous protectionism but your take on things made me think an adult opinion was warranted.

nekojima 14y ago

Would a long-term promotional deal for a $10-40 gift certificate to Indigo, Marks, BestBuy or somewhere else (or a debit card) of the customer's choice be a possibility to overcome this issue?

cperciva 14y ago
Almost certainly no. Canada is less tolerant of loophole-exploitation than the USA, and more likely to invoke the clear intention behind rules rather than their literal meaning.
biot 14y ago
Likely not. "Certificates must not replace or interfere with the requirement that licensees charge Board-approved rates ..." Source: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/operational_policies.htm#V_5 http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/operational_policies.htm#V_5
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

Vancity- 14y ago

""" Mary Polak ‏@MaryPolakMLA Passenger Transportation Board is an independent decision maker so gov’t does not influence decision. #bcpoli #UberVanLove """ This makes sense, actually. At first I was angry because there was no system in place for the public to complain/appeal this, but this has nothing to do with public services. If it had to do with buses or other forms of public transportation, then there would be a way to publicly appeal. However, this is a matter dealing with private companies- as such it makes sense that the PTB is outside the public domain. Unfortunately, this makes it much harder for anyone outside an UBER rep to affect things one way or another. A cursory glance at http://www.ptboard.bc.ca/ http://www.ptboard.bc.ca/ confirms this- the appeals appear to be for the user/company directly, and the only contact to the PTB appears to be snailmail, which nobody on HN is going to use for any reason. As for the actual rates information itself: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/documents/rule_limo-min-rates.pdf http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/documents/rule_limo-min-rates.pd... Best they could do is $75 * .15 discount, not enough to be viable. UBER can appeal for the board to approve company specific rates, but I'm not sure exactly how they'd justify it or what's involved in the process. Worst case scenario is waiting until the rules end date comes (June 30, 2013) and see if a campaign to rewrite it is within the public domain.

opendna 14y ago
For those still following, it turns out that Uber has nothing to appeal because they never submitted an application to the PTB. The PTB did not reject a request by Uber. It now appears that the PTB barely knew that Uber existed until they started getting hate-mail from angry users. (The same is true, incidentally of the City of Vancouver. Uber doesn't have the business licenses required to sell bicycle courier services in Vancouver, never mind limousine services.) The limo drivers and companies who worked with Uber, however, are being hit with fines and other enforcement actions.

simonh 14y ago

How about Uber set aside $20 per ride in a fund and issue customers with claim card, a bit like a store rewards card. If the law ever gets changed so that Uber can refund the money then they commit themselves to do so, perhaps up to a limit of 5 or 10 years. Soon the city will be full of people owed hundreds or thousands of dollars in refunds, a pretty solid reason to push for changes to the law, and demonstrate to the public just how much they're getting ripped off.

anigbrowl 14y ago
That's a clever concept.
- simonh 14y ago
  Perhaps, but I'm not sure how practical it is. The high charges will reduce the number of people choosing Uber over their competitors, so they'd be giving up a competitive advantage and the higher margins that might offset it. On the other hand, if the legislation never gets changed they get to keep the money, hence the cut-off period. I've not idea what the financial reporting implications of this might be.
aneth4 14y ago
Great idea. Puts the incentives in the right places.

netcan 14y ago

I'm sure it's easier to get people to email or tweet, it might help to also give addresses & phone numbers.

tomjen3 14y ago

And this will go on until somebody starts to do violence in defence of these kinds of businesses. When enough taxi drivers gets shot, they will change their tone. //Legal disclaimer: the above is a disclaimer of fact and should not be read as inciting violence.

sillysaurus 14y ago
Violence begets violence. Violence doesn't solve anything unless you're an entity which can totally dominate another entity. And in this case, the entities we're talking about are (rather large) businesses. So applying violence in this domain is the surest way to undermine your own goals.
opendna 14y ago
Vancouver taxi drivers have as little power to change BC's vehicle hire laws as Walmart greeters have to change the company's sourcing policies. The taxi drivers are victims of the taxi license cartels: the only power they have is to stop driving and find another livelihood. If you asked the drivers (or did the most cursory google search) you'd find out that they want reform too. #1 on their list: issue more taxi licenses & smash the cartels. So, no, if "enough taxi drivers get shot" and "change their tone", it still will NOT change the legal or regulatory environment for Uber.

graeham 14y ago

For those still following, "#ubervanlove" and "Uber" are trending on twitter in Vancouver right now. Mayor Gregor Robertson (@MayorGregor) says: "Getting lots of @Uber_VAN tweets. City Hall not involved, BC govt appoints Passenger Transportation Board. #UberVanLove"

Steve79 14y ago

The law is a funny thing. It is set up not to protect taxi companies or drivers. I it is set up to make sure the public has a reasonable priced service that has to provide service to the entire community. The reason you have an hourly rate for sedans is to differentiate between the two services. The sedan business is lightly regulated and is open market. Uber has set up and illegal service and believes they can bully city hall. Problem is the city realizes that it will be destroyed the taxi industry who the city will expect to do all the unprofitable trips. So if you are bogging her about how you want uber - realize this is a skimming operation. The regulators understand this and the reason you have the 75 rate per hour to start. Uber is not a small company. I think is back by vc groups and wall street investors who do not care that much the taxi cab business is based on public need and necessity.