SURREY – The Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations focused on Transportation Network Services: Boundaries, Supply, Fares, and Driver’s Licenses issued its recommendations today, which included ride-hailing provisions.
“The Surrey Board of Trade is hopeful that ride-hailing can begin sooner rather than later,” said Anita Huberman, CEO, Surrey Board of Trade.
The Surrey Board of Trade was pleased to see language in these recommendations that reflected their advocacy of:
1. allowing taxi and ride sharing drivers to utilize a Class 5 licence similar to Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan if the driver meets strict safe driver screening criteria.
2. market-based pricing to ensure consume choice, convenience and innovation
3. abolish geographic boundaries for drivers, allowing any qualified driver to participate without artificial caps, allow them to adjust their serving areas
“We need transportation options such as the ride-hailing industry to attract and keep business in Surrey.”
The full list of the recommendations includes:
1. Requiring transportation network companies to provide data to government for monitoring purposes, including but not limited to: wait times; trip lengths; trip start and end locations; trip start and end times; accessible vehicle trip statistics; trip refusals; trip fares; drivers’ hours and earnings; driver and passenger demographics; and consider extending this requirement to the taxi industry;
2. Making anonymized data provided by Transportation Network Companies (TNC) available to the broadest extent possible while maintaining privacy;
3. Not implementing boundaries for Transportation Network Services (TNS);
4. Requiring a maximum vehicle age of ten years for vehicles used in delivering TNS;
5. Not implementing caps on TNC fleet sizes;
6. Ensuring that the cost of a trip in an accessible vehicle does not exceed the cost of a trip in a non-accessible vehicle;
7. Setting a minimum per-trip price that is not less than the cost of public transit;
8. Requiring transportation network companies to disclose the cost of a proposed trip on the app prior to the customer engaging the service;
9. Monitoring data to determine if there is a need for the implementation of a base rate or a cap on surge or primetime pricing and to inform regulatory decisions in regard to service boundaries, vehicle caps, or lack thereof; and,
10. Requiring TNS drivers to hold a Class 5 driver’s licence.
“An unburdened system is necessary with as little red tape as possible for fair, equitable transportation services.”
“Surrey Board of Trade members have made it abundantly clear that the transportation status-quo is not working.”
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To read the report visit https://www.leg.bc.ca/content/CommitteeDocuments/41st-parliament/4th-session/cc/SSC-CC_41-4_Report-2018-03-26_Web.pdf
