The committee met at 9 a.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Bowinn Ma. I am the MLA for North Vancouver–Lonsdale and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. Welcome to the third and final day of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations’ witness hearings.

I would like to begin by recognizing that our meeting today takes place on the traditional territory of the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh.

We are an all-party parliamentary committee of the Legislative Assembly with a mandate to examine, inquire into and make recommendations on ride-sharing in British Columbia. We must issue a report by February 15, 2018.

The committee is hearing from expert witnesses on the following questions. One, what is the impact that ride-hailing would have on different communities around the pro­vince? Two, what regulatory regimes should be established to allow ride-hailing to operate in B.C.? All of the information received will be carefully considered by the committee as it prepares its report to the Legislative Assembly.

Today’s meetings will consist of 15-minute presentations, followed by 15 minutes for questions from committee members. All meetings are recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services, and a complete transcript of the proceeding will be posted on the committee’s website. These meetings are also broadcast as live audio via our website.

I’ll now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves. We will begin at this end of the table with Mr. Sturdy.

J. Sturdy: Jordan Sturdy, MLA, West Vancouver–Sea to Sky.

J. Johal: Jas Johal, MLA, Richmond-Queensborough.

P. Milobar: Peter Milobar, MLA, Kamloops–North Thompson.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Stephanie Cadieux, MLA, Surrey South.

S. Chandra Herbert: Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA, Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour.

R. Singh: Rachna Singh, MLA, Surrey–Green Timbers.

R. Kahlon: Ravi Kahlon, MLA, Delta North.

A. Weaver: Andrew Weaver, MLA, Oak Bay–Gordon Head and leader of the B.C. Green Party.

B. Ma (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office. Steve Weisgerber and Simon DeLaat from Hansard Services are also here to record the proceedings.

On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank the presenters who have taken the time to be with us today. Today we will hear from Dr. Garland Chow, the Passenger Transportation Board, TransLink, the Vancouver police department, the city of Vancouver and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives — beginning with Dr. Garland Chow from the UBC Sauder School of Business.

Dr. Chow, I’m going to give you 15 minutes. I’m putting a timer on my iPad. I’ll turn it around so that you can see it.

At the end of that 15 minutes, we’ll have 15 minutes for a Q and A.

Dr. Weaver has warned us about academics going long on answers.

A Voice: And questions.

A. Weaver: I’ve demonstrated it too. [Laughter.]

B. Ma (Chair): He has been very good at demonstrating it to us. So just keep in mind that we do have 15 minutes for questions, and we ask that the responses be kept brief and to the point so that we can have as many as possible. I will start the timer, and as soon as you see the clock, you can proceed.

Presentations on Ride-sharing

GARLAND CHOW

G. Chow: Well, then I’m going to jump right to it. What’s the impact of the entry of TNCs, transportation network companies, potentially, on British Columbia’s passenger transportation?

First of all, I want to emphasize that what we should be emphasizing in terms of goals is that transportation, especially passenger transportation, needs to be safe. It needs to have the type of service that people want, and we normally picture that as timeliness or service response. Finally, of course, reasonably priced.

On that, let me start with what would be the impact of the entry of TNCs on service? I’ll define that as wait time or response time — the time between when the customer contacts the company and when the vehicle arrives. But what I want to point out is that the service that you see right now — what you can observe right now from the existing competitors, the taxi industry — is a level of service that’s the result of the industry responding to the implicit or explicit policies of the Passenger Transportation Board.

In my activity with the industry and with the board, I’ve perceived that when they make decisions about additional vehicles, they had this criterion, which was defined, more or less, as about 92 percent of all on-demand dispatch trip requests should be satisfied in 15 minutes.

[9:05 a.m.]

I’ve had access to some of the taxi data over the years, and I can truthfully say that, overall, the Vancouver taxis have satisfied that criterion. Now, whether that’s satisfactory now is a different question. But the point is what they produced is what was asked for or perceived to be asked for.

Obviously, if TNCs enter the market, and if, from what I have been led to understand, there will be no control over the number of vehicles which they can bring in, it’s simple economics. They can bring in as many vehicles as they want. Therefore, supply will either be equal to or greater than demand. Service has to increase if there’s a shortage of supply now.

By the way, we should remember that you can get the same result by increasing the number of taxis. It’s the number of vehicles that are on the road. I don’t care if it’s ride-hailing vehicles or if it’s taxis. That will also increase service. I’ve been keeping tabs on the industry, and over the years, the industry has been asking for more cabs. They realized they wanted to increase service, but they couldn’t get them, for whatever reason.

That’s why I think it’s very, very prudent to measure the current level of service right now in a rigorous, quantitative manner. The board did add, in this past year, 175 additional taxis, which, if I have the numbers right, is almost a 33 percent increase in capacity. So that has to have an impact.

Now, the other thing I think we need to recognize is that the current performance is also a function of factors that are not under the control of or not affected by regulation per se. It’s affected by, for example, road conditions.

I’ve been downtown enough to know — and I’ve talked to industry people — that you can be downtown…. I could be 50 feet away from my customer, but I have to go around the block because it’s a one-way street. I have to make two, maybe three, right turns. I’ve got to get past pedestrians, a bicycle lane, other cars, people who walk through red lights — all that. I can imagine it’s ten or 15 minutes just to get there, even though you know you’re there.

The reason I say that is because…. What do we expect the service to be from the new entrants? Well, they’re going to encounter the same barriers. They’re external barriers that have an impact on response time.

Will service improve when ride-hailing enters the market? Yes. But as I mentioned, the taxi sector should also then have the opportunity to increase their capacity to produce higher levels of service that…. It’s what we call the Amazon effect. As soon as the TNCs come and they provide better service than you’re getting now, there’s going to be an Amazon effect. Everybody is going to expect the same from every competitor. The taxi companies are going to have to up their game, and the way to do that is they have to increase their capacity. They’ve got to have more vehicles available to match the supply that their new competitors have.

What is one of the implications for the regulatory regime? You need to be able to measure performance. I’m going to get back to this. But it is possible. You can require, as part of the regulatory environment, reporting requirements that will allow regulators to accurately measure, apples to apples, the service performance of the major competitors in this new market.

Now, with regard to that, I think it’s also important to make sure that in making that measurement, it’s apples to apples. I’ve seen enough of the studies to recognize very easily that there are biases in how various companies or even academicians measure service.

For example, if I pulled out an app right now and I’m looking for service, if I press the button and I see that, “Oh, there’s no vehicle within 20 minutes,” I may never order a vehicle. But if I did, it would be a 20-minute wait time. The problem here is that with taxis, when you call them, the clock starts. So you’ll recognize all 20 minutes, whereas with some of the apps as they are done now, some of the period in which they waited is not there.

[9:10 a.m.]

By the nature of how you use the app, the clock doesn’t start until you say: “Oh, there’s a vehicle five minutes from here. I’ll press it right now.” There’s an inherent bias. When you measure their type of service, it’s going to be five minutes because you never order it unless you know it’s five minutes away.

Okay. Let me move from that and now talk about the next impact, and that is: “Oh, okay. All these vehicles come in.” I saw something in the media that indicated that…. He’s not a colleague, but a fellow academician from UBC had come in and talked about congestion. That saved me a lot of trouble because I was going to talk about the same topic. That is, there will be congestion.

What I want to add is that there is good empirical evidence of that impact. Now, there was a study done by a colleague of mine named Mr. Schaller. He’s in New York. He did the New York experience. In that…. Whoa. I’m getting ahead of myself here, but I’ll do that anyway. In that, he was able…. Because the TLC — it’s the livery corporation or whoever regulates in New York — required both the TNCs and the taxis to provide all types of dispatch data — you know, trip data, where they originated, how long the trips take and all that — they were able to measure performance.

In doing that, he had shown — and I’ll get the quote right here — that: “TNC growth had added nearly 50,000 vehicles and over a half a billion miles of driving to the city’s streets in three years.” But the important thing that he also discovered is that this is net of the diversion from the taxis, so he’s accounted for that, as well as people leaving their cars. So this is actually additional mileage, road mileage, some of which is basically cars driving around waiting for business because you can’t park, so you have to ride around. There was a significant, drastic increase in the amount of vehicle traffic. That leads to more congestion. He, in his report, indicates that you can fall into this vicious cycle.

Imagine this. Because of these additional vehicles running more additional miles or kilometres, you increase congestion. Now, you’ve made this promise: “I’m going to provide you a five-minute wait time.” Well, how are you going to do that if it now takes five or ten minutes longer just to get to the customer? Well, one possibility is that you get even more vehicles out there. As you get more vehicles out there, you have even more congestion, and then you have this vicious cycle.

Another major finding, which is very significant and important and has ramifications for Vancouver, is that he found that a significant amount of these new miles is diversion from mass transit. Now, it’s logical, because these TNCs are offering a price-service combination that’s better than taxis, so they’re in that sweet spot closer to those people who will normally take mass transit, and they just flock to that.

Now, of course, there’s another problem, and that is, I believe, in New York, the capacity of their system is starting to peak. So there is a lot of diversion there.

The point I want to make is: look, isn’t Vancouver one of those cities, I believe, that really stakes a claim on sustainability? If it’s staking a claim on sustainability, to move to allow growth in traffic, to go on automobiles, is not sustainable. At some point, the congestion will be so bad, or there won’t be enough vehicles, that it cannot move the people, and you’ll have some type of gridlock. I think that has to be considered.

I don’t believe in entry decisions and in making decisions about how many vehicles or taxis or whatever should be on the road. I don’t know if that’s considered by the PTB or not. You can ask them when they get here later. But you know what, that should be part of the calculus, because urban transportation is multimodal.

[9:15 a.m.]

Whether it’s the PTB or the PTB in combination with transportation planners, TransLink, and so on, you should really be looking at an integrated approach to meeting the transportation needs of the community. The simple fact is that TNC, transportation network company, entry reduces public transit ridership, and that is not sustainable in the long run. I’ll just move away from that.

Now, what about the price? I’m just going to say a few choice words about: is price going to go down? First of all, in many of the early comparisons of the price — prices that Uber and Lyft customers get — they always compare the base price. I don’t think there’s any question that the base price looks lower than the normal price of a taxi. But when we look at it, if we consider a couple of things, such as the surge price….

I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation, which you can find in my report that I produced for Ottawa. What that showed is that using really, I’ll call it, pessimistic assumptions, which would chill my case as much as I can, the average price paid in most cities is actually higher for TNCs than it is for the traditional taxi industry.

Wait a minute. Let’s forget that for a second. In the last couple of years, the TNCs, particularly Uber, have been actually dropping their price even more. They’ve been dropping it — and dropping and dropping. And you say: “Oh my gosh. How can they do that?”

Well, there are two reasons why they can do it. One, the highest cost of operating a transportation company which is labour intensive is the driver. It’s the labour. And labour, the labour costs in a TNC model, is a residual cost. In other words, labour gets what’s left. After you get the revenue, the TNC takes their cut. You have pay your gas and taxes and insurance and all that. What have you got left? Well, study after study has projected that you’re getting less than the minimum wage.

This is an area where, yes, there are many people who want to do this because of its flexibility, but there are many who cannot afford to do so in the long run. The best evidence of that is that TNCs, according to one article I read, retain only 5 percent of their drivers a year. That’s a huge amount of turnover, where the drivers are walking with their feet and saying: “I’m not getting enough.” At some point, they’re not going to….

There’s an old joke about Iowa farmers, but I can’t tell you that right now. But they’re going to run out of those Iowa farmers who keep coming and coming, thinking they’re going to get rich. Okay? At some time, there won’t be enough, and then prices have to go up.

More importantly, some of those price decreases are basically a subsidization, because Uber has been losing millions of dollars. According to one article I read, from a financial analyst, basically — most of the prices charged by Uber…. The customer is only paying 42 percent of the cost of the trip. That is not sustainable as well.

That leads into my last simple point. Therefore, I have a fear. We can find quotes. You can see what their strategy is. It is to get in as fast as you can, gain a dominant point in the market and then raise your fares after you’ve squeezed everybody out.

Now, an economist would say: “Oh, that’s no problem. It’s no problem because in a perfect market, as soon as you start raising your price, someone will come in and undercut you.” But I want you to think about this. Uber has already demonstrated the power of the deep pocket. Can you imagine a company, a new entrant that says: “Hey, I’m going to get back into the market. First of all, how fast can I do it?” So I get my 40 vehicles together. I go in, and instantly, Uber drops their price again. That’s the reality of the market.

I think that, no, they can dominate the market. That would suggest a regulatory regime that must have the residual power to look at prices and to control them if they have to, or the Competition Bureau should have a lot of due diligence with respect to predatory pricing.

I know I’ve run out of time. I’ve got a lot more I’d like to say, but I’m going to have to stop it there. Thank you very much.

[9:20 a.m.]

B. Ma (Chair): For sure. Hopefully, some of the questions that are asked will allow you to elaborate more.

R. Kahlon: I was a little sleepy this morning, and you’ve woken me up pretty quickly. Thank you for your thoughts and your comments. I look forward to reading this.

We actually had an expert from San Francisco — I think a journalist — yesterday talking about congestion in San Francisco and how now they’re looking to adapt to the challenges that they’re facing. We’ve heard, I think, pretty consistently on the congestion issue. I think it’s a top-of-mind issue for many of my colleagues.

I have a two-part question. One, I want to hear more, so you can use my time to share more thoughts. Then if you have some time at the end, I want to know what data there is that you think is important or should be public for universities and government to analyze.

G. Chow: Well, first of all, most important is what the regulators need. If you ask yourself what type…. First of all, we need to measure the performance. So measures of that…. That’s response time, and so on. I don’t care about trip time because once you pick the person up, you go as best you can. But any measure of performance. You can already measure that now, but the fact is that with the technology we have, you can set it up so that it’s automatically generated. You can audit it every once in awhile. It’s automatically generated, and you can develop algorithms which will generate the performance and the reports instantly.

What I was proposing three or four years ago…. When I talked about performance-based regulation, I was talking about: “Oh, you can measure performance once a year and then make some adjustments.” Well, you could do it every quarter. You could do it every month if you want to.

Now, that’s only one part, because some of the issues about performance include who is getting the service and where that service is being provided. That’s easy to get. That can be measured. And most of that comes from the GPS data that is now automatically generated both by the TNCs and by the software that just about every taxi company has. It’s the material there.

The basic place, though, that we are lacking, the one that is still going to require some type of survey work, is the performance of the flag sector. You only know that the customer engaged a taxi company when they get into the taxi. You don’t know how long they’re waiting on the corner. Unfortunately, we can’t measure that instantly. But yes, we will have to have that as well.

So performance and the distribution of where the trips start and where they end. If you really wanted to, you could grab your GPS and actually see the routes and who is being served and, in particular, differentiate between the service for wheelchair-accessible vehicles versus the people who don’t need wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

R. Singh: Thank you, Mr. Chow. You have mentioned about the low driver wages. We have been hearing about it — that ride-hailing will create more casual, part-time jobs, not full-time jobs on which you can live. Can you just elaborate a little bit about the low driver wages that may not be sustainable? Just a little bit more.

G. Chow: Well, I’ve done a lot of work on this in the trucking industry, where we continually talk about the trucking shortage. One of the major factors that leads to a trucking shortage is alternative jobs. For example, where construction is good, lots of truckers leave the trucking, and they go to one place and start doing some construction and so on.

Really, it’s about the economy. I’d like to be super optimistic about Canada and say…. I know what I just saw in the paper the other day. I think right now we have the most historically low unemployment rate that we’ve ever had. I read about that the other day. Those are the types of factors which could reduce the pool of people who are hungry to earn some extra income or find an alternative occupation.

I know that a lot is said about the new millennials. “Oh, they like the style” and all of that. But you know what? We learn in psychology, with Maslow’s needs, that you’ve got to feed yourself, you have to dress yourself, and you have to have shelter first. I don’t care about that other stuff. That’s what’s going to drive it. That’s one.

[9:25 a.m.]

The other one is…. I haven’t calculated it, but if they’re only retaining 5 percent of what they recruit that year, at some point, there’s got to be some diminishing returns. I don’t know when that’s going to occur, but it’s going to happen.

On the other hand, if the TNCs want to pay the drivers better, then they’ll just simply lose more. My second factor comes in, and that is they’re going to subsidize it even more with losses to the main company.

Now, I want to append that just one bit, and that is the analyst who did this, I’m not sure if they accounted for the money that Uber is spending on autonomous vehicles and this and that. But there’s a reason why they want to do that because they know they can’t sustain their business on drivers. That’s why they’ve made this great push to get into autonomous vehicles, because as far as the TNCs are concerned, if they can get rid of the drivers, wow.

A. Weaver: I was just wondering if you could point to some jurisdictions where you think best practices exist and that allow for a vibrant taxi industry to thrive beside a vibrant TNC industry as well.

G. Chow: I hope it’s legitimate that I can follow up your question off line.

A. Weaver: Yes, please.

G. Chow: It might have been two years ago, I went to the Transportation Research Board meetings, which are occurring right now in Washington, D.C. I went to the taxi and urban transit meeting. There was this fellow there. He was talking about their business. In his case — I don’t know if there’s a reason for this — their major market are towns in the Midwest like Kansas City, Cincinnati, and so on. I don’t know what the factor is there, but they’ve been able to compete very well.

One of the first things they did was they set up their own app. That was the first thing. The second thing is that, with that app, they didn’t limit their use of their app in one city. They basically leveraged it to use it in four or five other markets and so on.

I can send you the names and the person if you like. I’ll just send it to committee and so on. May I ask you whoever’s taking the record to remind me what I just promised?

R. Kahlon: We’ll remind you.

G. Chow: Because I’m not writing nothing down and so on.

The other part, though, is this. I think that some of the cities where the taxi industry remains a little more vibrant is where their service levels are already good. I can’t name them right off the bat, but I can name the ones in which the cities had terrible service.

For example, San Francisco. The taxi service was terrible. When I used to testify to the PTB, I always used them as an example of: “Here’s the service of Vancouver. It’s 20 points higher with respect to on-time service than San Francisco.” I have no doubt they’re going to lose, because they never had good service in the first place.

The best criterion is: what cities had taxi sectors which were providing good service already? Unfortunately, I have to give you the other stuff off line.

B. Ma (Chair): That’s all right. Dr. Chow, Hansard Services…. The transcript will be available on line pretty much immediately, I think, after the committee is done. You’ll be able to see what we promised, and you’ll be able to send it to Susan Sourial, our committee’s Clerk, who would have contacted you to arrange this meeting.

S. Chandra Herbert: What recommendation would you have to deal with congestion? Is it to say: “Limit the number of new entrants, so X number of cars”? I know Uber says: “We just want unlimited numbers of cars.” That’s how their model works. Is that part it? Or to get at the timeliness argument, would it be to say to the PTB: “Instead of 15 minutes, we expect you to do ten minutes or five minutes or whatever it is”?

G. Chow: I think the important thing is that there’s a trade-off here. Do you want to have more congestion, or do you want to have better service?

[9:30 a.m.]

I think what we need to recognize, though, is that — this is what we teach in the MBA, and all that — there’s something called diminishing returns. If I want to increase service from 90 percent within 15 minutes to 91 percent, I might have to increase my fleet by 5 percent. But if I want to go from 95 to 96 — I’m already at a higher level, just one percentage point — I have to increase my fleet not by 5 percent but by 10 percent, by double.

I really think that you need to recognize this trade-off. Quantify that and find where it starts to have what we call…. It’s almost a straight line going up, as far as the amount of capacity you need. And then trade that off, the benefits, against the cost of congestion, which can be seen there.

In fact, congestion has exactly the same, what you call, mechanics. In other words, if you have a congestion level…. Engineers know this. It’s called engineered and economic capacity. Yeah, theoretically, I can make 100 widgets an hour, okay? Economically, the best amount to make is 80 an hour, because once you go past that, you start incurring all these extra costs because you’re trying to go to the limits of the capacity. So you have these two trade-offs.

By the way, to be honest, I think the PTB is ill-equipped to take care of that. It has to be something that involves people like TransLink, the city traffic people and all of that, because they know these relationships. Then they can go to the politicians and say, “What kind of trade-off do you want?” and put the blame on them, you all, or something like that.

So, no, I didn’t give you a number, obviously. But I’m giving you what I think is the process that you can rationally say: “Look, at this point, to improve service, instead of adding 500 more vehicles to the road, I’ve got to add 2,000.” Now you know there’s going to be an even bigger impact on congestion. And then look at the congestion side of it. It may be that it’s still going down — great.

J. Johal: Thank you for your presentation. It was really worthwhile to hear some of the things you’re saying. I appreciate your comments on needing more taxis in the system.

One of the things you also brought up was surge pricing. Yesterday we had somebody from Lyft, and I did ask him about that. They said that surge pricing usually, for them, means a 25 percent to 50 percent increase in some cases.

G. Chow: By the way, that’s quite reasonable.

J. Johal: Yeah. Do you believe we should ban that? If we were to move forward and make recommendations, in that particular case, do you think we should ban surge pricing altogether? If we’d allow….

G. Chow: First of all, no, I don’t think you should ban it. But I think you should put limits on it. The obvious one would be the extreme ones that everybody reads about because a machine is taking care of it when there’s a disaster. A number of jurisdictions have put limits on that, but these are pretty broad limits.

By the way, one of the recommendations…. Now, I didn’t even get to the handicapped section. The PTB had a master’s student from UBC do this study on TNCs and…

S. Chandra Herbert: Accessibility.

G. Chow: …accessibility, thank you, and so on. One of his recommendations was…. Remember: what do we want to do with respect to accessibility? We want to treat anyone who is handicapped just like they’re a regular person. They should pay the same price. They should get almost the same service. So one of the things that he recommended, which I highly recommend, is that there is no surge pricing for accessible transportation. None whatsoever.

Now, should there be some limits? I think so, okay? But it shouldn’t be banned. As far as I’m concerned, let the taxi companies do it as well, although I think they provide a different brand of service. What I would always recommend to them is not surge pricing but peak-load pricing. In other words, you do charge different prices at different times. But their brand is that the customer knows what’s coming. They can plan for it. They can say: “Oh, this is my budget.”

[9:35 a.m.]

I know, in my work with the freight industry and in supply-chain management, there are some customers who want the certainty — not just before they get into the vehicle, not just before they get the transportation. They want to see a menu that says, “This is what you have to charge,” so they can plan. “That’s how I optimize. But if everything’s surging all the time, how can I optimize anything? How can I plan ahead?” There are people who want that.

There are two different ways to approach this. Even with peak pricing, I’d say allow them to do it, but put a limit on it. In other words, no, you can’t put a published price that says that on Friday and Saturday, you pay 20 times the price. So limits, not banning.

B. Ma (Chair): Our last questioner is Dr. Weaver. This will be the last question.

A. Weaver: Just very quick. You described an optimization problem with respect to time of service versus number of cars. Surely the Passenger Transportation Board — the people who are speaking next, the PTB — do such modelling. Do you know if, or if not…? I’ll be asking them, obviously.

G. Chow: Yeah, you’d better ask them. How they think is a black box to me.

A. Weaver: Okay. It’s a very simple optimization problem.

G. Chow: Evaluating the trade-off? Yeah.

A. Weaver: Okay. Well, I’ll ask them now.

G. Chow: When you evaluate the trade-off, a judgment has to be made. In other words, I want to bias it this way or this way.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much, Dr. Chow. That was really informative.

Our next witness coming up is the Passenger Transportation Board. We’ll give you a minute to just get set up.

[S. Cadieux in the chair.]

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Welcome. I’m going to go ahead and get this next group started.

I’m sure you know the drill. We’ll start the timer here so that you have a visual cue for your 15-minute presentation time. Feel free to stop early if you are done early. We’d like to use the time for questions. But if you need to, feel free to use the full 15 minutes. Then we’ll have 15 minutes for questions after.

PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION BOARD

C. Read: Hello. I’m Catharine Read, chair of the Passenger Transportation Board. Thank you for inviting me here today. I’ve brought Jan Broocke, director to the board, with me. She’s sitting there. I’m relatively new to the position, having started in October, but the board has been discussing the potential for regulatory change to accommodate ride-hailing for a number of years.

The PT Board regulates the supply, rates and areas of operation of taxis, limousines and small passenger shuttles throughout the province. These vehicles can’t operate in the province unless they’ve been approved by the board and issued a PT licence from the registrar of passenger transportation.

Although I’m going to focus my talk today on taxis, I note that the introduction of exclusively app-based transportation services, or ride-hailing services, could affect the regulation and operation of limousines and shuttle services, as well as taxis.

We think it’s important for this committee to understand what and how the board regulates. Therefore, I will start talking about the board’s mandate and the current status of regulation. Then, I’ll discuss potential impacts of ride-sharing, focusing on service availability and accessibility. I’ll conclude by identifying some factors that we feel government should consider as it develops ride-hailing regulation.

Although the board thinks safety regulation, enforcement and compliance are important considerations, I am not going to discuss these, as there are other agencies and organizations that have control over this.

The PT Board is created under the Passenger Transportation Act. We get our mandate from it. We regulate fleets. We do not regulate drivers or dispatch services.

We make decisions in response to applications received. We must consider three things when we decide a taxi application. The first is public need. Does the public need a new taxi service or more taxis? Two, applicant fitness. Is the ap­pli­cant fit and proper and capable of providing the service? Three, sound economic conditions. Will approving the ap­plication promote sound economic conditions or healthy competition in the passenger transportation business in B.C.?

[9:40 a.m.]

If the board approves an application, it sets out terms and conditions of licences that specify such things as maximum fleet size, including the number of wheelchair-accessible taxis; where passengers can be picked up and dropped off; and what equipment may be carried in the vehicle. The board also approves rates, which with taxis are usually metered rates. Many cities or regions have common rates. For example, all taxis in Metro Vancouver charge the same rate.

Areas of passenger pickup may be a municipality, highway corridor or regional district. In Metro Vancouver, for instance, operating boundaries are generally specified by the municipality — for example, the city of Vancouver or a group of municipalities such as the city and district of North Vancouver and West Vancouver. In Kelowna, highway corridors delineate areas of operation. In Victoria, most taxis can pick up passengers throughout the CRD. Generally, taxis can drop off passengers anywhere in B.C.

Taxi supply has been regulated in B.C. for over 70 years. The regulation has helped to ensure the availability of inspected and insured vehicles and services to most areas or regions of the province, increase the availability of wheelchair-accessible taxis in many areas throughout the province, promote the use of eco-friendly vehicles in Metro Vancouver and the Capital Regional District, and create established, viable businesses that provide services to communities and contribute to the provincial economy.

We’ve also heard frustrations with the current regulation of supply. Challenges include the inability for companies and regulators to react quickly to immediate changes in demand for services, difficulty for new or innovative services to enter the marketplace, meeting peak period demand, and the market value of taxi licences and protectionist practices of companies.

Experiments with deregulation in the U.S. in the 1970s were not always successful. Dispatched services deteriorated, fares rose, service decreased and veteran drivers left the industry.

Taxis are an essential part of the network of transportation services in the province. They provide service to people without cars, seniors, people with disabilities, and people who don’t want to drink and drive. At times when transit is not operating, taxis are the only transportation service available to the public.

Today there are about 231 licensed taxi operators approved to operate 3,200 vehicles in B.C. Approximately 60 percent of all taxis operate in Metro Vancouver, including 80 percent of wheelchair-accessible taxis.

Taxi operations vary from community to community and even within communities. Some are small family-run businesses. Others might be partnerships, while others are sizable companies. So taxi firms run from a single-vehicle operation to 355 vehicles.

The introduction of ride-hailing will have an impact on taxi services and communities, and that impact will depend in large extent on the regulatory path that government follows. The PT Board feels it’s important that both ride-hailing and taxi service remain available. Not all people use smartphones. If ride-hailing significantly diminishes taxi service in a community, a number of people could be without access to transportation. The key is to develop a regulatory regime that enables both transportation services to operate and prosper.

I’d like to address two particular areas of concern to the board. The first is availability of service in smaller communities, and the second is wheelchair-accessible services.

Generally, rural markets have fewer transportation options than more urban areas. Smaller markets are a challenge for sustainable taxi service. There are few economies of scale to make services more viable. Some local governments rely on the province to regulate taxis, either through safety or supply. In some remote or mountainous areas of the province, connectivity can be an issue.

Our concern is to ensure that any new regulations are mindful of the challenges of these communities and will enable people living in them to have access to services that are safe, appropriate for the area and can be accessed by phone as well as apps.

The board is also concerned about the impact of ride-sharing on wheelchair-accessible services. From 2012 to 2017, there was a 51 percent increase in the approved supply of wheelchair-accessible taxis in the province. Most of these are in the Metro Vancouver area. The PT Board also requires taxi companies to provide priority dispatch to persons requiring these taxis.

Availability of wheelchair-accessible taxis remains a challenge in many rural communities, largely due to high financial costs in obtaining and operating them and relatively low demand.

[9:45 a.m.]

To make wheelchair-accessible taxis more attractive, the board has a policy of allowing them to be equipped with flip seats. Companies can then accommodate larger groups when they’re not being used to transport people with mobility issues.

In September 2017, the board published an updated report on wheelchair-accessible transportation, and we’ve brought copies for you. From our perspective, ride-hailing should not result in decreases in wheelchair-accessible transportation options. On the other hand, advances in technology may facilitate some types of accessibility through such things as talking meters or connectivity with other apps for persons with disabilities.

As I said earlier, the board feels that both taxis and ride-hailing services should be available, and a regulatory structure should allow both to operate successfully. From the board’s mandate and perspective, we see three key interrelated challenges to a new regulatory structure: jurisdiction, boundaries and supply.

Jurisdiction. All taxis are regulated by the Passenger Transportation Act. In many cities, they are also regulated by municipal bylaws. This means taxi operators pay dual licensing fees. As well, they must obtain approval from two independent bodies to operate. Municipal regulation helps to ensure that taxis are available to serve residents and allow local governments to exercise control over aspects of the taxi business and collaborate with taxi companies for service improvements. In some cases, dual regulation is complementary. For example, while the board regulates fleets and vehicle types, we do not regulate service quality or age of vehicles.

Both the board and a local government are creatures of statute. They have concurrent jurisdictions respecting taxi regulations. One is not paramount to the other. In the current regulatory environment, a municipality could prevent a taxi approved by the board from operating in it. This could also happen with ride-hailing if dual jurisdiction is not addressed.

Boundaries. Restricting boundaries to a municipal boun­dary restricts supply and can also make regulation appear confusing to the public. For example, an out-of-town taxi can drop a passenger off at a hotel in Vancouver but not pick up another going to the airport or anywhere else. The next logical question is: why not give the out-of-town taxi authority to pick up in Vancouver or vice versa for a Vancouver taxi?

The current boundaries for many established taxi companies in B.C. have been in place for many years. Taxi companies tend to guard these boundaries and object to applications that would see more taxis in their area. If these objections are convincing, they may contribute to denial of an application. The issue of boundaries needs to be addressed if both taxis and ride-hailing services operate on a similar footing. This is particularly crucial in the Lower Mainland.

Would it be fair to allow ride-hailing services to operate throughout Metro Vancouver but restrict taxis to a single municipality or a group of municipalities? Would allowing taxis dispatching by apps to cross boundaries, but preserving the flag market for locally based companies, be reasonable? Is there a real distinction between e-hail and a flag fare if many vehicles are concentrated in an area? The boundary issue is not as concerning in the capital regional district because most taxis can operate throughout the region. However, it may arise in the Okanagan and other areas where taxi boundaries exist.

The third area is regulation of supply. The third issue we want to raise is that of supply regulation. As I’ve noted, the board is charged with regulating supply. Our mandate is anachronistic. Public need is an imprecise retroactive test. It’s very difficult for new companies or services to prove public need. Even with existing companies, we often receive limited data upon which to make decisions. It is common for existing taxi companies to object to new applications. This prolongs the process and can result in an application being refused if competitors demonstrate that the application would result in unhealthy competition.

Are there other ways, such as predictive modelling, that could be used for determining supply, or should supply be regulated? Some jurisdictions do not regulate supply of ride-hailing services, but they do of taxis. This is because taxis have exclusive rights to the street-hail and taxi-stand market. This might work in areas where taxi business is predominately flags, but based on our experience in B.C., the flag market is not the predominate taxi market overall.

[9:50 a.m.]

Dispatch and flag trips are either close, or the dispatch market is greater than the flag market. The flag market is generally highest during bar closing.

I think my time is almost up. I hope I’ve provided some useful information to you about the regulation and supply of taxis. Please feel free to ask questions. We’ve also brought a background paper that we’ll leave with you.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much for that.

Our first question comes from Mr. Kahlon.

R. Kahlon: Thank you for being here today. I think it’s difficult. You’re working within the frame that you’ve been given, and also, you’re new.

I guess my question…. Two questions. One is…. We’ve heard now, earlier — I think you were here — that there might be solutions out there to measure demand, whether the PTB has the capacity to do so or whether they’re willing to partner with groups. I think you would have to partner with many groups in order to get a correct assessment of the demand. So a question around that — whether you’ve put some thought around ways and tools that you might need to be able to measure the demand.

The second is around wheelchair-accessible cars, and 80 percent of them are in Metro Vancouver, which is, I guess, good. I’m concerned about the 20 percent that are covering the rest of the province and whether the PTB has thought about other ways to ensure that other areas’ numbers go up as well.

C. Read: I’m going to start the answers, but Jan has a lot more than my two months of part-time experience.

At this point, we don’t measure demand in the typical way that demand is measured. We don’t have the data to do it. My understanding is that we could do it. I think at this point we don’t have the resources to do it either.

Jan, do you want to add anything to measuring demand?

J. Broocke: I think part of it is: where does the data come from, and how do we access it? There would need to be authority for us to do that. A regulatory body could do it if it had the authority and there was willingness on other jurisdictions or companies to provide that. It’s only recently, probably in the last five to ten years, that companies have been using GPS and computerized data systems and been getting this. There are some taxi companies currently that have very sophisticated systems and can get very good data. There are other companies in other areas that have very limited data, and some just use phone dispatch.

R. Kahlon: So you’d be supportive of requiring TNCs and taxis to provide that data? We’ve had academics come to present here and say: “We’d like to have our students go through and use that for transportation.” Is that something that you…?

C. Read: I think we would be very supportive of that. One of my first concerns when I started with this was how poor the data was. I am an economist, so I do like data. We’d be supportive of any way to get better information to base decisions on.

You mentioned the wheelchair-accessible taxis, 80 percent in Vancouver. It has been a priority of the board for some time to get more wheelchair-accessible taxis. It’s a difficult thing to do because my understanding is there’s only one place, and it’s in Richmond, that provides service to the actual equipment. Of course, the further away you get from there, if there’s downtime, people are concerned about losing their vehicle. Also, it’s an expense issue. It’s a potential go-out-of-service issue. But it is something that we have been promoting and working on for some period of time.

Jan, I’ll let you do more.

J. Broocke: In Metro Vancouver, 19 percent of the taxis are accessible taxis, and throughout B.C., it’s 14 percent. Could it be better? Yes, it could. I’m sure some advocacy groups would say that 100 percent should be accessible taxis. We have done a number of things to encourage it.

As Catharine said, we’ve brought you an updated wheelchair-accessible taxi report that contains some information. We’ve worked with taxi companies, advocacy groups and municipalities to put this together.

[9:55 a.m.]

I should note that taxi companies have done some things to improve accessible transportation as well, especially in the Lower Mainland. The Vancouver Taxi Association has done their training program, and the B.C. Taxi Association has worked on a train-the-trainer model, so there has been progress. There’s much more progress that needs to be made.

In rural communities or small communities with only one or two taxis, it’s difficult to put on an accessible taxi, because there’s the cost of either having a van modified or, I think, a lot of companies purchase second, used, pre-owned vehicles.

The demand. While it’s critical for the people that have the demand, there’s not an economy of scale of demand. It is a real challenge. Actually, in that report that we’ve handed out, there are a couple of sort of minor case studies from two, Williams Lake and Fort St. John, where the taxi operators talked about the challenges that they face.

None of us are getting any younger, so we’re probably going to need an accessible transportation, I have to say. We talk about wheelchair-accessible transportation there, but one of our members of our advisory committee would be saying: “Well, accessibility is broader than just wheelchairs.”

For example, we have approved the use of soft meters, which is a meter on an app. One of the things that the board requires within six months of the app being used is that it has to have a talking meter function. We understand there is one actually in Creston that is operating, and there should be a number in Victoria.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much. Just being mindful of the time, we’ve got about 11 minutes remaining in questions, and we’ve got at least five questioners coming up.

A. Weaver: I just had a couple of short questions. When you make a decision to issue a new taxi licence, what goes through the process? What ultimately leads to that decision? What information do you use to base it on?

J. Broocke: Is that the information that the applicant provides? Sometimes they go and they survey members of the community, and they’ll provide what we call “user support statements.” Some undertake market surveys. Some undertake some academic reviews. So it’s a plethora. Population statistics and….

A. Weaver: So there’s no quantitative analysis done. The question we were talking about in the last one is that it is a relatively straightforward optimization problem to have, on the one hand, congestion modelling and, on the other, time to service. You could very easily determine an optimal solution, which would say: “This is the number of taxis we have to ensure this average response time to service.” Have you done, has anybody done, that here in B.C. for issuing of taxi licences?

J. Broocke: Not that I’m aware of.

A. Weaver: Why not? Surely, every major city in the world does congestion modelling to determine how you’re going to decide what taxis go on, rather than just have some people say: “Yeah, I’ll put a few taxis on.” There’s got to be some quantitative analysis. We’re not doing that here in B.C.?

J. Broocke: We are doing some quantitative analysis, not of what you’re talking about. But with taxi companies, we’ve now started that they provide us with some operational data.

A. Weaver: All I can say is wow. This is the Wild West.

J. Broocke: I know. I understand.

A. Weaver: I cannot understand any major metropolis anywhere in the world not having congestion modelling to involve the optimization problem to determine the number of licences. You wonder why we have a problem. There’s a solution that we need to address, and I don’t know what resources you need to do it. But it’s critical that be done here.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you, Dr. Weaver. Did you have another question?

A. Weaver: No. I’m just floored that we’re not doing that here, just floored.

S. Chandra Herbert: I recognize the Chair acknowledged that there is a lack of data and a desire to get better data, so I don’t want to beat up on the board for acknowledging something that they already know. But it is a problem. You don’t build a bridge because there are people swimming across the river. You can’t base it on that basis.

I think that part of the challenge we have now is people will make a different decision if they can’t get a cab, or they’ll make different choices. Or, as I think our earlier presenter has pointed out, you’ll make more choices to take ride-sharing cabs if they’re sitting right next to you as opposed to if they’re across town.

[10:00 a.m.]

I guess one of the things…. Could you expand a little bit? I think a lot of the presenters we had would make complaints about…. They would address the need for more supply if only the PTB approved their application. But they never seemed to, and they can’t figure out why.

You mentioned some companies oppose each other’s applications to defend market shares. I think that’s one of the bigger challenges. If you don’t have data and you’re just caught in the middle here, what are you going to do? Could you expand on that a bit? Is there active opposition to every application?

C. Read: I’m going to get Jan to provide more detail. The comments I made about competing jurisdictions create problems as well — for instance, when we have approved additional taxis from suburban areas to be able to, at peak times, pick up people in Vancouver and then that is thwarted.

Jan, do you want to add to that?

J. Broocke: Well, yeah, I want to say a couple of things. As Catharine said, the mandate in the act is outdated. It’s not current. We are like one little isolated body. To what Dr. Weaver is talking about, it takes a broader spectrum, and we’re application-based. So we get, say, one applicant in Surrey applying. We don’t have the capacity or the authority in the act to get information from all of the other taxi companies in Surrey. Those are some of the things that need to be addressed and looked at. I don’t think we would argue there.

No, the board does not deny every application, but we have to make our decisions based on evidence. What some applicants consider good evidence isn’t what the board might consider good evidence.

S. Chandra Herbert: So an update to the act, an update to things, could clearly be useful if we’re talking about anachronistic policy. I appreciate your acknowledging that. Thank you.

P. Milobar: I just want to get your sense…. The ride-hail, ride-share premise is that there’s no limit on the number of vehicles in jurisdictions that they operate in. Would you envision that translating to the taxi industry as well? So if ride-share comes in with no limits and no caps on numbers of vehicles, do you see a lifting of the caps and limits for the taxi industry as well?

C. Read: I would say you would probably throw everything into mass chaos if you took off limits. This stuff needs to be done thoughtfully. You’re right. We’re making decisions with no data, basically, or very, very weak data. I think just to make a wholesale change like that would create havoc.

P. Milobar: I’m just trying to understand what your recommendation would be. Would it be to have limits on the new app-based companies, or no limits for them but limits still for taxis? I’m trying to understand where the PTB would fall on this.

C. Read: No limits for ride-sharing but continue with and modernize the existing taxi, based on better data and based on more analysis.

J. Broocke: I think it might also be depending on what type of service we’re talking about. Taxis have, kind of — I’ll use two basic services, or now three — telephone dispatch, app dispatch. That’s one market. The app market or telephone is similar to the TNC market. But there’s also the flag market, which is when you hail it downtown, and also the stand market, when they consider it a stand.

What some jurisdictions have done is, basically, if it’s an app-based approach — the taxi cabs, if they’re providing a similar service as a TNC through an app — sort of deregulated rates. I don’t know if they have deregulated supply, but they have deregulated rates and a number of things.

That’s something that, I think, would have to be discussed. There would probably be some data in reply from the companies, how many of their cars are flag or stand and whatnot.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Getting back to the wheelchair-accessible and accessible transportation, there’s no argu­ment that accessibility takes many forms. Requirements are very different for different people, and we require a whole slew of improvements across the board when it comes to people’s understanding of how to provide those different services.

[10:05 a.m.]

When we talk about cabs, up until now, governments have mandated, to a certain degree, that there be a percentage of accessible transportation provided. Therefore, certain companies and certain individuals have taken on additional expense and challenge in trying to provide that. I think it’s only reasonable to understand that that creates an imbalance with other operators who are not providing that service — not choosing to provide that service or using the expense as an argument.

I guess, as an advocate and an individual representing some people with disabilities — I won’t speak for all — frankly, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of waiting for people to think that I am a person who should legitimately be able to access services like anyone else, and I cannot anywhere. Vancouver is particularly well equipped with cabs, and I think that has been largely at the initiative of the taxi companies in the Lower Mainland. But the reality is that I still can’t get a cab. I can’t get a cab in Victoria for an hour and a half after phoning an hour and a half in advance. It is ridiculous.

I don’t have equal access to transportation, and the flooding of the market with additional transportation that won’t provide for any access for me certainly doesn’t improve the situation. But I am in favour of allowing competition and allowing for ride-sharing and other opportunities to exist.

I think, perhaps, it’s time for legislators to recognize that we do, as legislators, have a responsibility to mandate social good, and in doing so, maybe it’s time that all taxis are accessible — period. Then we wouldn’t have any issues with some being more expensive than the other. We wouldn’t have an issue with some not being able to be serviced because there would be enough of them that there would be a market for service in various places in the province.

I think maybe it’s time we need to look at this on a much broader scale, which is completely getting off the ride-sharing thing and the question, but I think it’s a statement that needs to be made, because we are continuing, through our conversations, to put it off to the side as something nice to do, something we should think about. I think perhaps we need to think about it in a different way, and I need to get it on the record.

Thank you for the indulgence, Chair.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. We’ve got two more questions here. I’ll take the first, and then Mr. Chandra Herbert will close us off.

It was interesting to learn from the Ministry of Transportation what we regulate and what we don’t. They made it very clear that we do not regulate dispatch services and, therefore, the apps that provide the service. We do not regulate that, and we do regulate passenger transportation services — so the drivers and the vehicles and so forth.

There’s been a lot of media attention on some of the illegally operating — not TNCs but, I guess, ride-sharing, ride-hailing — drivers in Richmond. The app itself is not necessarily illegal, but the drivers are transporting passengers on a commercial basis illegally. Even if we were to provide a mechanism through which individuals who wanted to use their personal vehicles to transport passengers commercially could do so through some sort of insurance program, it doesn’t necessarily regulate the app, the dispatch service itself.

I’m wondering whether you have any thoughts on the concept of actually regulating dispatch services, which would basically mean regulating the app and the app provider, not just the drivers. Did you have any thoughts on that?

J. Broocke: We don’t regulate apps, per se. We did have an app-based service, a sedan limousine service. Part of what we required…. They were using their own app and developing it. We required that some testing be done.

There are two things with apps. Do they do what they say they do, and do we know they’re doing it accurately? I mean, even in the U.S., their equivalent of weights and measures or whatever, they’re struggling with this. Certification of meters is one area.

[10:10 a.m.]

We don’t necessarily regulate dispatch, but one of the questions — I think Catharine alluded to it — is there needs to be phone dispatch as well as apps. You can’t just have apps, electronic dispatch, and hailing and flagging, because there will be a number of people…. Some people refuse to have a smartphone and use an app. I can’t even imagine my mother trying to use an app to get any service. So it’s not, I don’t think, regulating the actual app so much as regulating the service availability.

B. Ma (Chair): One of the arguments a lot of these transport network companies make is that they are not a transport company. Transporting is done by the drivers, and the app and the dispatch service are simply a technology company.

I think this creates frustration for, for instance, some members of the public who are now seeing what’s happening with these illegal ride-sharing services in Richmond, where we can track down and find the drivers, but the app will continue to go. There’s no incentive for them to stop. They can’t get fined under our current regulatory regime.

I guess my question was, primarily: if we were to go down the route of regulating dispatch services, does the Passenger Transportation Board have any thoughts on that? Do you think that you’d be equipped to do that, or would that be a completely different sort of regulation board? You may not have the answer, and that’s okay.

C. Read: I don’t have the answer. I’m sorry.

B. Ma (Chair): No problem. Then we’ll move on to the next question.

J. Broocke: I just wanted to say that you’ve heard that the European court has ruled that they are transportation services.

A. Weaver: We have to be careful with that. In Canada, taxi drivers are considered independent contractors, as well as the TNCs. So the European ruling does not come directly over to Canada.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. We’ll allow Mr. Chandra Herbert to finish off.

S. Chandra Herbert: I just want to second my colleague from Surrey-Cloverdale’s remarks and say thank you for making them. I think it’s unfair that you’re expected to be the one voice here on these issues. So thank you.

I would say I’m confused a little bit, Ms. Read, around the suggestion that there should be limits on taxis and the number of taxis but no limits to TNCs, if I understood your suggestion, your response to my colleague’s question. Is that the opinion of the PTB?

C. Read: No, it’s not. It’s my opinion. I don’t know, on an app-based process, whether you’re going to be able to regulate the number of individuals that are doing that.

My big concern about making changes to the existing taxi system is that we don’t have any data. We don’t know whether what we’re going to do is going to exacerbate issues or make things better. Until we get good information, I don’t think we should be making decisions to make major changes to the system.

S. Chandra Herbert: Okay. I guess the reason I asked that is that introducing unlimited TNCs certainly would make major changes to that same system, so I couldn’t understand the difference in opinions there.

The final one. An earlier presenter suggested that 15 minutes was the goal for 92 percent of calls for a taxi, in terms of that meant timely service. Is that the PTB’s general rule? Is it 92 percent of the time that you get a cab within 15 minutes? Is it ten minutes? Is it 20 minutes? Is there a general definition of what timely service is?

J. Broocke: No, it will vary. We regulate all of B.C. That was said in one decision as a notional….

S. Chandra Herbert: For Vancouver.

J. Broocke: For Metro Vancouver. We were looking at a specific time. We were talking about evenings at peak periods in that decision.

Generally, what we do now, as I said, is we’re getting spreadsheets and data. We ask the companies to give us their performance measures, and then we look at the data against those performance measures. So there isn’t a set one, and it will depend on what type of…. If you’re mainly dispatch and you’ve got a large area to serve, your times will be different than if you’ve got a smaller area and do smaller trips.

B. Ma (Chair): We are running a bit over time, but I know that committee members were looking forward to hearing from you. So I’m going to let Mr. Kahlon slip a question in very, very quickly.

[10:15 a.m.]

R. Kahlon: I guess it’s more of a statement. We’ve had so many experts come to speak to us about congestion and so many things and talking about having some sort of limits and easing it in. I guess I’m a little confused that we can’t have unlimited taxis because it would cause chaos, but having unlimited TNCs would not create chaos. I just don’t get that portion of it.

I’m not asking for you to explain it, unless you want to explain it. I’m just a little bit confused on that, because I think the majority of the people who have presented, the speaker before you who presented, said that we should ease in, collect data, be thoughtful and then expand as needed. Maybe you might want to clarify that.

C. Read: I think my comment is more that we know ride-sharing is happening now. We know it’s happening to a greater or lesser extent all over the place, and to think that we can easily put controls on it…. My understanding is…. The enforcement people right now who are looking at ride-sharing in addition to looking at other things — there are two of them. How do you control things like this? I don’t think it’s an easy thing to control.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much for coming to the table to present to the committee today. We’ll let you go.

Our next presenter is from TransLink. I believe we’ve got CEO Kevin Desmond. I apologize. We are running a little bit behind, so we’ll jump into it as soon as Mr. Desmond is available. Thank you for coming in. We’ve got the PowerPoint loaded up here now.

The format for the meeting is you’ll have 15 minutes to present, uninterrupted, and then we’ll have 15 minutes for Q and A, although sometimes it does go long if a presenter is particularly compelling, I guess. I will set a timer, which I will turn towards you, so you’ll be able to see how much time you have left.

Our next presenters are Andrew Devlin and Kevin Desmond from TransLink. Please proceed. Thank you so much.

TransLink

K. Desmond: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you members of this body for inviting us to testify this morning. I’m going to jump right in.

Just a very quick overview of who TransLink is, for context. TransLink is Metro Vancouver’s transportation authority, authorized by the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Act. We’re primarily responsible for providing all of the public transit transportation services here in the Lower Mainland — bus, rail, handyDART service, SeaBus service, commuter rail, and so forth.

Notably, we have the largest service area of any transit agency in all of Canada — in fact, one of the largest even in North America, which does drive how we provide and plan our service. Over 400 million boardings. We’ve been in a very strong ridership growth trend over the last couple of years.

In addition to our service responsibilities, we’re responsible for some roads and bridges in the region as well as some very important regional planning functions. Notably, there are about 2½ million people in this region, and 92 percent of the residents of this region live within walking distance of transit. Some 80 percent of all of the people in our region use transit at least from time to time, if not regularly.

What we’ve been working on right now is our ten-year plan. Those of you from the Lower Mainland, I think, are familiar with that. That is very much driven by the expectation of significant population growth over the next 20 to 30 years — about a 40 percent increase in population, or about 1.2 million people, some 600,000 jobs.

[10:20 a.m.]

The key for us and our mayors is: how do we accommodate all of those people, all of those jobs, while preserving quality of life and prosperity? Mobility is clearly a key to that, as is managing traffic congestion in the region.

Our program is guided by two key policy principles: that by 2045, 50 percent of all trips would be made by walking, cycling and public transit — i.e., not driving alone in a car; and, also, that we reduce the distance that people travel by one-third. That brings into play the scope of our services as well as land uses around our services.

We’re in the first year of our ten-year plan. We’ve made major strides in increasing transit on virtually all of our modes. Key is to fully fund, particularly, our high-capacity transit projects here in Vancouver; in Surrey, 11 new B-lines; and continuing to fill out bus service on our frequent transit network. High-capacity transit is still the most efficient way to move people in our region. This is a very big region with very big and complicated land uses, however.

This is all by way of context to speak to our objectives for any ride-hailing scheme that would be presented and approved by the province. It’s pretty straightforward, four key points.

Even if TransLink’s expansion plans are eventually fully funded and delivered, we need to provide more mobility for all people and more choices here in Metro Vancouver.

Second, we want to enable services that complement but do not duplicate the tax-funded public transit system.

Three, we would want to ensure ride-hailing does not make traffic worse in our region. That’s a negative for everybody, and of course, our buses travel on those same streets. So if traffic is worse, that further delays, makes more expensive, our service and serves as a negative market incentive to take public transportation. I think the regulations need to be cognizant, as well, of the coming of automation — so not only to whatever extent ride-hailing comes to our region but in the, perhaps, fewer, shorter years the extent to which there is increasing automation and what that might do to traffic congestion as well.

Lastly — I know this body has spoken about this over these last three days, and the prior panel — improving mobility for people with disabilities and mobility challenges. As I pointed out, we provide the handyDART service for our region here, much as B.C. Transit provides the handyDART service throughout the rest of the province.

We see that ride-hailing presents a number of opportunities for this region — opportunities that we are candidly interested and excited to work with, going forward, if and when such services are brought forward. Of course, there are challenges that go with that.

First of all, we do believe, if there is a ride-hailing regime, and if done properly, it can increase the supply and, we would hope, the geographic scope of these types of services for people with disabilities. Whether working directly with TransLink…. About 10 percent of our handyDART service is now provided by taxicabs. The extent to which that can increase the supply of vehicles available in the entire region is a good thing. There are models in North America that we are aware of. Some of our colleague transit agencies in North America are working with ride-hailing organization TNCs to provide paratransit service.

Two, the first mile, last mile. Other panelists have spoken about that. The extent to which we can partner and the regulatory regime allows for microtransit and pooled riding services is very important, even as we build out our system. High-capacity transit is the most efficient way to manage people. With the growth of this region, TransLink cannot be everywhere, all the time, effectively. The extent to which we can find partners to provide services linking up to the SkyTrain network, linking up to the B-lines and the frequent transit network — that’s a plus. We would be eager to use some of the examples in places like Phoenix, Dallas and Florida, for example, where projects are underway.

Lastly, something that’s emerging in our industry, known as mobility as a service — you know, the shared economy, using apps, using technology platforms — opens up this opportunity to have single, or even multiple, common platforms where you can plan and pay for your trip in the same place. We’re very disaggregated now.

[10:25 a.m.]

We have our great Compass program. We expect to go to mobile payments, actually, this year. There are technology platforms that are conceivable out there, where, as I’m planning my trip, depending on the traffic conditions, depending on where I’m going, I might call up a cab or a ride-hail service to take me to a SkyTrain station, to take me to my bike-share, to my final destination here in Vancouver. It could all be planned on the same app and, conceivably, with a single-payment option, which would be great for the customer. That would be premised, in part, on collaborating with the TNCs and that there are opportunities to do that from both the commercial and, perhaps, regulatory standpoints. That includes data sharing going forward.

Finally, our recommendations, in the context of who TransLink is, where we’re coming from, as well as our opportunities. Support coordination between ride-hailing and public transit to manage the impact and improve customer experience. We’re eager to get into the business of these additional first-mile and last-mile connections and to incentivize service in low-density areas. Much of that is on us. You don’t need to necessarily regulate that. We would just want to make sure that the regulatory scheme would allow for that.

I think part of that may be some municipal work but also how this body chooses to proceed with your regulatory approach: curbside management — we want to make sure that we don’t get into destructive competition for curb space for our buses, for pedestrians, and so forth — and ensuring that no predatory services are duplicating public transit. We have within our act the power to approve what are called independent transit services. So we’ve got some power of our own. We would urge you to take a look at that section of the act and make sure that that works well with us. We don’t want to undermine the tax-supported public transit system while at the same time be trying to find additional mobility options.

Second, introduce standards for drivers, vehicles and service providers. I think this panel has heard a lot of that. We would support those types of standards. We work well with elements of the existing taxicab associations here in the Lower Mainland, which I think are very committed to providing good training for their drivers. We have a stake in that, since 10 percent of our handyDART service is provided by cab companies, and we get a lot of feedback from our customers about the quality of service. That needs to be important for the TNCs as well. I think you’ve talked about the accessibility of the vehicles and the extent to which that is legislated.

Next, required open data sharing from ride-hailing services. That’s been a big bone of contention, I think, in a lot of municipalities throughout the world. Certain companies are more open to that than others. New York City, for example, is requiring one of the big companies there to comply with their data sharing. That’s very important. I think that’s very important for overall transportation management. There was, in a previous conversation, a little bit about that.

There are a lot of ways we can share data. We, as a public agency…. I embrace, and TransLink has embraced, making our data open and available. One of the most popular apps in our region, the Transit app, is all based on our information. It’s open data sourced. That needs to be part, I think, of a ride-sharing regime as well.

Lastly, I think there’s a partnership for all bodies — we, as a transportation planning and modelling entity; the province, in terms of your regulatory authority; and the cities — to study and monitor impacts on traffic congestion and options to manage increased traffic going forward, whether it’s within TNCs now, where human beings are driving or, eventually, when we move to automation. Mobility pricing, congestion pricing, different pricing incentives or tools can help manage that. There may be other ways to do that as well. We don’t want to create more mobility options and then all get jammed up in traffic, because you’re then not creating more mobility options. We have to be extremely cognizant about that.

With that, I’ve given you three extra minutes for Q and A.

B. Ma (Chair): Perfect. I think we’re definitely going to use that. We’ll start with Ms. Cadieux.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): It’s just a quick question. When you’re talking about the potential for TransLink to partner further than they do today on paratransit service and moving percentages of that to the taxi or other industry, you’re talking about TransLink, then, subsidizing that service, right? Obviously, those trips are highly subsidized.

K. Desmond: I would fully expect we’d pay. The taxi service that we provide with handyDART now…. We pay for the trips. We would assume that same type of incentivization, whether it’s that or the microtransit.

[10:30 a.m.]

We’re willing to partner. At the end of the day, we can probably provide the same service at a better price. If we do that, we can make more service available for everybody.

J. Johal: Thank you for your presentation as well — very thoughtful.

You had talked about partnering with ride-sharing companies and potentially some of this already being done in other communities and cities in the United States. Can you give me an example of a region that does it well, and how does that relationship work?

K. Desmond: Well, I’m not sure that anyone, per se, does it well. I think this remains in sort of pilot types of projects — city of Austin, Phoenix, I mentioned — where they’re trying out first mile–last mile deals. Many of those metropolitan regions have weaker transit systems than TransLink. We are very, very robust — one of the finest transit systems, I believe in a lot of ways, in North America.

The smaller transit systems that don’t have the same kind of reach, they have an even greater incentive to use the TNCs to help expand their reach. That could be, you would contact with company X to say: “Why don’t you create an on-demand service, group riding. We will subsidize a portion of the fare.” Or we might offer incentives up front to get people hooked on the service.

There are a number of those different examples. I would not say there’s literature yet from those fairly limited examples on the success factor. Are you driving market share? Is it cost-effective? And so on, and so forth. I think the promise is absolutely there. I think we all — we at TransLink, certainly, Andrew and his staff — study very carefully any and all types of advancements made anywhere in the world, for that matter. We want to learn from that.

I do believe there are big upsides, and I know many of the companies are very, very interested in working with transit agencies.

J. Johal: This wouldn’t be specific to TransLink, but two days ago we had the mayor of Enderby on. I think they have transit service once a week. For a community like that, with 3,000 people, you could potentially put a pool of public dollars in — not that community but broadly speaking — and then Uber or Lyft or a local ride-hailing firm could use those dollars as well, then. Some sort of….

K. Desmond: In the ideal. In the context of TransLink’s revenues and TransLink’s ability to allocate out its operating expenses, this won’t be a big thing, but this could be a niche, which could significantly improve mobility to communities where we really can’t get a bus or good bus service. Bus service that operates every two hours, in my view, is not bus service. It’s not very practical. So those are the types of sectors that we would be looking at.

We have examples of that today that TransLink does. These would be sectors that we would want to encourage operators to work with us for innovative solutions to improve mobility.

S. Chandra Herbert: TransLink has suggested that we should be looking to complement not duplicate the existing transit network. Some of the presentations we saw, to me, seemed to demonstrate that particularly pooling of folks can actually duplicate existing transit networks and shift ride-share away from transit into the ride-hailing and make traffic congestion worse — the two concerns I see here.

Now, TransLink wants to “support coordination between ride-hailing and public transit.” What does that mean? Would it mean, for example, taking on a function like the Passenger Transportation Board, where TransLink could, for example, look at the needs of the entire region, as opposed to a city-by-city status, and look to coordinate how many taxis, how many ride-hailing are on the road at one time in one community? Certainly TransLink is, I would argue, in some ways better able to do that, given that you have your hands on so many levers than the PTB, which seems to be rather ill-equipped.

Would that be something considered? Or how else would you look at that?

K. Desmond: Candidly, I have not personally given a lot of thought to that. I’ve thought a little bit about it in anticipation of your panel this week. It would be a new function for TransLink. We’re already a pretty complicated body, so there’s a focus issue there, in terms of what our mandate is.

What we do well is we are very, very good at transportation planning — regional planning. We’re the owner of the regional transportation model — the extent to which we can help power data and information and smart planning around an overall transportation network plan. You know, how do you maximize the capacity of your always limited asset, which is our roadways and our transit system? We do that well.

[10:35 a.m.]

If we were to consider or if the province were to ask us to consider taking on additional powers, it’s something we should look at. We can look at. But again, I think the extent to which TransLink becomes bigger, that much more complicated, starts to create maybe challenges for TransLink to stay as focused as it can be on providing, in my view, high-quality public transportation services.

Again, I did reference section 5 of the act and the extent to which we do have existing legislative authority to approve what’s called the transit service. So if a TNC wanted to do pooled service along a corridor with a kind of schedule, that’s a transit service. We would argue that you have to go through us to get approval for that, because if they wanted to do that along a corridor that fully or partially duplicates a bus route, then you begin to undermine ridership, which begins to undermine revenue, which begins to undermine the tax-funded public transportation service. I would argue that’s a negative.

How do we find a balance, where we want to express that if there’s an entity that wants to provide service where we don’t currently operate and that improves mobility, we should be open to that. Just don’t do it in direct competition that would undermine the bus service.

S. Chandra Herbert: That’s a fascinating point and one that I hadn’t considered — the idea of UberPool effectively duplicating what could be one of the minibuses that you’ve got out there now, or something like that. I wasn’t aware of that section of your act. It does complicate matters in some ways, but I think it helps clarify who is running the show in some ways.

K. Desmond: We have to be thinking about it from the perspective…. Certainly, TransLink needs to be part of this conversation to establish those ground rules so that these entities would not come in the market and somehow undermine the enormous investment over decades and the continuing investment that needs to be made in public transportation. Let’s find those ground rules, so that they can provide a net benefit to society, to our region, without undermining other things that we’ve invested so much time and money in.

B. Ma (Chair): I have myself next. I think it’s a bit of a follow-up to Mr. Chandra Herbert’s question.

It does appear, based on the presentation that we had earlier, that the Passenger Transportation Board is simply not nearly as sophisticated as TransLink is in terms of its modelling capability, in terms of its ability to see what’s going on and anticipate what’s going on, on our roadways.

It is a fascinating concept of having ride-hailing, if we were to bring in these TNCs, transport network companies, into play — how that relationship with TransLink should exist, whether it’s separate or even becomes a part of TransLink’s mandate to manage or so forth. Transport network companies behave very similarly to taxis, so I’d like to pose Mr. Chandra Herbert’s question from not just a transport network company perspective but also on the taxi industry. How does the taxi industry…? How does their relationship…?

I wish I had formulated this question a little bit more in my head before I said it out loud. How does the taxi industry impact transit? Do you have a similar fear of…? Maybe fear is not the right word. Do you have a similar concern that taxi industries, like transport network companies, might have some sort of duplication on transport services, and how are they different? What’s the main difference between them?

K. Desmond: I like to think of public transportation as operating in a competitive environment. I don’t shy away from that. That, in fact, is good for us. The more that we understand that we’re in competition with other ways to get around…. It sharpens our game to provide quality services that can drive market share to transit.

We’re in competition with you in your own car. And yeah, we’re in competition, a little bit, with taxis. We’re going to be in competition, potentially, with TNCs. There are places where people will take…. If TNCs are authorized in this region, someone is going to take that instead of a bus sometimes, or transit, because that might be more convenient to them.

[10:40 a.m.]

I like to think that at the end of the day, in the scheme that I’ve laid out here, that we can float all boats up. The extent to which…. Taxis exist in every urban region in the world, as does public transportation. We coexist very well. They provide different services for different potential needs. There can be other needs where maybe we need to step up the game, like late-night service here in Vancouver on Friday and Saturday nights where there’s not enough cab service. There are demands for us to extend SkyTrain service late at night, at great public expense, and other challenges. I won’t go down that rabbit hole.

Are there ways to provide, without necessarily on the public dollar, additional mobility services? That’s where you’re thinking about who is best equipped to provide different types of services, particularly to do with niche elements, let alone broad elements.

I don’t know if that responds to your question directly.

B. Ma (Chair): I think so. My question wasn’t particularly clear, anyway. I wanted to understand the interaction with TransLink, and I think that you’ve managed to cover that off.

R. Kahlon: I think that linking taxi applications, linking TransLink, linking potential TNC…. I mean, there’s potential. Even if jurisdictions haven’t gotten it right yet, I certainly hope — I think most of us hope — that we get it right in B.C., and eventually, it’ll be beneficial for everyone.

I have a question regarding…. Most of the experts we’ve had on have said that no doubt there’s going to be a transition from transit users shifting over, whether it’s small or whether it’s great. Every jurisdiction has been different, but we’ve heard from experts saying it happens. Have you modelled how much loss of revenue you might have from that?

K. Desmond: No, we haven’t modelled, but I….

R. Kahlon: Sorry. Just let me finish up. Have you modelled that? Have you looked at any other jurisdictions and seen how much revenue they’ve lost? Either of the two.

K. Desmond: No, we have not modelled that. We keep — I personally do, and my team does — very close tabs on emerging information from throughout North America.

A couple of years ago the American Public Transportation Association did a study and issued a report that indicated and argued that where ride-sharing and ride-hailing are prevalent in urban areas, it actually improves public transportation. It means, in urban areas at least, people are less likely to own a car or two cars. They might have a compass card in their pocket, a TNC app on their phone, a bike-share app on their phone, or a membership, and a car-share membership. So they’ve got many different choices and a lot of flexibility on how to get around.

In more recent times, as we’ve seen ridership declines in North America — Los Angeles, let’s say, and New York City…. I think in San Francisco, there’s been some work. Some are arguing that the TNCs are eroding transit ridership. I would tend to argue, on the one hand….

Los Angeles. A big, huge city with not a very good transit system. That’s not a cut at my colleagues at LAMTA. It’s just the scope of that city and the land uses of that city. Then you bring on new service features that are far superior to walking a long distance for an infrequent bus that requires three transfers to where you’re going. Of course you’re going to take ride-hail.

In New York City, the system is overwhelmed with ridership, and the subway system is plagued by delays. Hence, people are looking for a different way around.

Where I come from in Seattle, most recently…. Ride-sharing came to Seattle several years ago. Ridership in the Seattle metropolitan region is growing at the same rate ours is, roughly. It’s booming. So it depends on the nature of your urban area, your service territory.

I believe we have such a strong system here that works in so many different dimensions. I personally am not overly worried that it would have a significant or noticeable impact on ridership and revenue. That’s why setting up a regime that establishes the right types of ground rules and framework means we can manage around that. The extent to which these new types of service providers, which we know a lot of people demand…. We can rebalance how we operate, where we operate, so that all mobility boats float up.

Public transportation is here for a long, long time, for generations to come. Moving large numbers of people on high-capacity corridors…. Public transit does it better than any other mode at this point in time. So I don’t necessarily fear that. We have not modelled a ridership impact necessarily at this time.

B. Ma (Chair): Are there any other questions from committee members?

I’m going to take the last one, then. Hopefully, this one is a little bit more clear. What we’ve heard from expert witnesses prior to you, in terms…. One of the questions and one of the topics that frequently comes up is the concept of putting caps on licences for the number of TNC vehicles that we allow onto the system.

[10:45 a.m.]

There have been expert witnesses who have said: “Definitely, put a cap on it and manage that.” There have been expert witnesses that have said: “Just open the gates and allow them to place an unlimited number of vehicles onto the roads.” There have also been talks about increasing the number of taxi licences. So there are talks about increasing licences or talks about putting caps on. There are talks about having unlimited caps.

Because of your regional transportation management role, do you have an opinion on the number of vehicles that we should allow onto the roads, whether we should cap it or allow a free for all on TNC vehicles? If there were…. Actually, I’m going to start with that question first.

K. Desmond: No, I don’t think we have a point of view on capping or limiting. It’s a tricky issue. Limiting, capping, licences creates distortions in the market and distortions in behaviour. On the other hand, it creates a semblance of predictable territory that all the operators are providing their service within.

I don’t have a personal opinion. I don’t think we have looked at that hard, from TransLink. We could give that a look and provide further information to this body.

B. Ma (Chair): Given the amount of modelling that TransLink does, in terms of…. You’re not just about public transit but also about cycling and walking and goods movement, and so forth. To what extent do you think, ideally, TransLink’s role would be if we were setting licence numbers? Is there interest in TransLink in being able to have a say as to how many vehicles we allow onto the roads in terms of ride-hailing, or is it something that you would prefer not to touch as an organization?

K. Desmond: I’d probably want to dodge that question. It’s not something, again, that I’ve considered or that I think we’ve necessarily given any thought to. I’d rather go back and give you a thoughtful answer to that.

I go back to the open data, though. The analogue to that today is Compass data. It’s this gargantuan amount of fascinating information that shows travel patterns. It would be great to have that kind of data, as well, for TNCs and cabs, frankly — back to the previous conversation. With that information in hand, it leads to a more thoughtful way to even answer that question — what it looks like, how it’s affecting traffic movements, how it’s affecting transportation availability for folks, how it’s improving mobility. We’re all about improving mobility. That’s our lodestone. That would be our frame of reference, absolutely.

I think we’d need to go back and give that a thoughtful answer for you.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. If you do come up with….

Sorry. Susan, when is the deadline?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): January 15.

B. Ma (Chair): January 15 is the deadline for any additional submissions. If there’s anything additional that you would like to submit to the committee, you can do so through the Clerk of Committees.

Any other questions? Seeing none, we’re going to let you go. Thank you so much for coming out today.

K. Desmond: Thank you for your time today.

B. Ma (Chair): Our next presenter is from the Vancouver police department.

There’s apparently a handout.

J. Rice: It’s just a copy of the city of Vancouver bylaw 6066.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. We have with us Sgt. Jeff Rice.

I am setting a 15-minute timer on my iPad. You’ll be able to speak and present for 15 minutes, followed by 15 minutes for questions and answers. Please proceed.

VANCOUVER POLICE DEPARTMENT

J. Rice: I don’t think I’ll use all 15 minutes. The bar has been set pretty high for me, coming in after Mr. Desmond.

I’m Sgt. Jeff Rice with the Vancouver police department. I’m in charge of our traffic services unit, which includes a number of different units, including our hit-and-run squad, our drinking and driving coordinators, our traffic court liaison unit, the school safety patrol and, of course, the commercial vehicle unit, of which a taxi detail is part of. Our taxi detail consists of one sworn member and one civilian support staff. They are solely responsible for administering the chauffeur permitting process for the city of Vancouver, pursuant to bylaw 6066, which I provided you a copy of.

[10:50 a.m.]

I just have a couple of comments that I’m going to make from the outset. I understand there are two specific questions you’re looking at. I’ll read it off here. I’m not going to try to follow my notes.

The comments are that the VPD supports any lawful means of public transportation that gets people home safely, wherever they need to go, from one point to another. Safety is our key. I’ll probably be repeating that over and over again. Regulated properly, with drivers being subject to thorough police information — criminal record checks, including a vulnerable sector check, which I’ll describe a little bit later….

I haven’t had an opportunity to see any of the other testimony, so I don’t know what’s already been covered. If you already are familiar with something, let me know, and I’ll just skip over it.

Driving history reviews, vehicle inspections for safety compliance, the introduction of ride-hailing would probably help us solve some historic problems we’ve faced. I’m just going to describe a couple. I’m not going to get into great detail. I can’t offer a lot of evidence with general observations about transportation difficulties in the city, but what I can say is what our members experience in the Granville entertainment district downtown, particularly at bar closing between one o’clock and up till five in the morning.

[S. Cadieux in the chair.]

Because of all the licensed establishments there, we tend to have a lot of intoxicated people on the road and also people who are leaving work at that time, right? Some people get off at two or three in the morning. The difficulty we have is the longer that intoxicated people are out on the street, the greater the potential for violence. A lot of violent incidents do happen down there. I just got some stats the other day that, of the violent incidents that happen in the Granville entertainment district, 70 percent happen between one and four in the morning, which is probably not a surprise, really, to anybody.

The quicker we get people off the street, the better. We’re happy that TransLink is conducting a feasibility study to look at increasing the hours of SkyTrain on the weekends. It would help us out a great deal.

This morning I had a conversation with a couple of members from Calgary. They have ride-hailing there. Their experience has been, outside their licensed establishments when they close, that things have improved fairly significantly in clearing out the streets.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

Of course, the quicker we get people off the streets, the better opportunity we have to address other issues in the city in the downtown core.

The things we want to avoid are people having to wander the streets, wait for SkyTrain to start or potentially walk home, especially people that might be vulnerable. We don’t want them to have to walk home. We want other options for them, whether it be expanded SkyTrain service, bus service, ride-hailing, whatever the case may be. Bottom line, again, I want to say that we want to get people home safely. That’s the key.

With respect to the regulation, I’m not sure how unique Vancouver is compared to other major cities. But with having Burnaby and New West and all the different municipalities, each municipality has its own vehicle-for-hire bylaw.

Is everybody familiar with the way the bylaw works in Vancouver, or should I provide a two-minute snapshot?

A Voice: Go for it.

J. Rice: In Vancouver, bylaw 6066 gives authority to the chief constable to basically administer the permits. Every taxi driver in the city of Vancouver — and that’s what the bylaw regulates, taxis and limousines — is required to submit a permit to the chief constable. He doesn’t look at them. He delegates that authority to the unit.

With that application, taxi drivers, limousine drivers are required to submit to a criminal record check, which includes police information, criminal record and vulnerable sector. With the vulnerable sector, it goes beyond a normal check. I had to do one for coaching hockey. My birthday was similar to a convicted sex offender, so I had to get fingerprinted twice just this year.

What it does is opens up the check to police records locally and, if necessary, nationally if that person has travelled across the country. It’s going to reveal any patterns of behaviour, whether it’s a pattern or a singular event, where it would be the conclusion of the chief constable that that person should not be either volunteering in a position or in a position where they’re driving people around late at night who may be vulnerable due to their age, due to disability, due to any reason, really — elderly, young, intoxication. That’s why that extra check is done.

It may be surprising to some people that that vulnerable sector check also includes a check of pardoned sex offenders, so we do get that information. Sex offence pardons in the past were a little more common. The federal government tightened that up a little bit in the last ten years, but there are individuals out there.

That’s part of the risk assessment. We may not want them driving people around in the middle of the night alone out to the suburbs or wherever the case may be.

[10:55 a.m.]

The drivers in Vancouver are also required by the bylaw to report any new charges or convictions. We have a system set up with our RMS system where…. It’s up to the officer on the road, but if they have an incident involving a taxi driver, a limousine driver, and they have concerns about maybe the capacity of this person to be a driver or just providing information to our unit, they can route that report directly to our unit so we can review it.

We’re constantly assessing and reviewing files that come in. It’s not just every two years that the criminal record check has to be submitted. We’re constantly monitoring and looking for patterns of behaviour where it may not be appropriate for that person to be a driver.

I probably should say our experience has been that the vast majority of taxi drivers are law-abiding and professional. We work very closely with them. They do a very difficult job. We’re down in the trenches with them, late at night. Sometimes we’re the only ones out there — us, them and intoxicated people. So we really appreciate the work they do. I’m sure that goes without saying for a lot of people that are out late at night.

Part of that bylaw also allows the chief constable to suspend or revoke a permit. That sounds like a lot of authority, but there also is an appeal process to city council. Part of that authority is granted by the Motor Vehicle Act. So the chief constable can review updated files, new information and revoke or suspend a permit.

So that’s a snapshot of just the way it works in Vancouver. I should mention also that taxi drivers are required to take a TaxiHost program through the Justice Institute of B.C. Part of their background check is a driving record check to ensure, you know, that they’re not an unsafe driver. That goes without saying.

I want to make sure I’m not missing anything here. And they have to provide proof of prospective employment. So basically, they have to have a job waiting for them before they get their permit, and of course, they have to have a class 4 driver’s licence.

All of this application process has to be done every two years for existing drivers. If it’s their first year, they have to do it after the first year. Then after that, it’s every two years they have to submit these checks.

That’s just a snapshot of the way we do it in Vancouver, from my experience. I’m not down in the office doing the work. I do review any suspensions or any recommendations that a person be denied. It doesn’t happen very often.

That’s pretty much the way it works. It works for us. I like the fact that the chief constable has the authority. Basically, he’s the gatekeeper for the permit. The fact that there’s an appeal process in place makes it so he’s not a dictator. He’s not authoritarian. There’s a safety net there if somebody decides that it wasn’t fair or the fact that they were suspended needs to be reviewed.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. We’ve got a list of speakers coming up. We’ll start with a question from Mr. Chandra Herbert.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, Sergeant Rice. I know what you speak of, of the Granville strip late at night. I’ve been out with some of your fellow members, working the strip, so to speak, and sometimes, yes, violence did occur. So thank you for doing that work, and thank you, of course, to the taxi drivers for working with you. I hear your concern there.

A question about Vancouver versus other municipalities if you’re able to answer it. I understand through talking to some cab drivers that some municipalities don’t have a requirement for criminal record checks. Vancouver does and actually has quite a comprehensive bylaw.

Some have suggested we should have a one-size-fits-all for the province. Does that kind of thinking make sense in terms of criminal issues?

J. Rice: Absolutely. I think the criminal record check…. On our police information check website, on the VPD site, there is an extensive guideline on doing police information checks. You can do an on line…. The one I had to do for minor hockey is on line. Because my date of birth matched somebody’s date of birth — maybe I changed my name; maybe that’s me — I have to get fingerprinted. If that wasn’t me…. And it wasn’t. I was cleared. I’m coaching hockey. The record is currently one win, 11 losses. Nobody said I was a good coach.

[11:00 a.m.]

An example that was provided to me was that somebody did the same thing. They wanted to be a massage therapist for children, so he does this on-line application through whatever company is out there to do the application. His birthdate matched somebody’s birthdate. That wasn’t him either, but he had to go in for fingerprints. When he went in for fingerprints, they checked him on the system, and he was a suspect in multiple offences. It was totally inappropriate that he be in that position. It caught him there.

A formal police information check would look at those police databases, look at patterns of behaviour. Maybe one-offs where you would all be shocked. “Wow, we couldn’t let that person be a taxi driver or a school teacher,” or whatever the case may be. So doing that thorough check and having those local police records — and national, if necessary. If the person lived in Toronto two years previous, we should probably check in Toronto, because we’re going to let this person out at night with people that may not be able to care for themselves.

I think having that level of check is a must. I know the department supports me. When I say that, I say the department thinks it’s a must. It sounds very onerous. If we were responsible for doing all these checks for, say, 3,000 new people, could we do it? We could probably get it done. Would we need more staff? I would assume so.

Edmonton police service does all their checks. They’ve managed fine. I’ve spoken to a few different agencies, and they’re able to cope with it. I don’t think it’s a place where we want to lower the bar, whether it’s saving money or saving time. I think that’s definitely a must. And if we’re requiring taxi drivers to do it, for sure.

S. Chandra Herbert: The taxi division. My understanding is some of the members may be out on Granville Street watching for cabs from outside of Vancouver coming to try and pick up when they’re not supposed to. It always boggled my mind that that’s how we set up the boundaries, but that’s the history.

Some suggestions have been made, including from the taxi industry, that we should allow, through apps and other things, the ability to match a Surrey outbound passenger with a Surrey cab that’s come inbound, which would, in some ways, make that job redundant. Do you have any thoughts on that issue?

J. Rice: When I applied for this job, they always give you a question about how you think you can improve things. That was one of things I sort of looked at and thought if….

There’s been in the news with refusals downtown…. To a certain degree, I understand not wanting to go out to Coquitlam or wherever. You’ve got to drive back by yourself, and you’re covering twice the distance. Having a system in place where…. Okay. I’m heading out to Coquitlam. If there are any rides waiting to go back to Vancouver…. To me, it makes sense that a system would be in place.

I think it’s probably far more complicated than that, and people smarter than me have probably looked at this for years. But to me, that opportunity to not just have a one-way trip but have an opportunity to get a fare on the way back seems to make sense to me.

S. Chandra Herbert: Would make the job of a police officer watching and saying, “That doesn’t look like the right cab,” kind of redundant.

J. Rice: Yeah. I’ll be honest with you. We don’t have a team of taxi enforcers out there. We have a traffic section, and their responsibility is everything from the left turns to excessive speeding.

S. Chandra Herbert: It’s complaint-based, I guess.

J. Rice: We do have a taxi member who is out there frequently, and our commercial vehicle guys are keeping a close eye. In fact, they do inspections on taxicabs and everything from 18-wheelers to box trucks. So we do watch it.

J. Johal: Thank you, Sergeant Rice, for your presentation today. One of the things we’ve all heard about over the years is the violence that sometimes even taxi drivers have to deal with picking up folks on the Granville strip or many other places as well. But that’s been a constant.

One of the things, certainly, that I’ve seen over the last 20 years is that we’ve added cameras in these vehicles — to, at the very least, deter folks from doing that, although it does happen. In the case of an app, you will have the person’s identity anyway when we begin these ride-sharing companies. Do you think, for extra deterrence, we should also be mandating or requesting that cameras be put in these vehicles? I’m asking for your opinion here.

J. Rice: Yeah. I anticipated that question, and I thought about it. I was in touch with, like I said, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Ottawa, they have to have cameras mandated in the taxis. Here the Passenger Transportation Board, of course, mandates it.

I think the difficulty with that…. With taxis, it was always driver safety. Like you’ve mentioned, having the identity of both individuals, an app-based situation, you don’t have that anonymity, so there’s probably less potential. You have a stranger in the taxi. With the apps, presumably, you know the identity of both people.

[11:05 a.m.]

The logistics of that, I think, would be difficult. The systems in the taxicabs are tamper-proof. There’s a company we have to call to retrieve the video. To ensure that all those systems are in every ride-hailing vehicle….

Honestly, I guess the bottom answer would be sure. Would it be the best for safety? Would it be the best for the driver’s safety, the passenger’s safety? Absolutely. Would it be practical? I don’t know. Really, I’m not offering you too much there.

J. Johal: Legally, though, you must have to…. Is there a legal protocol in regards to how you request images in the present system now?

J. Rice: Yes. If the taxi driver is not a suspect in the crime, then we make the request, through whichever company, asking that the taxi be brought in. I can’t remember the name of the company that has to come out to….

A Voice: West Coast Meter.

J. Rice: West Coast Meter comes out and assists us in getting that footage. We bring the memory card down to our forensic video people, and they bring the images up for us. If we have that rare incident where the taxi driver is the suspect, then we would go by way of a warrant.

R. Singh: My question is similar to Mr. Chandra Herbert’s. If the ride-hailing comes…. We won’t have the boundaries. How would the bylaw that you have about the criminal record check…? How would that work with the drivers, then?

J. Rice: That’s a difficult question. That’s what the government is going to have to try to solve. We have all these different municipalities with all these different bylaws regulating the taxi industry. Then we have a large region where, presumably, whatever is decided, ride-hailing drivers would be free to travel wherever. It really depends on what the province decides to do.

When it comes to the criminal record checks…. As it stands right now, if you want a permit in Burnaby, you go to the Burnaby RCMP. If you want a permit in Vancouver…. This document ensures that everything is the same. We don’t do any better a job than Burnaby does. It should be by the book.

My recommendation would be that you have a single entity so that everything can be brought together and be orderly and consistent. I wouldn’t want to suggest the Vancouver police department do that for the province. If you had to identify a single agency to do a region…. To me, that makes sense. I’ve made suggestions of who should be responsible for this before, and I don’t think this is probably the best place to do that. It was more of a joke, so I’m not going to make that here.

B. Ma (Chair): I have a couple of questions for you. One of our previous expert witnesses had recommended that an identifying mark on the vehicle indicating that they are with a transport network company is absolutely essential. Would you agree with that? What would you recommend?

J. Rice: I probably wouldn’t add the word “absolutely.” I think it would be helpful. I think that being the sole means of identifying a vehicle could be an issue. I mean, those things aren’t impossible to replicate. So I would never suggest that anybody assume it’s an Uber or a Lyft or whatever just by the fact that they have a decal. I know some communities also issue a licence or a permit with a photograph that has to be displayed, similar to what we do with taxis.

I think the big thing with…. This is sort of off topic a little bit. Ensuring that people are getting into a ride-hailing vehicle and not somebody posing as one…. It definitely comes down to public education. From what I understand, the apps are fairly foolproof. You know who’s coming. They know who’s waiting. Should a person who is highly intoxicated have the frame of mind to understand that when the vehicle suddenly shows up and they just hop in? That’s where some difficulties are going to arise. It’s happening out there.

I don’t think having a decal would be a bad thing. I think a decal alone probably wouldn’t be the way to go. I think actually having physical photo ID that needs to be displayed, as well, is probably something that should be done.

B. Ma (Chair): Similar to the way that taxis have their driver’s licence…. They’ve got something displayed.

J. Rice: Yes. Even that can be…. Anybody can make one of those. But a certain combination of things and ensuring the vehicle matches what’s on the app I think is probably very useful.

[11:10 a.m.]

B. Ma (Chair): One of the challenges that we’ve seen come up in other jurisdictions is that…. Even if a jurisdiction has very stringent criminal record checks and requirements for drivers, we’ve seen some transport network companies ignore those requirements. So enforcement is a major issue.

What sorts of resources…? Where are the gaps that you see in the Vancouver police department’s ability to enforce the criminal-record-check requirements on drivers? Right now, for instance, you could spot-check a Yellow Cab, because they’re driving a Yellow Cab. Without very clear identifying marks on a ride-sharing vehicle, you wouldn’t necessarily know that they are operating under a TNC app and driving people around and haven’t gone through their criminal record check. Maybe you could comment on that.

J. Rice: The easiest way around that — and it’s similar to what we do in Vancouver — would be…. It’s not necessarily Uber or Lyft — sorry, I keep on using Uber — ride-hailing companies that are demanding the criminal record check. For instance, in Calgary, where you’re required to have a transportation network driver’s licence, that’s the gate. It’s the licence. That’s what the criminal record check is done for, to obtain that licence. Then that licence allows you to get the job.

Is that answering your question at all?

B. Ma (Chair): I guess my question is more…. I’ll use an example. In Colorado recently, they fined Uber $8.9 million because they had violated the Colorado Public Utilities Commission’s requirements for criminal record checks and other public safety sorts of checks.

They actually had a number of vehicles’ drivers driving with previous convictions, with previous drinking-and-driving convictions, without licences, in some cases. So they fined them $2,500 per day that an unauthorized driver was found driving, which added up to $8.9 million.

It does happen. I’m wondering: from the Vancouver police department’s perspective, how would enforcement take place in that? Is it just an after-the-fact fine? Should we be fining the app? Should we be removing licences? Also, if it is happening, how do you spot-check that if the companies are not?

J. Rice: I think that with the criminal record checks to ensure that people aren’t driving without having done their check and been properly cleared by the police…. With what Calgary does…. You do the criminal record check, and the police are the controller of whether or not that is adequately satisfied — to get that licence to then become an Uber driver. So there should be nobody out there driving an Uber legally who has not done the proper criminal record check.

Could they give somebody a licence who hasn’t even gone through all that, and give them access to the app? I would hope not. Would it happen? Possibly. Enforcement would be difficult.

I think that one of the things we’d probably like to see with ride-hailing vehicles is — now, I’m not going to get into the insurance part of it; that will be up to the province — ways for our officers to identify, outside of that decal, whether or not that vehicle is a ride-hailing vehicle and whether or not that’s through a national safety code number — some way to indicate to that officer that okay, that vehicle involved in this incident was a ride-hailing vehicle.

Now I should be looking at evidence of GPS data. Who was the driver? The app is probably going to have information on who the passenger was. Having a way of identifying that vehicle….

I think I’m going off track with what you’re saying there, but that’s a tough question. I’d have to look to see what other cities are doing. I know that Ottawa does an audit. The city of Ottawa has complete access to the platform. They can require a company to give them a download of every trip that occurred between certain dates — all the GPS data, the name of the driver, who they picked up. They can audit it to make sure that that driver has done all their necessary checks, that everything is ticked off and all the boxes are done to make them a driver.

I still don’t know if I’ve answered your question or confused you.

[11:15 a.m.]

B. Ma (Chair): That’s all right. What I’m hearing is that access to data and information would assist and that enforcement of TNC drivers in vehicles not clearly marked as TNC drivers might actually be quite challenging but that the decals themselves are not necessarily a safety tool either.

J. Rice: Right.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. There are things to consider.

If you do have any other thoughts, you can actually submit them to the Clerk of the committee, Susan Sourial, by email, and she can share it with the committee. We’re accepting any other comments from expert witnesses until January 15.

J. Rice: You answered the question better than I did. You put it into a much more articulate box.

B. Ma (Chair): Not at all. I’m just repeating what I’m hearing to make sure that I heard it. I mean, obviously, enforcement is a big part of this. You are actually our only expert witness from a police department, so if you do have thoughts on how to enforce TNC drivers to ensure public safety, please do send your comments in.

J. Rice: It’s definitely going to create new challenges, but we adapt all the time. We’ll find new ways to do things, depending on how the regulations are set out and what authorities we have. Obviously, that is a big factor on how we’ll address it.

B. Ma (Chair): Any other questions from committee members?

All right. That’s good. Thank you so much for coming in.

We’ve got two more witnesses. Next up is the city of Vancouver. We’ve got Mr. Dobrovolny and Ms. Krishna from the city of Vancouver.

I’m going to set a 15-minute timer. You’ll be able to see it. You’ll be able to present uninterrupted for 15 minutes, and then there’ll be 15 minutes for questions. Please proceed.

CITY OF VANCOUVER

J. Dobrovolny: Good morning. Thank you very much, Chair and members of the committee, for extending an invitation to the city of Vancouver to participate in your special study on ride-hailing in British Columbia.

My name is Jerry Dobrovolny. I’m the general manager of engineering services at the city of Vancouver. I’m accompanied by Kaye Krishna, the general manager of development, buildings and licensing. We’re pleased to speak to you on behalf of the city regarding the importance of safe, strategic and consistent ride-hailing policies here in B.C.

We encourage the province to continue to consult municipalities as ride-hailing policies and regulations are developed, to ensure that we’re advancing the shared desired outcomes outlined in our presentation this morning.

As you know, the city of Vancouver takes a key role in transportation planning and vehicle-for-hire licensing and enforcement. This includes expanding our multimodal transportation network, setting policies to meet our greenest city sustainability goals, enacting and enforcing bylaws for traffic and street use, and enacting and enforcing additional licensing requirements for enhanced vehicle and driver conditions — as, I think, you’ve heard earlier.

As a municipality, our mandate is to protect the safety of our citizens, support local jobs and businesses, maintain a fair and level regulatory environment, and enable accessibility for all. We appreciate having the opportunity to help shape the policy framework for taxi- and ride-hailing. But we also acknowledge that the questions you’re contemplating this week are truly regional in nature and require a clear and consistent policy framework from the provincial government.

We are reassured that you’re moving forward, and we are pleased to share our perspectives on the key desired outcomes and the potential opportunities and risks of a ride-hailing policy framework for B.C.

As the most populated city and economic centre within B.C.’s largest metropolitan region, Vancouver will be significantly impacted by ride-hailing services. It is critical that ride-hailing policies fit within our larger transportation plan in three key areas: (1) minimizing increases in traffic volumes and congestion, (2) mitigating carbon emissions and (3) complementing sustainable multimodal transit.

[11:20 a.m.]

Firstly, related to the risk of increased vehicle travel and congestion, ride-hailing has the potential to reverse the city’s current trend of decreasing vehicle kilometres travelled per capita and increasing congestion overall, particularly during peak times. Additionally, the frequent pickup and drop-off activity generated by ride-hailing may lead to increased congestion caused by illegal stopping in travel lanes or bike lanes or transit stops. Among other impacts, increased congestion could impede transit service, increase carbon emissions and slow the movement of goods.

In Vancouver, this is of particular concern during peak times, when the Metro core is already experiencing severe congestion, and competition for curbside road space is already very, very high from other services, such as transit, tour buses, taxis, local delivery services, food carts, etc. To help mitigate these impacts on our streets, it will be important that ride-hailing services be subject to city bylaws regulating streets, traffic and parking. Rules should be able to be established by municipalities to determine how and whether ride-hailing cars have the same or different rules as taxis for pickup zones and for curbside queuing.

Also, we would like to ensure that municipalities are assured access to ride-hailing company app data for traffic management and policy planning purposes. Access to ride-hailing app data will allow municipalities to better manage ongoing and evolving traffic impacts and regulations, such as passenger zones, to meet the needs of all road users, including app-based ride-hailing customers.

In addition, the data will provide insight to better understand user trips, including their origin and destination. In short, ensuring that the city has access to ride-hailing data will allow us to continue to do strategic transportation planning and design to ensure we continue to achieve our goals related to both sustainable transportation and congestion management.

[S. Cadieux in the chair.]

Second concern: mitigating carbon emissions. With a reduction in private vehicles, ride-hailing has the opportunity to complement the growing suite of shared mobility options in Vancouver — both car-share and bike-share, where we are leaders — and further reduce the need for private vehicle ownership, reducing parking demands and contributing to a broader shared mobility future.

Encouraging ride-hailing companies and drivers to use electric or hybrid vehicles will also ensure that these vehicles contribute to reduced carbon emissions, where the city’s goal is to be completely dependent on only renewable sources before 2050.

Three, complementing sustainable multimodal transit. For certain trips and times of the day, ride-hailing has the potential to replace walking, cycling and transit, particularly local bus trips. Recent research out of UC Davis, California, found that across seven major U.S. cities, the introduction of ride-hailing reduced transit use by an average of 6 percent.

That is not our goal or not consistent with our goals. However, if well planned and coordinated, ride-hailing has the opportunity to increase transportation choice during peak demand times for taxi and car-share vehicles. Ride-hailing can also be a new mobility that is well integrated with transit, complementing late-night transit service and improving first- and last-mile access for transit trips.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

Further, ride-hailing may provide more mobility options for those who can’t drive and increases the range of fully accessible transportation options during peak demand, especially on the weekends.

In summary, as ride-hailing is ultimately introducing another mobility option for making vehicle trips, it is important that we continue to contribute to sustainable transportation through continuing to prioritize investments in walking, cycling and transit and exploring per-trip levies or equivalent on ride-sourcing that can be further directed back towards transit and active transportation improvements.

[11:25 a.m.]

This could be incorporated as part of our regional work on mobility pricing that the Mayors Council and the independent commission are leading. In a recent example with the city of Chicago, they just introduced a new fee on ride-sourcing trips to help fund their transportation and transit systems. But again, being part of the overall mobility pricing framework will be key — that it’s not competing against that.

I’ll now turn it over to Kaye.

K. Krishna: Thanks, Jerry. In addition to fitting within our transportation plan and regulations, it will be important for our ride-hailing policy framework to (1) protect the safety of our citizens, (2) support the local economy, (3) maintain a fair and level regulatory playing field and (4) enable accessibility and mobility for all.

First, safety is of the utmost importance, which you were just discussing with Sergeant Rice. Without safety standards and accountability, passenger safety could be compromised, and vehicle-related accidents could increase. Current regulations at both the provincial and municipal levels establish minimum standards for vehicle mechanical conditions, driver training requirements and driver background checks, all of which help to mitigate safety concerns or risks for both passengers and drivers.

While many ride-hailing apps have built-in mechanisms to review the performance of drivers, it’s our understanding that none of them currently provide the level of safety and protection that we have in B.C. and Vancouver today. We believe the province should carefully consider this and seek to maintain these safety standards for all vehicles in a future ride-hailing environment.

Second, the ride-hailing industry is a critically important industry to Vancouver and the Lower Mainland economy. The current vehicle-for-hire organizations are primarily local businesses. They provide local jobs with protections and benefits, and the industry not only serves residents from across the region but underpins the city’s significant tourism industry. Ride-hailing companies offer transportation services similar to those offered by taxis and other vehicles for hire, such as limousines.

If the local vehicle-for-hire industry is to remain viable, regulation of taxi and ride-sourcing services must either be harmonized to the extent that both services can compete for the same customer base or sufficiently distinguished so that consumers are choosing between two different types of services. We believe it’s important to establish a provincial ride-hailing regulatory framework that creates equal opportunity and sustains an economic livelihood for the local vehicle-for-hire companies.

Third, the city of Vancouver holds vehicles for hire to a higher standard than taxis in other municipalities across British Columbia. These include increased driver training, such as training for how to help handicapped customers, as well as increased quality standards for the vehicles. Further, the city licenses both the taxi companies as well as the drivers and the cars, which enables the city to hold both the companies and the drivers accountable for following the rules, establishing consistent protocols such as issue escalation and also providing data and other reporting back to the city.

Overall, the city believes it’s important to establish a level playing field across regulations for all vehicles for hire, particularly on a regional level. Generally speaking, the city has attempted to raise the bar on the quality of service in Vancouver, and we’d like to see high-quality and consistent regulations established across all vehicles and companies in the regional ride-sourcing market.

Further, as part of supporting a fair and level playing field in the ride-sourcing industry, it will be important to put into place effective enforcement mechanisms and sufficient enforcement resources, as discussed with the last speaker.

Under the current regulatory regime, the city receives many complaints about taxi drivers not licensed to operate in Vancouver who are, in fact, operating within the boundaries of the city, and enforcement remains a challenge. Vancouver sees an opportunity to work with the province, the regional authorities and the Lower Mainland municipalities to strengthen enforcement functions and believes it’s important to establish a regulatory framework that facilitates enforcement for all types of vehicles for hire.

Finally, fourth, it will be very important to ensure that any new frameworks enable accessibility and mobility for all. As they currently operate in other cities, ride-hailing apps in private vehicles are not necessarily accessible to all citizens, particularly those with disabilities or those who may not have access to technology or, say, credit cards.

British Columbia currently has high wheelchair-accessibility standards, and Vancouver city council places a high priority on ensuring that the local fleet of cars maintains high levels of accessibility. For example, of the 175 taxis that were approved last spring, city council mandated that 15 percent of those taxis were wheelchair-accessible. Vehicles for hire — whether hired through an app, called or hailed — should continue to provide a similar level of wheelchair accessibility for all Vancouverites.

Further, the current vehicle-for-hire system provides transportation options for many low-income residents who do not have access to a car, a smartphone or credit cards, which are currently required by most ride-hailing companies to enable the app. In other words, people can hail or call a taxi if they can also pay with cash. Any new policy framework should consider how to ensure these alternatives are supported in the future, particularly for low-income residents.

[11:30 a.m.]

Thank you, again, for the opportunity to present to you today. In addition to presenting to this committee, Vancouver city staff contributed, over the past few years, to provincial stakeholder engagement, including the Taxi Roundtable and engagement process in 2015 and 2016. We also recently provided feedback to Hara Associates for their current work on modernizing passenger-directed services. Also, as Mr. Dobrovolny mentioned, following this week’s hearing we will submit a written submission to this committee based on our feedback and our questions and answers.

We recognize that the province is facing complex and significant questions in contemplating a regional ride-hailing and provincial ride-hailing policy framework, especially one that is a made-in-B.C. model. We hope there will be future opportunities for the municipal authorities to collaborate with the province on the implementation of ride-hailing policies going forward.

Again, we appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today. We look forward to answering any questions you may have.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much. Our first question comes from Mr. Kahlon.

R. Kahlon: Thank you for presenting. We had this journalist yesterday sharing with us the San Francisco experience. In his speech, I think he said there’s a potential lawsuit from San Francisco to the state because the state took over. The TNCs have been arguing that we should have one state, like the province, have jurisdiction over this issue. Right now municipalities have some say, obviously, in the process.

It was interesting for me to hear this person from San Francisco talk about how now there’s a potential lawsuit because all of a sudden they don’t have control, over the congestion in particular, in their community, because they have no levers to manage that. It’s kind of an open-end question, but do you have thoughts on that?

K. Krishna: What’s interesting…. I moved to Vancouver and Canada about two years ago from the United States, and what I’ve learned in short order is that the rules between states and cities are quite different. Here in Vancouver and British Columbia, in particular, we really do rely more heavily on provincial guidelines to set and establish policies, and then it’s an enabling sort of environment for us as a municipality. I think it’s a different environment.

I also think, and we’ve discussed at length, that transportation and ride-sourcing within that context is truly a regional issue. Jerry can speak to this further. It’s really important for us to really look at the kind of supply and demand, look at this from a regional point of view.

We believe there are other ways, potentially, that tracking cars and data and other things could be achieved. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a municipal role versus a provincial role. People live, work, play and go to school all over the Lower Mainland, so it really is a regional consideration.

J. Dobrovolny: I guess I would only add that I think there’s a component for both agencies and both levels. I think consistency is really key here, provincially and regionally. But at the same time, we have local considerations that become difficult.

I mentioned managing curbside space. Managing curbside space on Hastings Street is different than, perhaps, downtown Hope. We need the ability to manage that space so that bus stops aren’t filled, bus lanes aren’t filled. The tools that we give, whether the tools are municipal tools or provincial tools — just the ability to regulate.

The data. I want to keep stressing the data. One opportunity would be to use the data to come back and see: “Okay, well who’s violating.” Right now we have a very good relationship with our existing cab companies. We jointly established the rules. They follow them. If they don’t follow them, I know who to call — sitting right behind me — and it’s easily addressed.

In this new model, what we’re looking for is the ability to regulate. There are a few ways we can do it. I think there are various levels and different technologies or techniques, but the key thing for us is that we don’t clog our bike lanes, clog our bus lanes, fill up the bus stops, etc.

R. Kahlon: So supply and demand is important, and you agree that regional data is better than just, say, isolated to Vancouver. Is that fair?

J. Dobrovolny: Yes, absolutely.

A. Weaver: I’m wondering to what extent the city of Vancouver has taken steps to look at those driving presently, with the number of Chinese-language ride-sharing companies that are operating. They’re doing so in Vancouver. What steps have you taken to actually clamp down on them? If none, why not?

[11:35 a.m.]

K. Krishna: We’ve been working with the PTB on this issue. We do look to the province and the PTB, from an enforcement point of view. We don’t have direct enforcement responsibilities over the cars in the city. We coordinate with both VPD as well as the PTB on this. But we have had conversations with them to try and help on clamping down and managing this thus far.

A. Weaver: Can you expand upon that? Jerry, right next to you, said that if there’s a problem, he knows who to call with the taxi industry. We clearly have a big problem because there’s a bunch of ride-hailing companies operating in a non-regulated environment that are not supposed to operate. The app producers are not violating any laws, but the actual drivers are, and the enforcement today is pretty much non-existent.

I would have thought, as we’re talking about this now and if it was such a concern from the issues of congestion and others, that Vancouver and other municipalities would have stepped forward and tried to regulate the preponderance of vehicles operating illegally with existing ride-hailing companies.

K. Krishna: I think the challenge for cars operating in the city is not just isolated to the ride-hailing companies. We know that we have issues with suburban taxis also operating illegally in the city. I think it’s a combination of factors.

As I mentioned, we don’t have direct authority over the enforcement from a municipal point of view, so we do coordinate with the PTB and VPD on enforcement. We have been trying to help more actively, be kind of the eyes and ears on the ground for the Passenger Transportation Board on this issue.

I do think — and I think we probably all agree, without being too presumptuous — that putting in place new regulations…. I mean, we’ve seen this with many other sharing-economy apps and new functions that have been disruptive to the way our policy frameworks work today — such as short-term rentals, which is also in my portfolio. We don’t have regulations and policy frameworks under which these companies are operating.

In the absence of that, it’s really hard to enforce when we don’t have rules to guide them. We’re really pleased to be here today to hear more about your thinking and to see where you go with this through the year.

S. Chandra Herbert: How do you regulate a group that’s decided not to be regulated? It’s an interesting conundrum — a group that operates hidden from public view. How do you catch a criminal who is invisible? Anyways, interesting theoretical conversations we could get into.

I guess where I wanted to follow up on the presentation a little bit was the question around congestion. My neighbourhood, really the whole city, is becoming a real challenge to get around, as people understand. We’ve made some gains, but I wouldn’t want us to go into reverse.

Some presenters — I guess, the TNCs, the ride-hail companies — have argued that the city should be shut out, basically. It should be a provincial decision. We need one uniform regulation. We set the terms, as the province, and the city deals with it.

Some presenters have told us that that’s outrageous, and that would make the problem much worse, arguing that that’s what’s going on in San Francisco and why they’ve had an increase in congestion. Some have said there’s a problem because you have authority and the PTB has authority. They can approve 38 cabs from outside Vancouver to operate in Vancouver, and the city can say no, and we still have a demand problem.

I’m interested in how the city makes these decisions around how many cabs or…. I guess, arguably, some could say that you should also have the ability to regulate how many ride-hail cars could be operating at any one time. How does the city make a determination around these issues?

K. Krishna: We really look to the PTB on setting and looking at supply and demand, principally, kind of first. We’ve coordinated with them over the years on looking at what the numbers should be and informing and helping to shape their decisions. But they actually, principally, set the numbers. Then what the city often does is reviews our policies and principles to assess what we think would then work within the city.

Particularly with the 38 suburban taxis, my understanding is that in 2014 the province and the city started conversations, principally led by the province, to evaluate ride-share. During that time and since that time, as this has been a ongoing evaluation and lots of stakeholder conversations have been had, etc., the city has maintained its existing policy.

[11:40 a.m.]

That is to maintain the boundaries, to work with the local taxi authorities and to, essentially, keep the same regulatory environment in the absence of a new, changed or evolved regulatory regime set by the province. So we’ve maintained the local taxi numbers and local taxi licensing in the absence of a shift that we anticipate has been on the horizon.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just to follow that up, given that the city has said, “Wait. Hold on. We need to figure out this ride-hail thing. We’re not going to approve any new cabs until we get it all figured out,” is there a feeling in the city that there should be a limit on ride-hail on the number, on the quantity? I guess I’m trying to understand how we would say, “Stop. No more cabs,” but let a free-for-all on ride-hail, just maybe charge a tax on them or something. I’m just trying to understand the city’s position.

K. Krishna: Well, I think — and feel free to chime in here, Jerry — as we mentioned in our presentation, there are a couple of risks and impacts that we could anticipate. We need to be careful about congestion and volume on the roads, but we also need to be concerned about the local taxi industry. As we’ve seen in other cities, where there hasn’t been some sort of more integrated review of all of the ride-hailing companies and services within that regional or urban context, it has had a negative impact on local taxi companies.

I think it’s important from a policy point of view to look holistically at all of the service providers within the region to assess what the supply and the demand needs are and put a policy framework in place that enables the competition and the vibrancy of all of those companies to operate.

J. Dobrovolny: From a transportation perspective, I mentioned we need to have mechanisms to manage the space, and it will make a difference if there were 100 licences or 1,000 licences or 10,000 licences in terms of what we could offer.

Currently with the taxi industry, because it contributes to our transportation goals, where we’re making it easier for people to have mobility, get around without necessarily owning a personal vehicle, we try to give them priority in the transportation system where we can. That’s why we have taxi zones where we can prioritize the space for their pick up. That’s why we allow taxis to use the bus lanes.

The number of…. You’re asking about the scale. The scale of what’s coming will have a direct bearing on what kind of priority we can offer them. It wouldn’t be feasible to allow 10,000 ride-hailing vehicles into the bus lanes or HOV lanes during peak hours because you would take away any priority that you’re currently providing for other means.

You mentioned that previous speakers had said perhaps the provincial government should control all of the regulatory. I’m very pleased that you’ve invited us here today. As you heard in our statements, we very much would welcome the opportunity to stay involved with you to help shape the implementation as it evolves. I think there’s clearly a role at each of the different levels for us, and potential risks that we can avoid by working together and not having a one-size-fits-all.

S. Chandra Herbert: Reading your bylaw…. Our bylaw, I should say. I live here too. In the bylaw, it talks about taxicabs, in specific, not ride-hail — that we shouldn’t cruise or hover in front of any theatre, hall, hotel, railway, ferry station or place of public gathering unless you have a parking spot. I know that getting a parking spot in the city can be really challenging when you’re around a public gathering spot. Now, this is specific to taxi.

I can only imagine what would happen if we added a whole lot more cars. Where are they going to go? I think previous presenters talked about cruising the streets, waiting until you could get a call.

I know some in the taxi industry do that now, even though they’re not supposed to. I can only imagine what would happen if you added 10,000 new cars, as the example was given. There isn’t a place to park — in my neighbourhood, anyways — unless you created designated ride-hail zones and took away people’s parking spots to do so.

Certainly, I think the city would definitely need to have a role in this. TransLink was before you, and one of the questions I asked them was: should we have a dedicated regional body that makes these kinds of decisions? I was a little surprised that the city looked to PTB for direction in terms of how many cabs and supply, because I don’t think they have adequate information to make that decision. I think the city, in fact, would probably have more ability to understand what the real impacts are around traffic congestion and so on. You’ve got more hands on the levers than they do, but TransLink even more so.

J. Dobrovolny: Yeah. We just completed a parking review of the West End, and one of the things we found was that people were circling for five to ten minutes looking for parking. That’s that circulatory….

[11:45 a.m.]

We’ll be reporting to our city council next week, giving an update on autonomous vehicles. Again, that’s a real risk with the future with autonomous vehicles, in terms of the circling. We’re looking at shared electric autonomous vehicles so that we can put in place a framework for the future that doesn’t set us back on all of our current transportation successes. The same thing with ride-hailing. We need to work together to find a way to not lose ground on our sustainability goals, our transportation goals.

S. Chandra Herbert: Would requiring ride-hail companies’ new cars, maybe even new taxis, entering the market to be electric or low-carbon be something that the city would support?

J. Dobrovolny: Certainly now, both provincially…. And the city is supportive. We give priority to zero-emission vehicles — whether it’s provincially, in HOV lanes; whether it’s us, with preferred parking. So yes.

Then there becomes a tipping point, when there are so many of them that now you have a management problem. But I’m happy to take on that challenge and get to that point sooner. So we would welcome those kinds of discussions.

K. Krishna: If I may just add to the question around our position on setting numbers. I think there are two considerations on some level, which is why both Jerry and I are here.

Looking at the current street traffic and management and street management and congestion is critically important. But then from a numbers perspective and a supply-and-demand point of view and just general planning….

Many people live outside of city boundaries and work inside city boundaries or vice versa. From just an economic planning point of view, for supply and demand of taxis, it’s really important to understand trips — where people live, where people work, how people are mobile. Are they biking? Are they walking? Are they taking a train and then taking a taxi?

From our perspective, we really have to look at this in that broader context from a planning point of view. That’s why we look to the PTB to help at least set that context and that larger supply-and-demand consideration within which we then make decisions around the specific Vancouver need.

J. Dobrovolny: And why the data will be so important. We get data from the bike-share companies. We get data from the car-share companies. So it will be critically important that we can receive the data in some fashion.

B. Ma (Chair): We’ve got just two more speakers, and we’ve run out of time for questions. So we’ll try to keep them short to get them in.

A. Weaver: Can I quickly interrupt? I must go, and I do apologize. I’m going downstairs to take a taxi to the helijet. Thank you to the committee. [Laughter.]

A Voice: Well played.

B. Ma (Chair): Mr. Johal.

J. Johal: My question has been answered.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. Then I have a few questions. I’m really interested in enforcement and management of regulations that we bring in. Of course, if we bring in legislation and regulation, it’s only effective to the extent that we can enforce it.

Dr. Weaver had brought up the illegally operating TNCs, but of course, as we heard many times already, we don’t regulate the TNC company. It’s not the app that’s operating illegally; it’s the driver. In a lot of cases, these drivers are…. The vehicles are not marked, so there’s no way to spot-check on the street.

I guess I would love to hear a little bit about what sort of legislation or regulation…. What sort of enforcement techniques do you think would be useful that you wouldn’t be able to do now?

In that question, I’d also like to explore the concept of actually regulating the TNCs, as opposed to just the drivers. So in the Airbnb example that you gave, we don’t regulate Airbnb as a website. It’s just the housing. But how would you feel about the ability to actually regulate the actual app and the technology behind it?

K. Krishna: In the sharing economy, this is really one of our biggest collective challenges, in my opinion. For short-term rentals, for example, as a city we have indicated that we would like to regulate the companies. There are, like, 14 different short-term rental companies operating in Vancouver right now. We need a level playing field for all of them. It’s not ideal.

I use that as the example because we’ve really explored this with council, and some of the questions that you’re asking now we haven’t explored fully with council. So some of it is just our opinion as policy-makers and staff.

[11:50 a.m.]

From a short-term rental point of view, if we have to negotiate a different memorandum of understanding or agreement with each individual company — Airbnb, Expedia, HomeAway, all of those companies — it puts us in a really difficult position, as a city and a municipality, to have level standards in a regulatory environment, to provide protection for residents, for tourists and visitors, etc. So from our perspective, we would like to be able to regulate these on-line companies to some degree.

Likewise — if we go back to, then, the ride-hailing and taxi companies — we do have agreements, and we do license taxi companies now. We have a separate licence for those companies. We have agreements with them on how they operate in the city as a business, what we hold them accountable for. Right now there’s no accountability for these on-line companies.

I know there’s an argument around: “Well, they’re just providing a service, and they’re not actually the ride-sourcing company.” But they do put terms in place for their contractors and how they have to operate. They have systems that are kind of parallel to our regulatory environment today, such as how to deal with issues, how to do reporting, how they collect data, how they check their drivers.

There is a parallel environment that…. Unless we are able to have some sort of enforcement and regulations that are similar, we end up finding it becomes a type of large administrative burden from a municipal and provincial point of view, because we have to manage a lot of different types of regulations. From an enforcement point of view, it becomes more and more expensive the more variety and distinction we have for the different types of companies. So we think it’s important to regulate both, if we can.

What we found, though, with the on-line companies…. Because they are not physically based in Vancouver or even, necessarily, in British Columbia or Canada, it’s very difficult to regulate them. So we found that at a minimum, our legal team believes, the province would have to regulate the on-line companies. We are not able to do that as a municipality. I just put that out there. That’s what we’ve found when it comes to the short-term rental companies. I assume it’s a similar situation for the on-line ride-sharing companies.

B. Ma (Chair): My last question, just quickly: what do you think of peak time licences — the ability to add more vehicles on the roads only during certain periods of time?

J. Dobrovolny: Certainly, I mean, we hear lots of concerns about supply, and the supply is certainly during those peak times. I think that that can be a mechanism.

K. Krishna: We also currently have two types of taxis within the city. We have full-time taxis and part-time taxis. So we do have some during the day, and then that number diminishes in the evening hours.

We’ve also allowed, over the years, for added taxis during the holiday season, because there’s a greater demand. So we have a precedent of doing that kind of peak planning, if you will, in different ways.

B. Ma (Chair): Fantastic.

Any other questions from committee members? Doesn’t look like it.

Thank you so much. I know we went a little bit over on the question period, but I’m very grateful to have been able to arrange to bring you in here.

K. Krishna: Likewise. Thank you.

B. Ma (Chair): Our last presenter — again, recognizing we are running a little late, we’ll jump into it — is the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. They will join us at the table here.

Will it just be yourself, Mr. Hemingway?

A. Hemingway: Just me today.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. So we have Alex Hemingway from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

I will set the 15-minute timer. You’ll be able to speak for 15 minutes, uninterrupted, followed by a Q-and-A period of approximately 15 minutes. You may proceed.

CANADIAN CENTRE
FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES

A. Hemingway: Thanks for the invitation to speak to you today. My name is Alex Hemingway. I’m a researcher with the CCPA.

Let me just start by saying a few words about why the CCPA is interested in this issue. We have a long-standing record of research and interest in issues of workers’ rights — precarious work, the rights of vulnerable people, including people with disabilities — and in addressing the climate change crisis, greenhouse gas emissions, transit and mobility policy as well as building and strengthening our local economies.

In following this debate as it’s playing out in the public sphere, as well as closely following the transcripts of your deliberations over the past couple of days, I think there’s some reframing that might be useful. In some ways, we’ve been presented with what I would suggest is a false dichotomy between the status quo of local taxi companies and swinging the doors wide open to aggressive multinational players like Uber, or coming to some sort of muddled compromise between those two sets of interest.

[11:55 a.m.]

What I’d like to suggest that the committee and the government consider is to step out of that dichotomy and develop something better — a made-in-B.C. solution that solves the problems we have, in terms of the transportation service shortages at certain places and times, and one that doesn’t worsen other problems, including precarious work, low wages, pollution and congestion. We can do that, and I’ll talk to you about some options with respect to that today.

We need to start by asking ourselves, for example: why can’t we have a modern ride-hailing service that is owned by the drivers or by the community and accountable to local stakeholders? In a way, that can actually maximize the interests of riders and drivers in the long term instead of delivering up an important sector of our local economy to American multinationals.

We also need to ask…. I was very happy to hear this from the city of Vancouver. It’s absolutely crucial to think about taxi and ride-hailing services in the context of our overall transportation strategy. We have too many cars on the road in Metro Vancouver, and we need to be looking at solutions that are actually going to help mitigate that problem.

To sort of set the context, let me just step through some of the key problems with each of…. I’ve suggested that there’s a dichotomy here between the existing model and this new model. There are problems with each.

You’ve been hearing about them over the past couple of days. But, just quickly, problems with the industry as it exists: inadequate supply of taxis at peak times and locations; a desire for more technological convenience seen in some of the ride-hailing apps; and — less talked about, but you heard from Benn Proctor, for example — the often low take-home wages in the taxi industry, once you account for lease fees for those who don’t own their own licence.

On the ride-hailing side, of course, there are very big problems as well — again, low wages, perhaps lower, precarious work, issues all over the world with regulatory compliance, licences revoked, concerns about safety, surge pricing, and so on.

Less talked about but great to hear today from the city are the issues of congestion and pollution. The companies like to promote the idea that they’re replacing trips that would’ve been made with private-owned vehicles. In fact, there’s strong evidence that they’re ramping up the total vehicle miles travelled. There’s plenty of research on this coming out of the U.S. which I’m happy to pass along.

Ramping up vehicle miles, of course, means ramping up all the social problems that private automobile travel creates — whoever is driving, whoever owns the car: congestion, pollution, both local and greenhouse gas, land use issues, the huge public subsidy that goes to maintaining the road network that facilitates these private automobiles, and issues of mode shifting away from public transportation, which we’ve just heard a little bit about. Again, there’s strong evidence from the United States in cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and others where we’re seeing mode shifting away from public transportation.

We do need to keep the broader context in mind, to the extent that we’re going to increase access to these services and make it easier and cheaper to get around in private automobiles. We have to deal with the consequences of that. One piece, of course, is it’s absolutely critical to invest much more in high-quality public mass transportation — SkyTrain, buses, commuter rail — and make this type of service more affordable and attractive to encourage that type of mode shifting.

We may, in the years and decades to come, see a switch to electric cars. We may see self-driving cars. But at the end of the day, these are still vehicles clogging up our roads; using up precious urban land for road space instead of, for example, housing; injuring and killing people. It’s a major cause of death in our country that we don’t talk about very much, from vehicle traffic.

That’s all one important point, by way of context, that I want to put to you. We really do need to think about the costs of increasing and encouraging private vehicles as a mode of transportation — again, whoever is driving or owning it, whether it’s a personal vehicle or owned by a company.

[12:00 p.m.]

The second broad point that I want to come back to is this issue of…. To the extent that we’re going to have increased access to taxi and ride-hailing services…. And let’s be clear. They’re fundamentally the same service. The European courts and others have pointed that out. To the extent that we’re going to increase access to this service, how should we design it? What should be the ownership model of this type of industry?

Well, critics of the current industry, as it exists, have pointed out and argued — and there’s certainly some truth to this — that the current taxi industry operates as a kind of oligopoly dominated by a few market players, with the biggest benefits flowing to lease owners and not necessarily non-owning drivers.

What those arguments neglect to point out is that the ride-hailing industry, including multinationals like Uber, have a business model that is fundamentally premised also on forming an oligopoly. That’s baked right into their business model, and you can see this in operation when Uber comes into cities operating at a loss — the point being to establish market dominance.

You don’t have to take it from me or any of the other commentators you’ve heard from. You can hear it directly from their investors in the Financial Times. Happy to pass along that reference. The premise of the investments being made in this company is they’re willing to burn capital for now to establish a dominant position in the market with profits to come down the road and prices to go up down the road, on the assumption that there’s going to be a monopoly or a duopoly type of market at play.

There are reasons to expect this to be the case, because there are network effects that exist with these types of technologies that add barriers to entry for new entrants, and that’s why you see such dominant market shares in the U.S. It’s not that one company is necessarily going to dominate in all markets, but there tends to be market domination within any given market. For example, in China, a Chinese company was in a fierce battle with Uber and actually won, but that company now has 99 percent of the market share. So there is a tendency towards duopoly and oligopoly in this industry.

That being the case, we’re in an interesting position in B.C. We haven’t opened up to this industry yet. We have a bit of a blank slate in front of us, and we actually have an opportunity to do things a little bit different and much better in a way that’s going to serve the public interest in the long run.

As I suggested at the outset, what I want to offer to you is that we should very seriously consider opening up the ride-hailing space for locally developed, driver-owned, non-profit or community-owned ride-hailing apps and services, which can really maximize those benefits for drivers and riders, because we’re sidestepping the need to cut and extract fare revenue, either flowing to taxi licence owners or to American multinationals.

In fact, this hasn’t been a big part of the discussion yet, so it may sound a bit pie in the sky. We know it can be done, and there are important models we can learn from. I believe you’ve heard in the past couple of days briefly about the RideAustin, a non-profit in Austin, Texas. This is a non-profit ride-hailing app that successfully got off the ground and has conducted millions of rides.

The key is they were able to emerge and establish a foothold because Uber and Lyft temporarily exited the market in Austin, because they were refusing to comply with certain local regulations that had been put forward. There is a need for…. If we’re going to create space for these types of alternatives, it’s very difficult for them to establish themselves in a context in which huge players are immediately able to flood into the market.

In London right now, a driver-owned ride-hailing service is in development, not yet launched, in partnership with the New Economics Foundation. That follows the revocation of Uber’s licence there.

There’s actually a much broader and rapidly developing movement of what are called platform cooperatives that seek to challenge and replace monopoly technology platforms, which rely crucially on market dominance. We can see that in other sectors and in other technology sectors. Companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Google operate on that type of business model. We don’t have to replicate that. We do have a choice here.

[12:05 p.m.]

Now, there would certainly be important details to work out, but as you can imagine, for example, licences for these types of services being issued by government could be based on its set of criteria that would seek to achieve multiple goals, which proponents would have to lay out a plan to meet. For example, social and environmental goals, protecting the rights of drivers, protecting consumers and helping to build a cooperative and local economy are types of criteria that could be considered.

Now, before I wrap up, I want to make a couple of points that are a little bit separate from this. Again, to just return to the issue of a broader transportation strategy, I think we ought to be careful not to get lost in the weeds of thinking about how we’re going to shuffle around how private vehicles move around in British Columbia. Keep in mind that public transportation needs to be the centrepiece if we’re going to get vehicles off the road, reduce pollution and reduce congestion and the enormous expense of investing in our road systems.

I’d also just like to take a moment to echo some of the concerns that you’ve heard over the past couple of days around regulation, which I think go without saying. It’s critical that taxis and ride-hailing services have to live up to the same high regulatory standards that protect public safety, protect the rights of workers and indeed should recognize and treat workers as the employees that they are, and as other jurisdictions have recognized that they are, in these services. Those workers should be entitled to benefits such as minimum wage and the right to unionize.

Now, to wrap up, let me just say that this is our chance to do something different. The easy thing to do would be to say yes to these American multinationals or to some muddled compromise between the local, entrenched interests and those American interests. The innovative thing to do would be to develop a bold, better solution that is much more forward-looking, fundamentally in the public interest and, in the long run, in the interests of riders and drivers.

To those of you in government, ask our public servants in the relevant ministries to present you with options that can achieve these goals. Work with established players like RideAustin to discuss what the barriers are there, now that Uber and Lyft have returned to that market.

If instead you take the easier road of allowing these multinationals to flood in, I would just point out, you’ll not only be making a decision for now, but you’ll be making a decision that will make it much more difficult to adopt a different path in British Columbia down the road. This is a unique moment we have here, and I hope you’ll consider seizing it in the way that we’re suggesting.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much. We’ll go to our first question, from Mr. Johal.

J. Johal: Thank you for your presentation. I very much appreciate that, as I say, different perspective as well. You brought up the issue of Austin. There was, I believe…. The state has said, essentially, that they will regulate ride-sharing, not the municipality. You don’t know how things have transpired since then, do you?

A. Hemingway: What happened, from my understanding, is that there was a local regulation that was brought in initially. Those were the regulations that Uber and Lyft decided not to comply with. There was actually a plebiscite around this, and people supported it. Those companies exited the market. This non-profit, RideAustin, emerged. But the state, as I think you’re alluding to, later overruled those local regulations. That’s when Uber and Lyft returned to the market.

It’s been interesting. RideAustin actually has written quite frankly, in detail and publicly, about its experience, the pressures on its business model and how it’s tried to navigate them. They wrote a piece immediately following the re-entry of Uber and Lyft. They saw an immediate decrease in market share because, of course, it does take time to develop and refine these technologies. They got off the ground quickly, but the market power and the development of the $1 billion of technology behind the Uber app are very difficult to compete with.

J. Johal: Are you saying the local apps can’t compete with Uber or Lyft? I’m trying to understand this. I mean, you have opportunities that go to chain restaurants and local restaurants. It is difficult; I understand that. But as a consumer, I can decide whether to support a local business, and I probably would want to, particularly with ride-sharing. But I’d still want to be taking taxis as well. So they are still competing at this time?

[12:10 p.m.]

A. Hemingway: Yes, they are. I think the important distinction is between different types of markets and what levels of competition they support. That’s one of the difficulties. RideAustin was able to get off the ground very quickly. Why haven’t we seen that repeated in other cities? Well, one of the big reasons is entrenched market power, particularly in an industry where scale matters immensely.

To gain market share…. If I’m considering switching apps and I switch to a small app that has a small number of drivers, that’s not going to be as good a service. The quality of the service depends on scale in part, so that’s why it tends to support only a couple of players.

J. Johal: My final question here. You brought the issue of potentially these companies taking away folks who could be taking transit potentially. What are your thoughts on, perhaps, taxing per ride? We take those dollars and shift them over to TransLink to improve service and to build on that service as well. Would you support something like that?

A. Hemingway: Well, I think that speaks to the broader issue of mobility pricing, which I think does need to be addressed. We’re actually going to be publishing some research on that soon. But the short version is, yeah, mobility pricing needs to be part of the picture.

J. Johal: But even per ride. If you want to decide to take an Uber or Lyft or a local company, we charge you 50 cents, and that’s, let’s say, a transit tax. That goes directly to transit. You would support something of that sort?

A. Hemingway: Well, I can’t say I’ve thought through all the implications of that specific policy. But there’s certainly a logic to it.

R. Singh: Thank you, Mr. Hemingway. What we have heard in the last few days…. You mention about the precarious work and have been very focused on that issue. When you talk about an organization like RideAustin, do you have any kind of data, like when they came in, that they helped bring in livable wages and a better workforce and working wages for those workers? Or was it just the same thing, like casual, part-time work?

A. Hemingway: That’s very much part of their pitch. Now, I can’t claim to be an expert on that organization or whether they’ve lived up to the claims they’ve made. But part of their pitch is that they’re able to return value to both riders and drivers. Part of what they described with the return of Uber and Lyft was that although it was difficult, they had maintained some sense of loyalty with their drivers, who really appreciated the way they stepped into the void.

It was a very particular circumstance where this industry had already emerged. There was a set of drivers, and then the two major players exited. So I think it was a huge relief to drivers that this organization was able to step up.

R. Singh: Just a little more on this. With your research, do you have anything, like, if ride-hailing comes…? A lot of concerns about casual, part-time jobs. Is there a way, if it comes, that we can protect the full-time jobs and protect the wages for these workers? Do you see that happening?

A. Hemingway: I can’t claim to have specific research findings about that. I’ve taken, and would reiterate, the broader point that the emergence of precarious work is an absolutely huge issue in our economy today. I think that’s one reason really in favour of giving the opportunity for the people doing the work in this industry to have a direct ownership and stakeholder accountability with this industry. It’s possible. We could do it. I just want to emphasize that.

R. Kahlon: Thank you for your presentation. You definitely came at it from an angle we haven’t had come to us yet. The idea of a worker co-op model, where workers are entering the market, is a fascinating model. It works in many other places, so I don’t understand why something like that couldn’t work here.

I think what jumped out at me — and what we’ve heard, actually, from many presenters — was the idea that anyone that’s starting a company locally would struggle against a company that will run at a loss and has the capital to run at a loss for so long, it can just drown out the competition.

It’s something that — I think I can speak on behalf of all of us — we all care about. We want to see B.C. companies succeed. We want to see B.C. companies come through. But how do we allow space for that? It’s something that we have to think about.

[12:15 p.m.]

I’m just hoping that you can send us whatever information you have around Austin. I think it’s a fascinating piece. If you have any other examples of worker-led companies that have decided to enter this market, I think it’s an interesting concept. I just haven’t seen it before, so if you can find examples for us, that would be interesting to see.

A. Hemingway: First of all, one other example — I mentioned it very briefly — that’s in development is in London. It’s specifically in partnership with a think tank there.

One of the reasons that they haven’t emerged is because there are so few places where that opening has been created. I mean, we’ve heard again and again how unusual B.C. is for not having allowed these industries. Austin’s story is very telling, because you can see the specific circumstance that allowed for that emergence of that alternative. It’s the space.

B. Ma (Chair): My question for you is similar to what Mr. Kahlon had asked. How do you create space? Is it a matter of delaying certain companies from entering the market? How do you create that space to allow local companies to flourish?

A. Hemingway: That’s an important question. I think it would have to be, of course, thought through very carefully. A couple of ways of approaching it would be…. For one, the most direct way would be to say that for now, or perhaps indefinitely, we are allowing these types of ride-hailing services to come to British Columbia if they are on a not-for-profit or cooperative basis. That’s one set of criteria you could imagine.

Another way to do it — I alluded to this a little bit in my presentation — is to set up a set of criteria for the services that would apply for a licence to operate in B.C. and make sure that proponents have to make a case around key social, environmental and workers’ rights goals that we may have in B.C. Actually set out a series of criteria and ask proponents to make the case about how they are going to service B.C. in pursuit of those goals in addition to whatever their own particular interests might be.

B. Ma (Chair): My next question you may have heard asked to a couple of presenters before. One of the interesting things that I learned through this process is how we do regulate passenger transportation services — the drivers, the vehicles — but not the app, not the technology and not the dispatch, which presents us with certain enforcement challenges. I mean, you can find individual drivers, perhaps, but the apps will continue to go on. There’s no disincentive nor is there any incentive for them to abide by certain rules if you can’t touch them.

Do you think that the enforcement of these technology dispatch apps is something that we should consider? If so, what sorts of things could we regulate through that? Maybe some of your thoughts on that.

A. Hemingway: Well, I certainly think it makes sense to regulate these services at an organizational level, not on the level of individual drivers. You know, it’s sort of obvious on the face of it to people who observe a company like Uber that its drivers are its employees, whatever they might say. Of course, that’s being recognized in Europe and elsewhere more formally now.

As to the specific tools that the province has at its disposal to do that, I can’t speak to that today. But it’s hard to imagine, especially given the rulings that we’re starting to see around the world, that there’s not a way to make that work. Just on the face of it, these are companies with employees, whatever they like to say.

B. Ma (Chair): Are there any other questions from committee members? It looks like you are free. Thank you so much for coming in.

That concludes the third day of our three-day public hearing process. I want to take this moment to thank everyone who has come out to present to us and also everyone who has come out to witness these proceedings. I’d also like to thank our committee staff, Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond, again, from the Parliamentary Committees Office, as well as Steve Weisgerber and Simon DeLaat from Hansard Services today. Everyone have a wonderful afternoon, a wonderful remainder of the week.

I guess I have to ask for a motion to adjourn.

The committee adjourned at 12:20 p.m.