The committee met at 9:03 a.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): Good morning, everybody. My name is Bowinn Ma. I’m the MLA for North Vancouver–Lonsdale and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. I’d like to begin by recognizing that our meeting today takes place in the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

We are an all-party parliamentary committee of the Legislative Assembly with a mandate to examine, inquire into and make recommendations on regulations regarding transportation network services in British Columbia. We must issue a report by March 31, 2019. The committee is meeting to hear from expert witnesses on the following four questions:

(1) What criteria should be considered when establishing boundaries?

(2) How should regulations balance the supply of service with consumer demand, including the application of the Passenger Transportation Board’s current public convenience and necessity regime as it pertains to transportation network services?

(3) What criteria should be considered when establishing price and fare regimes that balance affordability with reasonable business rates of return for service providers?

(4) What class of driver’s licence should be required for ride-hailing drivers to ensure a robust safety regime without creating an undue barrier for drivers?

[9:05 a.m.]

In addition to the witnesses that you will hear from today and the witnesses that you heard from yesterday, over 700 organizations — including municipalities; First Nations; taxi companies; ride-hailing companies, including transportation network services; and disability advocacy organizations — have been invited to make written submissions covering these four questions. All of the information received will be carefully considered by the committee as it prepares its report to the Legislative Assembly.

Today’s meeting will consist of 25-minute presentations followed by 20 minutes for questions from committee members. All meetings are recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services, and a complete transcript of the proceedings will be posted on the committee’s website. These meetings are also broadcast as live audio via our website.

I will now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, beginning with the member for West Vancouver–Sea to Sky.

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

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

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. Olsen: Adam Olsen, MLA, Saanich North and the Islands.

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. Thank you so much for being here.

On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank the presenters who have taken the time to be with us today and would like to introduce our first presenter. First up we have Sgt. Jeff Rice from the Vancouver police department, who will be joining us by teleconference.

Jeff, do you have any questions before we begin?

J. Rice: I don’t. I just have to say that I don’t have a 25-minute presentation. It’s going to be relatively short. I’ve just got some short answers to the questions that were posed.

B. Ma (Chair): Absolutely.

J. Rice: Then I’ll be available for questions.

B. Ma (Chair): That is no problem. Being succinct is not an issue here. All right. Please proceed. Then we will follow up with 20 minutes, plus whatever time you’ve left from your presentation, for questions. Go ahead.

Presentations on
Transportation Network Services

VANCOUVER POLICE DEPARTMENT

J. Rice: Okay. There are only four questions, but I can probably offer real input on a couple of them, because it’s not our area of expertise. I’m sure the provincial government has researchers that are looking at where this has worked in other jurisdictions and how we can emulate best practices.

Having said that, with respect to the boundaries, I think one of the issues we tried to resolve the last time I gave evidence was the difficulty people have in getting home at certain times of the day, when it’s raining. Supply doesn’t necessarily meet demand when it comes to getting people home in a timely manner.

I think that the boundaries with the TNS companies could be counterproductive. Restricting somebody from only picking up in a very limited area, driving out to the suburbs and not being able to take somebody back is one of the problems we’re trying to solve. So I think doing that overly restrictively would be counterproductive.

I did do a little bit of research, and I’m sure you’ve done a lot more than me. An area like Toronto that requires a special permit to operate in a smaller area — I guess it’s not that small; it includes Toronto and a couple of municipalities immediately around Toronto — and a newer vehicle. I can only suspect that that’s to limit the number of vehicles that are working in a particular area. I guess that would be one of the considerations.

I’ve done some research on the Internet. I can’t tell you whether or not Uber, Lyft or any of the other companies cause congestion, but I suspect that that’s a reason they’ve limited that, to ensure that we don’t have an overabundance, too much supply, well above demand in a particular area, which could cause more problems than it actually solves.

I think that the basic thing about the boundaries is restricting people from being able to move back and forth in a general area. So having a sort of regional permit or licence, I think, would be ideal, allowing people to operate in that general area. If there was consideration to restricting an area, perhaps that would be an area inside the downtown bridges, to limit the number of ride-hailing vehicles that can operate in that area.

[9:10 a.m.]

I suspect that these applications have the ability to put people back and forth on and off the platform, depending on how many people are working in a particular area, so you could have, for lack of a better description, electronic boundaries within the app itself that limit the number of vehicles working in a certain area at a certain period of time. That’s just something…. Thinking on my own. It probably already exists, so I’m probably not saying anything that hasn’t already been discussed.

Do you want me to just move on to the second, third and fourth questions before any questions?

B. Ma (Chair): Yes, please go ahead.

J. Rice: Okay. The second part here — this really is not an area of expertise that we have. I just think that the system needs to fit seamlessly with our current transportation system, the taxi industry and TranksLink. Again, looking at the boundaries to ensure that we have proper supply and demand in certain areas, I think, is very important. That’s everything I can say about that particular question.

The third question again is the same thing. It’s tough for me to give a position from the police department here on what the price should be. Again, it just needs to work. I think the government, obviously, needs to look to see where it has worked, in cities like Toronto that have multiple municipalities bordering on each other.

It is a little bit unique, because we’re going to have people living in suburbs that need to get, obviously, back and forth. That is my only response to that question.

Now, the one that you’re probably most interested in hearing from me would be the question about the class of driver’s licence that’s required. Our position would be that a class 4 commercial vehicle licence be required. That’s not a class 3, 2 or 1, which qualifies you to drive bigger buses and transport vehicles. This is for taxis, limousines and buses up to ten passengers.

There are more restrictive requirements when it comes to driver history to obtain your class 4, which I think is the most important aspect. You’re required to do an additional driver test and a couple of different tests, including a pre-trip written test and a road sign test.

I think the most important part of this would be restricting the number of violations that a person can have over the previous three years. With a class 4, you have to have fewer than four offences that result in penalty points. Penalty points are usually attached to moving violations, because those violations are more likely to cause accidents.

I think if we’re inviting people to be on the road more, which is what we’re doing by allowing them to be a TNS driver, we need to ensure that the people that do that are the best drivers — people with the limited number of violations, people that have gone the extra step to take that extra road test so we can be sure that they are a good driver.

I mean, you could have your class 5 and be lucky enough to not get many tickets, but you could still be a horrible driver because you don’t drive very much. We’re inviting people that potentially have not driven too much with their class 5 to now drive as a TNS driver. They have limited experience, but because they don’t have many tickets, we’re inviting them on the road more and potentially creating more problems.

We don’t want to erode the steps that have been taken to require a class 4 licence just for the sake of convenience and efficiency. I know that’s one of the concerns — that we’re making people jump through a number of unnecessary hoops and we’re not going to get those people that only want to drive 20 hours a week. But I think those are the people we need to ensure are confident drivers, and I think these extra steps, including the medical examination report, are necessary steps if we’re going to bring these people onto the roadway more than they already do.

Now, does a class 4 licence reduce collisions? I would hope so. It would be a tough comparison, because taxi drivers are on the road a lot more than most people with a class 5, so you can’t really do a side-by-side comparison. Somebody else is going to have to do a study just to see how much it does reduce collisions.

I’m just going through some notes here. I have to scroll through to make sure I’m covering everything off. Could a person operate with a class 5 and be restricted to a certain number of violations over a period of time? That’s certainly an option. But again, I don’t think that just because a person has only two violations…. They may only drive four hours a week.

I think putting them through that extra road test is a necessary step just to re-evaluate their driving ability and ensure that we have the right people on the road. Like I said, we are inviting these people to be on the road more, so I think we need to have the best drivers out there.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. Thank you so much, Sergeant Rice. We’ve got a few questions for you, beginning with Mr. Chandra Herbert.

[9:15 a.m.]

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, Sergeant Rice. I won­dered. Uber made a suggestion, and I don’t understand it completely, that their restrictions of violations were stricter. They suggested they not only look at the total number of points over a set period of time and the total number of incidents, but they look at what kinds of incidents.

So you might not hit a total of…. I don’t know if it’s 12 points; I’m just trying to go from memory here. But maybe you get close to it just on one incident where you drove particularly dangerously. Any thoughts on how points or numbers of violations should be considered?

J. Rice: Well, it’s not necessarily the violations. It would be the points. Undue care and attention, I believe, carries with it six points, so you can get to a certain limit with fewer tickets. I think, though, that the more important thing is that…. I think the number of tickets is less important.

Obviously, it’s very important. If you’ve got a person who’s got several moving violation tickets over a short period of time, we don’t want them out there driving a vehicle at all. We’re all unsafe with that person being on the road.

I lost my train of thought there for a second. With the dangerous driving, if the standards are set for a class 5 licence like they’re saying, and they’re more stringent, then I think having a class 4 licence, which is equally as stringent, and having that extra driver test, is important.

S. Chandra Herbert: Okay, thank you.

J. Rice: I’m not sure if I answered your question there, actually. I didn’t quite understand where they were going.

S. Chandra Herbert: Yeah, no. I think their suggestion was that instead of saying, I think it was, four violations over three years, if they had one violation in three years but that one violation added up to a whole bunch of points, they might decide: “Well, you might not have hit 12 points, but it was such an egregious violation that we don’t want you.” So just wondering whether or not the four violations over three years is strong enough as it is.

J. Rice: Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t…. Is it strong enough? You know, each individual driving record is always reviewed by the superintendent of motor vehicles. If they’re saying that, with one violation, they would not approve somebody to be a driver, I think that’s good for them. I mean, the stricter the better.

I do think that the addition of that additional driving test…. Right? Because my concern is that we have people that may not have a number of violations, but that’s because they don’t drive a lot, and they don’t drive a lot because they don’t have experience.

Suddenly they have this opportunity to be a TNS driver, and they’re going to go out there and say they have only one violation in that past four years. But we’re all thankful that they haven’t been on the road, because they don’t have the experience. And suddenly, they’re a TNS driver. So I do believe that that extra road test is necessary as part of the class 4 requirement.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, Sergeant Rice. I think that makes a lot of sense. Certainly, I got my licence, and then I didn’t drive very much for a couple of years. I have an aunt — I won’t say which one; I’ve got many aunts — who’s not a good driver, but she’s had her licence for a long time. I don’t want her to be a TNS driver.

J. Rice: Right. Neither do I.

B. Ma (Chair): I can sympathize as well. My mother is the first person to admit that she’s a terrible driver, but she’s never gotten a ticket.

R. Kahlon: We’ll send you the addresses of their houses after, Sergeant.

I have two questions. I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Maybe you can clarify. But I’m hearing from you, around congestion, about having some sort of limit, in particular in the downtown core. So you could maybe clarify that.

Then, I guess, from a police perspective…. Obviously, we know, when there’s congestion in town, what that means for commuters, because we hear from them about congestion and how they’re not happy. How does it affect the policing side? Maybe you can share a little thought on that.

J. Rice: Okay. I mean, I don’t know for a fact that ride-hailing or TNS causes congestion. I can only read articles on the Internet just like anybody else, right? So I really have no experience besides taking an Uber or a Lyft in other cities, and I don’t know what traffic is normally like there, so I don’t know how it has impacted it.

[9:20 a.m.]

In the downtown core, I guess my only concern would be…. It’s nice to have a good supply at certain times of the night. Right now we lack supply. When the bars close or on rainy days, people have difficulty getting home. We don’t want to limit TNS drivers from coming into that area during those periods of time, but we also don’t want such a supply that it’s way, way over demand. Then it just creates issues with congestion, I would suspect. I can’t say definitively that that is the case.

From a policing standpoint, obviously, we need to get around quickly. We have emergency equipment. Again, I don’t know if it’s going to cause congestion, but it could create problems for us.

Parking space down there…. I mean, I don’t think that these drivers are driving around aimlessly. I would expect that they’re sitting somewhere, parked somewhere, waiting for a fare. It would be counterproductive if they’re wasting gas just sort of cruising around an area. So parking and standing in certain locations could potentially be an issue, and that’s something the city is going to have to address with bylaws.

Again, I think the platform can probably control that. I think if a certain number of vehicles are on line in a certain area, if you have a geogrid or a boundary that other vehicles can’t come on line in that location…. I would suspect that the platform can sort of place itself to control congestion, but I’m not an expert in that area.

Did that answer your question at all?

R. Kahlon: Yes, thank you. That’s great.

J. Sturdy: Thank you, sergeant. Is it true that you could obtain a class 4 driver’s licence with, essentially, zero driver’s experience other than having a class 5 for two years?

J. Rice: You know what? I don’t have the…. You have to have a class 5 for two years. You have to do your medical exam, your road test, your written exam on the pre-vehicle inspection and, I believe, a road-sign test.

If you don’t have a lot of experience, yet you pass that road test, which I think is essential, yeah, you could have very limited experience. You’re right. Have no violations over a period of…. Not necessarily no violations, but a good driving record with a class 5 over a period time and have very limited experience.

It’s my hope that that road test would be one of the steps that would eliminate people that have limited experience but are poor drivers. But yeah, you’re right.

J. Sturdy: Are you aware of any difference between a class 4 road test and a class 5 road test other than the pre-trip inspection?

J. Rice: You know what? I went on the Internet just before this call to educate myself on that, but I don’t know. I believe it’s more stringent to get your class 4, but I can’t actually tell you. I wish I would have had five more minutes, because I was in the process of looking that up.

J. Sturdy: I did some research on it, and it appears that it’s the same question bank.

J. Rice: It is, eh.

J. Sturdy: Yeah.

J. Rice: So you’re basically doing your road test following the same rules as you would for a class 5. Is that what you’re finding?

J. Sturdy: That’s my understanding, but we are looking for some clarity in this regard.

I don’t want to put any words in your mouth, but what I’m hearing from you is that the chief concern is around the number of violations and the types of violations that any driver has in terms of whether they would be considered a safe driver and whether they would be eligible to….

J. Rice: Yeah, I would say that would be the biggest concern. One of the comments I’ll make there too…. You mentioned that the driver test is the same. I’ve got a son who’s a young driver. I know how they drive when they’re with us — for their learner’s. They drive when they get their test. Then over a period of time, they start to get more confidence, and their driving habits change.

I would love to see young drivers have to do a road test every year, every two years, just to bring them back in line, if that makes any sense to you, because the driver’s tests may be the same, but behaviours change over time. I’d like more frequency, even in that case, to make people sort of reset and get back to the way they drove when they obtained their licence.

J. Sturdy: Do you think that the ability to rate the driving, the experience, from a guest perspective would have an impact on people’s actions and activities as a driver? As in the case of…. Most of these TNS companies would allow for or actually encourage a rating of the driver on everybody’s trip.

[9:25 a.m.]

J. Rice: I think it’s a good thing. With taxi drivers, we make them take TaxiHost, which is sort of a customer service course and a bunch of other driver safety components to it as well. I think their rating system, actually, is a good way of weeding the bad people out. It’s more of a customer service thing, but I think if somebody’s driving unsafely….

I was watching the news yesterday. I think one of the anchors accused, or thought, that maybe their driver was high on cocaine when they took one back east. I think those types of reviews…. If somebody is doing something that’s unsafe — they’re speeding; they appear to be high or drunk — I think that’s invaluable.

It’s almost immediate. We don’t have that with taxis. We have the complaint line. People can call in. But I think they’re less likely to do that unless they have something right in front of them and they can put their comments in right at that moment. I think it does have some value. If a person gets a certain number of ratings, I believe they get dropped off the platform. I’m not sure. But I think it’s very useful.

J. Sturdy: If only we could get our kids rated, eh?

J. Rice: I would love to know what they’re doing when I’m not around.

J. Sturdy: Me too.

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

All right. I have a few myself, Sergeant Rice. What do you think of the idea that transportation network companies can and should be fully responsible for setting their own driver standards rather than using a class 4? So class 5 plus their own standards. Do you think that is a suitable replacement for class 4?

J. Rice: I keep on going back to the additional driver test. I’m hearing now that it’s no different than the one that you have for a class 5. But like I said, you have people that don’t drive a lot, that have fewer violations and that still are not competent drivers and should be tested.

Once a person obtains their licence…. Having to send in your driving record every year or every two years to the company, and they do their own auditing at that point, I guess is possibly an option. It reduces the amount of work we have to do. But I do think that road test is important. It’s sort of a reset, right? Where is this person at now?

They want to drive people around. We want to invite them on the road more. What’s their competence now? Not: “What was their competence when they got their licence?” We’re giving them more freedom. We’re allowing them the opportunity to drive people around. We’re inviting them on the roadway more. Let’s see where they’re at now. Let’s make them do a test. If they pass, then by all means…. If they don’t have a certain number of violations, then they get their permit or their licence. Does that make sense?

B. Ma (Chair): Yes, absolutely. My next question is…. One of the arguments or one of the suggestions being made by transportation network companies is that the medical examination is not required. Currently, the class 4, if I understand, requires a medical examination once every five years for those under 45 years old, once every three years for those between 45 and 65 years old and once every year for those above 65.

The argument being made by the presenter from Uber, who joined us yesterday, was that because doctors are already required to report drivers who are unfit to drive to ICBC, the medical examinations are not required. Do you have any comments on that?

J. Rice: You know what? I don’t have a lot of knowledge with respect to what medical conditions prohibit somebody from driving. I know that my sister-in-law had a seizure last year. She can’t drive for six months. That was, obviously, doctor’s orders. Did he report that to the motor vehicle branch? I don’t know. Maybe she’s operating on the honour system right now.

I’m not sure exactly whether or not it’s a doctor’s responsibility — perhaps it is — to report things to the motor vehicle branch. Not everybody may be cooperative in self-reporting, right, and not driving. My sister-in-law is, of course. If a person doesn’t go to the doctor on a consistent basis, how can the doctor report on any conditions they have? My doctor couldn’t report on a whole lot about me. I don’t go too often.

I guess if you’re requiring that medical examination, at least that gets them to the doctor. The doctor then has the ability to report — I mean on the form — whether or not they have any concerns.

[9:30 a.m.]

I can’t really comment on it much because I don’t know what the medical standard is. I think there’s a lot of subjectivity, perhaps, on the part of the doctor whether or not they think the person should be a driver, or maybe there are a couple of check boxes. If you have those on the form, you’re out. Right now my understanding is that with a class 5, we won’t know you have a medical condition until something happens and your doctor says you can’t drive.

B. Ma (Chair): Just for context, I believe the class 4 licence…. From their perspective, medically fit means not having certain conditions such as a tendency towards seizures, epilepsy, certain types of heart conditions, certain types of visual challenges — that sort of thing.

Recognizing that you’re not a medical doctor and don’t come from a medical background, you might not be able to answer this, but I’m going to put this to you. In your experience as an officer of the law, as somebody who has teams that are experienced with dealing with drivers on the road, have you encountered drivers with class 5 licences that probably aren’t medically fit — in whichever way, be they physically fit or perhaps mentally fit to drive on the road — despite having a class 5 licence?

J. Rice: Personally, no. But I know our collision investigation unit has investigated a couple of files where there were medical conditions that were significant contributing factors. I can think of one situation that was a problem with seizures, and it resulted in a fatal collision.

Personally, I don’t have a lot of experience with it. I think, like I said, if someone doesn’t go to a doctor, we can’t expect a doctor to be able to report whether a person has a condition or not. With a class 5, like I said, I don’t think we become aware of those situations until something tragic happens, or a person does go to a doctor and the doctor basically tells them: “You should no longer be driving, or at least not for six months.”

Again, I’m not sure of the obligation on the part of the doctor to actually report that. I’m going to speak to my sister-in-law tonight and find out whether or not her driving status has been suspended for a period of six months. I don’t suspect her doctor has, probably, forwarded anything, because she’ll listen to him, and he knows that she’ll listen to him.

But yeah, there have been those instances out there where…. It’s going to happen anywhere, right? I mean, even if somebody has a class 4 and they’ve gone through a medical exam, the reality is that situations change. Medical conditions change, and anything is possible. Just because we take these steps to ensure that we have the safest drivers…. We’re going to get people that get in crashes. They’re going to get violation tickets. We’re going to have TNS drivers that commit criminal offences.

We can only do our best to try to make it as safe as possible, and I think these extra steps assist us with that. Whether or not the government wants to create a class 5A licence for TNS drivers that reduce the requirements slightly from a class 4, that’s up to the government to determine. That’s fine. I know some other provinces…. I believe Toronto just requires a basic class 5. Calgary and Edmonton require a commercial vehicle licence similar to our class 4.

B. Ma (Chair): Any other questions from committee members before we allow Sergeant Rice to take leave? No.

Thank you so much for joining us — really appreciate you taking the time to come by teleconference.

J. Rice: Thank you very much for the opportunity.

B. Ma (Chair): Take care.

Now our next presenter is the Justice Institute of British Columbia. We are a little bit early. We’ll recess for five minutes just to get you set up, and then we’ll begin at 9:40.

The committee recessed from 9:34 a.m. to 9:40 a.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): We have before us Ms. Joan Glover and Mr. Harry Randhawa from the Justice Institute of British Columbia.

I will be setting this timer to 25 minutes. You’ll have 25 minutes to present, uninterrupted, and that will be followed by 20 minutes of questions. The length of time for questions may be extended if you’ve left time in your presentations. Do you have any questions for us before we begin?

H. Randhawa: No, not really. We’ll just do our best to try to stay within the time frame.

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

JUSTICE INSTITUTE OF B.C.

H. Randhawa: Thank you for having us here, Madam Chair, committee members. We appreciate the committee giving us a little bit of time to present on issues related specifically to item 4 of the terms of reference.

Specifically, we’re going to talk about standards and re­quirements for ride-hailing drivers to ensure a robust safety regime without undue barriers. Given our experience, we feel that that’s the area that we can contribute to this conversation the most, so that’s where we’ll focus our attention.

My name is Harry Randhawa, as you said, and I’m the coordinator for the JIBC TaxiHost program. I’m here with my colleague, Joan Glover. She’s the program director for the JIBC driver education centre. Our presentation will focus mostly on standards and current and future training models and how they fit into the discussion around taxi modernization and ride-hailing services.

Some of you may be a little bit familiar with the Justice Institute of British Columbia, or JIBC, as a post-secondary educator that trains our communities’ police officers, firefighters and other professionals where occupational and public safety is a primary concern. This includes the work that we do with the taxi and limousine industry. Our focus and our vision is around safer communities, and we do this through education, training and research.

I’m going to skip over a lot of what’s on this slide here and just talk about our mandate. Again, our specific mandate is to work with community partners in the fields of justice and public safety. Our primary focus is: how do we ensure that the professionals that are working out there today can maintain safety for the public and also maintain their own occupational safety? We work with community partners, municipal governments and the province to ensure the delivery of this. That includes the work that we do with the taxi and limousine industry now.

I’ll start by just sharing a little bit of history about TaxiHost. I know it’s maybe a little bit outside of this conversation, but I think a lot of it is actually relevant to what we’re talking about today.

The TaxiHost program was originally developed in 1996 as a way to standardize training being provided throughout the Lower Mainland. It was developed through collaboration by industry and community stakeholders to elevate the level of service being provided for better local and visitor experiences. At the inception of this program, it was brought together as a way to ensure that training was being delivered by all operators in a way that was effective and actually having an impact in terms of the customer experience.

Prior to this program being developed, the taxi and limousine industry really did not have any form of consistent delivery of training. Larger outfits did invest time to put together some form of training, while smaller outfits pretty much just let it slide. There was no consistent standard, and because of this, there was a slew of consumer complaints, and a lot of key stakeholders were quite upset by the level of service that people were being provided.

[9:45 a.m.]

Some of these key stakeholders banded together, and that included ICBC, Tourism Vancouver, YVR, JIBC and other community partners, to help create something that was independently administered — a third-party training model. This was to ensure the delivery to every driver that enters the industry, no matter which company they chose to work for.

Over 21 stakeholders were originally involved and participated in the development of the program. Some of those are listed up on that particular slide there and included in your presentation.

The TaxiHost program, as it has evolved and continued to change since the time it was originally created, now follows TaxiHost Pro as the current standard. This training is required by all drivers that are operating in the Lower Mainland, everywhere from West Vancouver all the way out to Chilliwack. If they happen to be operating a vehicle for hire at YVR, they are also required to meet this standard.

The current delivery model is face to face, and we facilitate that at our New West campus. It’s face to face because it includes disability training, which includes things like curb management, loading and unloading and proper securement when transporting a client using a wheelchair, scooter or other mobility aid.

The courses that we offer are delivered in a flexible format on a weekly basis, and they accommodate individuals that are working, studying or transitioning from unemployment to work as professional drivers. To date, we’ve trained upwards of 16,000 drivers to help improve the quality of service that British Columbians actually receive.

Before a driver can actually enrol in the program, they are required to take a small assessment. Our student demographic includes a high proportion of applicants that come from other countries or provinces, and they’re looking for opportunities to make a decent living and establish themselves quickly in B.C. But in order to do that, we need to make sure that they’re able to communicate effectively with the clients that they’re going to be driving around. So we do a basic literacy and English proficiency test, which we feel is an important part to make sure that they can communicate effectively with clients. Many of the newcomers that we get often have to brush up these skills prior to enrolment.

There’s also a basic geography quiz that these applicants do, and that verifies that they’re familiar with the Lower Mainland — our local cities, bridges and highways that are our major transportation corridors for all motorists in the Lower Mainland. We feel that this is important, even with the advent of GPS.

TaxiHost Pro consists of three different courses, and I’ll tell you a little bit about those. One of the courses is called taxi industry and driver safety. We also have service excellence and accessibility in transportation. And the third course that drivers have to take is called collision avoidance driving. They need to actually complete all three of these courses, and drivers must achieve 75 percent in each course to pass.

When they’ve completed the program, that’s when they receive a certificate of completion. This certificate is actually one of the requirements that they need to show in order to receive their chauffeur’s permit, in addition to the class 4 licence and having passed the criminal record check.

I’ll tell you a little bit about the courses. I’ll just briefly go over what they actually include, so you have a little bit of an idea as to what’s covered.

Taxi industry and driver safety is one of the first courses that they have to take. This course kind of focuses on the industry operational procedures, the different rules and regulations and laws that apply and acceptable standards of service. Also within this course we cover effective route planning, and they need to be familiar with major centres of commerce and tourism within the Lower Mainland.

[9:50 a.m.]

A significant portion of the time dedicated in this particular course is around assault avoidance and strategies to reduce occupational risk. As many of you may be aware, taxi drivers are one of the most at-risk occupational groups in North America. I mean, they have a much higher chance of being assaulted than a police officer.

The second course that drivers need to be able to complete is a course called service excellence and accessibility in transportation. This course is twofold. Part of the course covers the value of tourism and how it contributes to the provincial economy in making sure that drivers understand their role within that.

They also review effective communication strategies, handling customer concerns and working with a diverse client base — knowing what’s appropriate to be able to talk about and what’s not appropriate, and what kinds of questions they need to target or ask their clients in order to be able to best provide service. Within this course, we also cover principles for transporting people that experience specific disabilities. That’s discussed and demonstrated within the course.

The last course that drivers need to take is called collision avoidance driving. This may provide a little bit more clarity in terms of the conversation that you just had with Sergeant Rice. This course helps prepare drivers for on-road service delivery. It includes an actual on-road evaluation and skills training to those that have had less time on the road or those that need to brush up their skills since receiving their licence.

These are the courses that we currently offer. Over the last few years, we’ve had lots of conversations with our community partners. We’ve had lots of conversations with regulators. The JIBC has taken a critical look at our TaxiHost Pro program to see how the experiences and expertise that we use to develop this program can assist in developing a B.C.-made solution to tackle consumer concerns around TNS or ride-hail safety and quality of service issues.

The JIBC is developing curriculum for an on-line course specifically designed for drivers wanting to work in the ride-hailing industry. This new course aids in creating standards and training that support keeping British Columbians and visitors to B.C. safe if and when they decide to use ride-hailing services. This course can be used to provide a consistent, standardized training model that would be accessible to all ride-hail drivers and operators, not just one particular operator.

This course is currently in development. We anticipate it to be completed by this summer, the summer of 2019. It’s going to be an on-line course, and it’s going to be approximately four hours to complete. It will be available throughout B.C., so it won’t be limited to the Lower Mainland. It will be developed specifically for the ride-hail industry and also for jurisdictions outside of Metro Vancouver who, at the current time, cannot access TaxiHost but want to have something in place for their drivers.

The goal of this course is to ensure that all drivers have the skills to work effectively with passengers. This includes providing universal access to all customers — conflict resolution strategies as well as understanding the risks and being able to implement appropriate safety strategies when necessary, especially under certain circumstances where they may be dealing with someone that may be impaired or intoxicated.

Specific topics that will be covered within the course are outlined on the slide here. We will cover skills that are necessary for being a successful driver, including drivers making sure that they’re familiar with their own geographic region, that they take the time to learn about the community events that are happening within their local community and that they are aware of the diverse communities that operate and live within that community and the needs of those specific groups. We’ll also cover driver safety protocols and strategies for enhancing their own occupational safety. Obviously, effective communication strategies are an important part of all of those things.

[9:55 a.m.]

A big portion of this course is also going to be dedicated towards universal access, particularly focusing on diversity, equality and inclusion training. The last portion of this course will cover a small portion on the theoretical portion of road skills training.

The inclusion of driver training as a requirement for ride-hailing entities helps support a mandate to protect the public, support communities throughout B.C. and look at these options as alternative transportation resources for locals that depend heavily on the tourism sector. So when we start talking about communities outside of the Lower Mainland that depend heavily on tourism, they want to make sure that the drivers they have in place have something to be able to offer, that the customer experience at the end of the day is a good one.

The driver training also supports the municipal and provincial road safety initiatives, such as B.C.’s vision zero plan to move towards a goal of zero traffic-related fatalities. Some of the current recommendations focus on the class of driver’s licence and the inclusion of a criminal record check. Obviously, these were discussed at length over the last two days.

These ensure that drivers do not have a history that puts clients at risk. But it doesn’t necessarily arm drivers with the tools for enhanced safety, and it doesn’t ensure that superior service, which clients ultimately expect, is going to be delivered. I think, quite passionately, that that’s what training actually offers.

Thank you for your time. We’ll be happy to open ourselves up to any questions you may have.

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

R. Kahlon: Thank you for the presentation. I assume when you have this on-line course that TaxiHost won’t be required anymore, or that program will be gone.

H. Randhawa: Ultimately, it’s up to regulators to decide how and what requirements they want to set in place, whether they choose to introduce just the on-line course for everybody or if they choose to maintain a working model that currently exists and include this specifically for ride-hail.

I do want to clarify that there are differences between these two groups. One of the differences that needs to be elaborated on is the fact that as we see transit and handyDART pushing more and more demand for service on taxi companies to be able to fill in the gap around being able to transport someone that may be using a mobility aid or maybe an electric or manual wheelchair, the training that you provide them really needs to include hands-on training.

For numerous years now, whenever we’ve talked to community partners, this is the messaging we continue to hear — that hands-on training is something that needs to be included more and more. When you go switch to an on-line course, there are certain things that you can do effectively well. You can reach a larger audience. You can streamline things. But you cannot deliver those portions. So I think when you take that out, there are some challenges there.

R. Kahlon: I’m struggling a little bit with it. Right now…. On the previous committee, when we were deliberating, we heard that in providing access to people, let’s say with wheelchairs, there are extra hurdles for taxi companies that provide that service because the vehicles cost more, the ramps cost. So there’s a higher cost to it. Now what you’re saying is that in order for someone to provide that service, they now have to do an additional course.

Both taxi and TNS drivers provide essentially the same service, but one, you’re suggesting, could do a more longer course that I suspect takes a couple days. You’re saying that for TNS drivers, you could condense it to four hours. If you could do all that in four hours, then why would anybody — or if I were in government — want to send somebody to a four-day course when you’re saying to us you can do all of it in four days? But I hear what you’re saying. You’re saying: “We can’t.”

[10:00 a.m.]

You can offer a modified course with less education that can be done in four hours because you want to try to provide a convenient solution for us, but it doesn’t necessarily do the same thing. Am I getting it right?

H. Randhawa: Correct. Yes. I don’t think that anyone would be able to say that you can take a program that we do over a number of days and that we can just squeeze it down to a couple of hours and say: “Hey, it’s all good.” There are things that you lose in that process.

However, this course that we are developing, as I said in my presentation, is primarily focused around the ride-hailing industry. The reason for that is because they are not necessarily, as you said, going to have to be able to provide the same types of service in terms of transporting persons with disabilities.

R. Kahlon: Well, we’re deliberating on that. I don’t think that’s a pass that we want to give to any company. I think one of my colleagues has raised that we do have one of the best services in, probably, North America, and it needs to be a lot better. I don’t think we’re at the point where…. Well, we’ll have conversations on it, but I don’t think there’s a free pass for anyone.

Although I appreciate that you’re trying to provide a solution here, a shortened solution because you think there’s a potential challenge ahead, I am concerned that we can say that all of a sudden a person driving a TNS vehicle and providing essentially the same service can get away with four hours of on-line training when we think that a person driving more, for a longer time, can’t.

Anyway, I appreciate that you’re trying to solve a potential problem with this. I appreciate that.

I have two questions. I don’t want to monopolize all the time. The question is: if this takes four hours, how long does the TaxiHost program take, approximately, hours-wise? And that’s both in person and on line. Second, what kind of percentage of people actually, say, fail? If you have 16,000 people that have passed successfully — or 4,000, 8,000 — how many people weren’t able to do a basic course like that, that you were not able to pass?

H. Randhawa: Those are great questions. In terms of the existing TaxiHost program and the way that it was established, the courses themselves…. “Taxi Industry and Driver Safety” is a two-day course. “Service Excellence and Accessibility in Transportation” is also a two-day course. The last course, “Collision Avoidance Driving,” is a full-day course. These are intensive, full-day courses that drivers take. It’s a total of five days. It’s 30 hours.

When we look at training programs throughout every major city in Canada, this was the standard that was established. And things are changing. That’s loud and clear. But in terms of the delivery model and how things are set up and the number of hours, that’s what it is — 30 hours in total.

R. Kahlon: How many people don’t meet the test, so to speak? It can be a rough number, obviously, if you don’t have the exact number.

H. Randhawa: We don’t set people up to fail. One of the things that we do and that I mentioned in my presentation is we do that initial assessment. That initial assessment that we do verifies that they have English proficiency and that they have at least a basic knowledge of Metro Vancouver so that they didn’t just move here from Edmonton yesterday and now want to drive a taxi and can do that and can go through the course. They will get stuck. They will have challenges within the particular courses that they are going to be taking because they have to achieve a 75 percent to pass.

The assessment itself tends to weed out people that need to spend a little bit more time to brush up their skills, whether it’s on the local geography and getting to know our local communities or whether it’s in terms of their language skills, which may prevent them from being able to pass the course.

The majority of individuals that take this course are able to get through this program without a problem. Sometimes they need remedial help, and sometimes they need to, maybe, retake an exam in order to be able to get through the course. But we take steps to ensure that every candidate is successful.

[10:05 a.m.]

I would say that our failure rate, even though I don’t have actual numbers for you, is probably…. About 10 to 15 percent of individuals don’t actually make it through. Those that make it through the assessment process mostly make it through this program.

R. Kahlon: I’ve had many people come to my office — they probably were part of that 10 to 15 percent — and say: “I didn’t pass the test.” It’s hard for us, as MLAs, because we just say….

That being said, with what you’re proposing, that 10 or 15 percent who couldn’t pass the basic TaxiHost will now go on line, maybe even sit with a friend and get passed and be on our roads. That’s my concern with the two-tier system. I’ll leave that there.

R. Singh: Thank you so much for your presentation. I have a question. I don’t know whether you will have the answer or not.

You are so focused — your course is so focused — on the safety of the drivers and the public also. You say that the people who are taking the TaxiHost program…. We all know they have to take a class 4 licence. With the ride-hailing coming in, do you think, with your experience, that they should have the same standards — like, class 4?

H. Randhawa: You’re asking me for my opinion, so I’ll share it as an opinion.

Just to clarify one point. When applicants come through the program, they can actually enter with a class 5 licence. They can go through, and they can work on their class 4 at the same time. There’s no time barrier for them. They’re able to kind of get through the process in an expedited way.

R. Singh: You’re talking about the TaxiHost program?

H. Randhawa: I’m talking about the TaxiHost program, yes.

In terms of setting the bar at a class 4 and what it means. You know, in your conversations with Sergeant Rice, just preceding us…. We were talking about the class 4 and the differences in the standards. Actually, maybe I can provide a little bit of clarity to MLA Sturdy there.

I did my class 4 quite a few years ago. I had a class 5, and then I upgraded to a class 4. When I did my class 5, the on-line portion or the theoretical testing was pretty much the same — very similar. But when you do the on-road skills…. Basically, the rules of the road are the same. That part doesn’t change. What changes is the bar.

When I did my class 5, I could get up to 40 demerits. The threshold, the bar, was set a little bit higher. I could make more errors. When I went to get my class 4, the bar was set at 25. If you got higher than 25 demerits, you didn’t pass the test. You may need to clarify with ICBC as to whether that still exists, but that may be where there may be some clarity for you on that point.

J. Johal: I just have a couple of quick questions. Have you looked at any other regions in regards to TNCs and programs that they have to take and what you’re sort of implementing here? Have you looked around North America and Europe?

H. Randhawa: The marketplace is changing so rapidly. Depending on the territory or the area in question, the rules and regulations are changing significantly. It’s hard to keep up. In terms of Canada, what I can share with you is that as far as I know, it’s only Quebec where there has been some form of on-line training that has been established.

From our experience with the taxi industry, one thing that I would like to share with this panel is that…. Please don’t just get focused on one particular operator. You may be thinking about Uber or Lyft, but there may be many, many operators to come that will follow or that may focus on other areas in B.C. because they see an opportunity there, whether that be the Island or further up north. We need to ensure that standards are consistent across the board.

[10:10 a.m.]

It’s great that you may have one particular outfit that may invest and spend some time or create partnerships to be able to develop some level of training. But are they ticking off a box, or is that training actually going to be delivered in a consistent way? It’s a real question for you.

To get back to your answer, we’ve only looked primarily at Canada. As far as we can see, the on-line option that we’re offering you and that we’re talking about is the first that we can see that is really outside of what TNSs are offering. It is a training course that is specifically designed to make sure that client experiences are positive and that the consumers that are actually, at the end of the day, going to be taking the ride get the level of service that they should be getting.

Those are concerns, obviously, to all community partners, to legislators, to ourselves, to everyone that’s going to be getting into these particular vehicles.

J. Johal: You raised some good points there in regards to some sort of uniformity in regards to standards and training, particularly. As I mentioned yesterday, we have a tendency to be very urban-centric in our conversation. There are many smaller communities that do want TNSs who will be very supportive of it but certainly may not have the size of some of the early players, like Uber and Lyft and many others.

Having said that, I just find it interesting that we have a large geographical location all across Canada — TNSs in Calgary. Saskatchewan just announced ride-hailing there in December. I remember the mayor of North Battleford, Saskatchewan was pledging to have it there by New Year’s Eve. So they don’t have any sort of on-line training right now that you know of?

H. Randhawa: No. I think, once again — and this has been echoed over the last few days and the previous time that this panel was together — that B.C. is really in a unique place where we haven’t allowed these operators to just move in and then try to create a structure around that. So we are really afforded a unique opportunity here in terms of being able to start with scratch.

When our program was initially developed in terms of TaxiHost, it came in after the fact. When we look at other cities throughout Canada and the U.S., actually, there’s a lot of interest around having some kind of on-line training being put forward that’s independent, that’s third-party operated because of concerns in terms of safety and incidents that have happened over time. But everyone is playing catch-up.

J. Johal: Do you think the quality of service would be that noticeably different? If we have TNSs here and in Calgary — they don’t have a program; we do have a program — would it be noticeably different in regards to service?

H. Randhawa: My personal feeling is yes, absolutely. The reason I can say that so adamantly is because you are arming drivers with tools, the tools that they need to be able to deal with your not-just-average consumer.

I had quite a frank conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. She’s just going to Las Vegas. She was telling me about how she had a positive experience using TNSs. I said that for the average consumer, being able to use a rating system is fantastic. Being able to know which driver is going to pick you up or drop you off is helpful. But when you have specialized needs or you may not belong to the majority of consumers — where you may be of a different gender or you may be of a different particular ethnicity or you may have a disability or you may be a senior with agility needs — you want to make sure that the drivers that are going to be picking you up know how to be able to deal with those specific groups and those specific clientele.

There’s a lot of apprehension. When I train drivers and we have drivers go through our program, a lot of times they thank us, because they have a lot of stress and a lot of apprehension around: “How do I deal with this particular client? How do I make sure that I’m actually going to be able to give them the service that they want? You’re telling me that this is what I need to do, but how do I do that?”

[10:15 a.m.]

When you just throw them out there, the way that they learn is by making mistakes — making mistakes on customers. When you have a rating scale, that’s great, because you can rate a driver that’s really good and give them a 5. You can also rate someone that’s really bad and give them a 1. Maybe you can root those particular drivers out. But when you get people that are getting ratings of 2 and 3, who’s to say who’s actually getting a positive ride and when they’re not getting a good ride? How are you arming those drivers with tools to actually be able to improve that service? That’s what training really does.

J. Johal: Just one final question. Are you consulting with TNSs in regards to this on-line course?

H. Randhawa: When we started developing this particular course at the stage that we’re currently at, what we’ve done is taken all of the information that we’ve collected over the years from our community partners. We’ve used that to try to identify subject-matter experts that might be able to help us develop these specific segments that we want to be able to include. These are people or individuals that have experience dealing with these specific areas that need to be covered. They are experts in their field, but additionally, they have an educational background.

Once we move past this development phase, the next portion that we’re going to be spending time on is, obviously, working with an advisory group and making sure that the things that we are putting together work. If they need to be tweaked or changed, they’ll be done at that time. So that’s the opportunity for TNSs to be able to participate in that process.

J. Johal: That’s the advisory group.

H. Randhawa: Correct.

J. Johal: That’s when you’re going to ask those folks with the expertise, as well, to talk to you.

H. Randhawa: Yes.

A. Olsen: Thank you for your presentation. I apologize that I missed the first few minutes of it.

H. Randhawa: No problem. You got the package.

A. Olsen: I’ve been flipping through it. Some of the things that you said in your answers, though, have caught my attention with respect to this program. I might have some blind spots here, so bear with me.

One of the things you answered very adamantly — that, yes, people are getting a better experience by drivers that have gone through this program…. I’m assuming that all drivers go through this program.

One of the primary complaints that I have consistently coming to me is the quality of service. People have an experience in another jurisdiction that’s been, I would say, pretty overwhelmingly different than the experience that they’re feeling, particularly, in the Lower Mainland marketplace with the current services that are available.

I’m just wondering what your comment is to that. I’ve had a lot of criticism come my way about the current level of service that people are getting delivered to them.

H. Randhawa: Sure, I can answer that. Actually, could I ask you a question? Mr. Olsen, we’ve never met before, so I’m not familiar with your constituency. Where is your constituency based?

A. Olsen: Well, my constituency is on the Saanich Peninsula.

H. Randhawa: Okay. You’re on the Island, outside of the Lower Mainland.

A. Olsen: I am the critic on this file, so where my constituency is, is not necessarily directly related to the feedback that I’m getting or to the flow of information that I receive.

H. Randhawa: Okay. So just to clarify, the feedback that you’re getting is just overall. It’s not just primarily from here.

A. Olsen: Generally, primarily from the Lower Mainland. On that aspect of it, primarily from the Lower Mainland. But I would say that it comes…. It’s broad.

H. Randhawa: Yeah, I do have some comments in regards to that. When I’ve often heard about various complaints that come in…. There are different types of complaints that tend to come in. Many of them are around frequency or delays, times it takes for the service actually to be provided. How long is it taking for the driver to actually show up? In terms of quality of service, is that driver communicating effectively or being able to actually provide the specific skill set that is required in order to be able to provide that particular service? It’s also a complaint that comes in.

[10:20 a.m.]

That’s an area where, yes, we do our absolute best to make sure that drivers are prepared for that. The current model that we have with TaxiHost…. The reason I asked you about your constituency was because one of the limitations that we have, in terms of the current setup, is that the concentration of taxi and limousine companies is in the Lower Mainland. Our training, like I was saying, is primarily delivered from West Vancouver out to Chilliwack. The quality of service, I would say, is probably significantly better in the Lower Mainland than it may be in other areas, in terms of the drivers being better prepared and knowing what they need to be able to deliver in terms of service.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the client always gets that. We do our best in order to be able to prepare drivers. But once they go through this program, at the current time, there is nothing that forces a driver to have to come back through the program. Once they’ve done it, they’ve done it. Maybe one of the things that you need to consider — this hasn’t been discussed, really — is: should there be a time frame for which a driver needs to retest or go through a program or an on-line course again?

A. Olsen: If I may, I think you started to move into an area…. If you are to juxtapose the two and say that all we need is a TaxiHost program like this, then I think you miss out on the ongoing collection of information about a driver or about an experience. Maybe it’s not even about a driver; maybe it’s about the experience with the vehicle and the driver — that ongoing collection of metrics that TNSs can get. I don’t know that either is a panacea.

H. Randhawa: I agree. I don’t think you should have one in place of the other. I mean, these are all exceptional tools. Technology is something that enhances our ability to be able to provide better service. If you have training, in conjunction with ratings systems and other things that are put in place, that’s going to ultimately improve the experience that every client is going to get. I don’t see one as a replacement for the other.

I think, though, that training standards do need to be put in place to make sure that drivers at least know what the expectations are and what they need to be able to deliver before they even get on the road.

A. Olsen: I guess one of the overwhelming questions that I don’t know we’re going to be able to solve here is…. My experience with drivers that have gone through this has not been one that…. I do come into the city, and I also take services elsewhere.

One final question about aspects of disability training that might’ve been removed. This was brought to my attention — that perhaps some aspects of the disability training were removed from the TaxiHost program. Is that the case? If so, why did that happen? And maybe was that the right decision to make?

H. Randhawa: The way that the program was originally structured, there were different levels to it. It was a level 1 and a level 2. As part of the level 2 portion of the program, there was a particular breakout course called transporting persons with disabilities. This particular segment really focused on loading, unloading and securement skills and all of that. Some of the community partners that we were in communication with didn’t necessarily like all portions of that particular course.

There was also tremendous push from the taxi companies, the limousine industry and other community partners to try to streamline the training that was being delivered. They were saying it’s too long and too costly.

[10:25 a.m.]

If you have a portion that people are saying is not working and that they want us to streamline, that’s the part that got cut. Did it get cut out completely? Absolutely not.

What we did was we went through our training program as it continued to evolve, and we streamlined it. We took out any pieces that might’ve been repeated through level 1 and level 2, and we combined the courses. We streamlined it so that people could go through it a little bit more quickly and it could be a little bit more affordable. But the standard was set the same.

The only pieces that were taken out were around a segment around persons with a visual impairment. There was a small segment where drivers were given the opportunity to actually wear specialized goggles. The goggles would simulate what it would be like to see the world if you had glaucoma or if you had another form of visual impairment. That was not well received, and we were asked by partners to take that out, and we did.

In terms of the loading, securement and unloading portions, we took out the physical part where drivers would actually have to be able to do that, and we created a video format for it so drivers can still see how loading and unloading and securement take place. In terms of curb management and things like that, those are all still covered within the course and classroom as well.

B. Ma (Chair): We are short on time, but we do have two more questions on our list. I’d like to get through them, so if we could be a little bit tighter.

S. Chandra Herbert: What do drivers do who live outside of the Lower Mainland? I understand you’re trying to address an issue of geography, as well, through an on-line course. But if you’re in Terrace or Smithers or Fort Nelson, do you have to fly into Vancouver? How do we deal with the TaxiHost training in those kinds of situations?

H. Randhawa: That’s a great question. Because of the way that the courses are currently structured — and they are face to face at the current time — they are really quite centric around the Lower Mainland. It’s focused around the delivery of the training for the municipalities that are within the Lower Mainland. If you’re outside of that region, it is quite difficult for you to receive training.

In the past, we have looked at opportunities to be able to partner with other institutions in other parts of the province to be able to deliver this curriculum. And if there was a push for that, we’d be happy to do that. It’s difficult and challenging for us to be able to go out there and do that and push for that because the current setup of regulation is really a patchwork system of bylaws. So the training is a requirement within the municipal bylaws.

Unless Terrace goes and says, “Hey, we want this particular training,” and puts it within their bylaws, it’s very difficult for us to roll it out there. Having an on-line course, which is something that we’ve put together, really is an opportunity to be able to fill that gap, because somebody that might be in Prince George or in Prince Rupert or somewhere else, who feels that their community is being underserved right now, can go ahead and have their drivers go through something.

It might not be hands-on. It might not be to the level that we’re able to achieve here, but we may be able to partner with an educational facility up there to be able to provide that hands-on component.

S. Chandra Herbert: Okay. You’ve answered my question. Thank you.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Overall, I’d say I think that the introduction of the TaxiHost and TaxiHost Pro programs were a big improvement, and I think, overall, it does provide a good service.

[10:30 a.m.]

We’re talking about something different here. We’re talking about moving with the world in terms of how citizens are choosing to receive a service — choosing to receive a service. This isn’t about government, I don’t think, choosing, necessarily, to tell citizens how they should choose to receive a service.

Two quick questions. I think when it relates to the training of drivers around transporting people with disabilities, specifically wheelchairs in wheelchair-accessible vehicles, the securing of the mobility device is pretty freaking crucial.

H. Randhawa: Yes, it is.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): That piece, I think, is really important, but it’s only important to those people who have a specially modified van and are going to transport people in a mobility device. The bigger piece that is covered around accessibility and inclusion and the equity and all these sorts of pieces in TaxiHost — about human rights pieces, how to interact with other people — is really important.

The key message and the key takeaway is be polite and ask. Ask the individual what they need, don’t assume, because every individual with a disability is going to need something different or prefer something different in terms of the receipt of service. So I’m assuming that that is probably the message that is most loud and clear in the training, and if it’s not, I would suggest maybe it’s time to revisit it.

My question is: is the section on disability and interacting with people and learning about disability covered in the training? Is it provided by people with disabilities? Or is it provided just sort of by context, by an instructor who doesn’t have a disability?

H. Randhawa: I’ll try to answer your question as clearly as I can. It is twofold in the sense that they are professional instructors, and they do have disabilities, but they are not visible disabilities.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Okay. Then I would suggest that anything you’re going to provide on line would be equally as valuable, as it relates to actually learning about interaction. Everything you’re providing is good information, but you’re providing information in a course. People say: “Yeah, I’ve learned it.” Whether or not they choose to put that into practice is entirely up to the individual.

Individuals are much likely better served, or equally well served, by a rating system that can tell somebody: “Don’t use this person. They’re not pleasant. They’re not helpful.” They’re not whatever. The fact that we don’t have that today is actually probably more of a challenge than the fact that some people will take training and some people won’t. Some people won’t need that training to provide good service, and some people will get the training and still not provide good service. Isn’t that true?

H. Randhawa: Yes, but I could say the same thing about driving and drivers’ licences.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Yep, absolutely.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. Thank you so much to you both for spending the time to present to us today and to our answer questions. We really appreciate it.

Our next presenter will be joining us via teleconference — Alejandro Henao.

Alejandro, my name is Bowinn Ma. I’m the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. We have nine members on the committee, and they’re all here with me, but we can hear you over the teleconference. Can you remind us where you’re calling in from today?

A. Henao: I actually live on Bainbridge Island in Washington, United States.

B. Ma (Chair): Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us. You will have 25 minutes to present uninterrupted, and that will be followed by 20 minutes of questions. If you leave any time available during your presentation, then we’ll just roll that into questions. Did you have any questions for us before you begin?

[10:35 a.m.]

A. Henao: I don’t have any questions.

B. Ma (Chair): Wonderful. We really appreciate you taking the time to present to us today on the four questions that we have. When you’re ready, please proceed.

ALEJANDRO HENAO

A. Henao: I apologize for not being there in person. I was planning to be there since it’s not too far of a trip, but I learned recently that the ferry was not operating today. I didn’t want to be there for a long time.

Anyway, I think the committee reached out from maybe seeing my association of work that I did while I was in grad school at the University of Colorado for my PhD. I currently work with NREL. It’s the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, but today I’m not representing any institutions. What I’m going to be presenting is just based on the research I have done, and these are my own opinions about these topics.

If we go to slide 2, you can see a list of my background and expertise on the topic, both starting probably in 2014, trying to understand the impacts of services such as Uber and Lyft in transportation while doing my PhD in civil engineering. I actually have a couple of publications, starting with my dissertation and a few other peer review journals. If you guys want to have access to those publications and so on, there’s free access either through the links that I’ve provided or on my website or you can email me, and I’ll be happy to provide a copy of those papers.

Going to slide 3 on the areas of regulations that the committee…. On the four areas that you were asking for certain things to do, my focus will be on: how shall regulations balance the supply of service with consumer demand, including the application of the Passenger Transportation Board’s current public convenience and necessity regime as it pertains to transportation network services?

I have touched on some of the other three topics. I’ve done work around it, but just for time and just the interest of the committee, the presentation is based around that specific topic.

If we go on to slide 4, every time I do a presentation or talk about these topics, it’s very important to clear the air around taxonomy and terminology that we’re talking about. I listed here several different names that we have done and used for these services. This varies globally, depending on where you’re talking and also for legal terms and so on. We are also starting to work on some definitions and terminology around this, but just to be clear, what we’re talking about here is in relation to the emerging modes, most notably for the companies Uber and Lyft, but there are many more in this space that provide that type of service.

In academia, we tend to use the term “ride-sourcing,” but I know the committee has defined it as transportation network services. With some legislation in California, it’s transportation network companies. Anyways, I think it’s important just to understand what we’re talking about here.

On slide 5, I’m just showing here the growth of Uber and Lyft around the globe, and in the U.S. for Lyft, based on when they provided a billion ride mark. It’s just trying to put it into perspective that these services are continuing to grow, both in the U.S. and globally. I think it’s important to pay attention to them and see what they are doing for cities.

Again, now on slide 6, it’s about the question of: how should regulation balance the supply of services with consumer demand?

[10:40 a.m.]

Then on slide 7, I started to dig into this topic. I think that what the regulation’s perspective is trying to do is balance priorities. In the world of transportation, and specifically for transportation network services, you’re impacting several different actors here. One is from the passenger side. How does a new service or a new transportation mode allow people to get around better? Or is it serving certain needs? Is it making it more convenient in terms of availability and costs and so on?

Now, you can think of the providers or the private companies themselves or the non-profits — whatever the service is. Is the regulation allowed to support the business to succeed and to continue to grow?

Then you have the drivers that are usually part of the provider service. One of the topics that really came to mind is: is it ensuring a decent income for so many drivers that are out there, even meeting minimum wage? Some of the research is kind of up in the air about even meeting minimum wage in certain areas.

In the bigger picture, how are these, overall, impacting the cities and the public good? Is it supporting outcomes that, let’s say, minimize negative impacts and provide positive outcomes? In terms of congestion, is it increasing or decreasing congestion, emissions, energy use, safety and equity?

Looking at slide 8, when you talk about: what is the idea of supply when you’re balancing several of these priorities…? If you tend to do an oversupply, you’re going to affect some things, and then you’re going to favour others. Same thing happens with the undersupply. Both in some scenarios are, let’s say, no good. How do you balance all of that? That’s kind of like the question that is trying to get answered or trying to help with moving into the regulation space.

It’s like 9 kind of talks about if we oversupplied the market with so many vehicles or drivers going around, you might create higher congestion with those drivers cruising around in between rides. It could create lower vehicle occupancy because then there are so many cars out there that people are using this service as if they were the only ones taking this service. There might be more drivers, but because you have to spread the demand among more supply, then they’re going to end up making less income.

I’m actually originally from Cali, Colombia, in South America. This is an issue there because there is so much oversupply. There are so many taxis going around, and then there are so many drivers that sometimes they don’t make the minimum-wage requirement.

Now, in the undersupply scenario — so if you don’t have enough numbers of vehicles or drivers for the demand — you’re still going to have some type of congestion because the drivers have to go and pick up the passengers. If you don’t have enough, then that creates some type of deadheading. I will explain what that means in a second.

These might increase vehicle occupancy rates because you have less…. People might be more likely to pool and use one vehicle for a ride where people are going to go to or from the same place. Again, there are less drivers, so there might be higher average driver incomes. So, again, it’s trying to balance the oversupply and undersupply.

One of the things that I do a lot of research about is — jumping into slide 10 — congestion.

Slide 11 is just showing a picture of New York. When you talk about congestion, what happens is that you’re demanding the use of a constricted space over time. How can you try to solve congestion or more efficiently use the space in regards to moving people and moving goods instead of just thinking about moving vehicles? There are other modes that might help with that.

[10:45 a.m.]

In this picture, there are a lot of taxis, and there might be some of these that are Uber and Lyft drivers. We don’t even know if they’re carrying a passenger or not, while the bus or other modes are not using…. Or the bus might be carrying a lot of people on it and use that space more efficiently. Or the pedestrian or the biker who doesn’t use as much space….

Jumping to slide 12, what it shows is…. This is a recent picture that was taken in Washington, D.C., just to show a lot of taxis, Ubers and Lyfts waiting for the next ride at the airport. There’s a lot of these that….

I want to jump into the next topic, which is, on slide 13, what I call, and the research in engineering calls, deadheading. So this is empty kilometres.

Slide 14, going more deeply into what it is…. The term “deadheading” is mostly used for the taxi and trucking industry — that’s kind of the history of it — and refers to the distance travelled without passengers or freight. So think about those taxis or those Ubers or those Lyfts going around without passengers. That’s what we call deadheading or empty kilometres.

In slide 16…. I usually show an example of a typical deadheading trip, which made the news — a famous NFL football player who misses a plane to go for a game in Chicago. He ends up actually getting into an Uber. The Uber driver drove him from Buffalo to Chicago. You can see on slide 16 all the distance. It was about 540 miles going from Buffalo to Chicago, and the news went all over about the conversations that they had and so on.

My first thought was: what was that driver doing after he dropped off the NFL player in Chicago? He has to go all the way back to Buffalo. I actually don’t know, but I’m guessing that he drove all the way back by himself. So that’s about 869 kilometres that we might call deadheading, because he didn’t move any passenger for all that distance.

On slide 17, this is going deeper into the actual service. You have a lot of drivers living in the outskirts of the city. Sometimes they have to commute into the city, so there is the first component of the whole deadheading. And then once they turn that app on, whatever the location that they feel like starting the day to work on, then they go cruise around for a ride. Then they get the request, and then from the request they have to go and pick up the passenger. And from all of these sections of the driving, only the green one is the one that you are moving a passenger. Everything else is called deadheading because you have empty kilometres during that travel.

In some of the papers that I’ve published, and looking at more of the scarce data that we have, we have come up with rates of 0.7 to 1 kilometre in deadheading for every 1 kilometre that you are moving a passenger. So that’s about 41 to 49 percent of the total driving kilometres that there are.

Jumping to slide 18, I’ve tried to look at this in more detail to think about how you optimize the fleet, which is the supply, given a demand. With Uber and Lyft or, in general, the transportation network services, the demand for these services varies a lot. It’s very dynamic. So it’s not about, let’s say, putting a cap or doing this but optimizing the fleet, given a demand per hour or whatever range of hours you want to optimize that for.

Looking at this in more detail, we’re starting to look at every hour — how many passenger requests there were and how many vehicles were on the road — to see if that influences the amount of deadheading or the amount that circulating around and cruising around and overheading, so that once you get the request to pick up the passenger, it happens.

[10:50 a.m.]

There is a relationship that…. Theoretically, I have been exploring this for years, saying that it follows a polynomial function. The problem with this is that we don’t have much data to prove this.

There was a company called RideAustin. It’s a non-profit that came into service in Austin, Texas, in the United States. They are a non-profit, so they were able to share some of the data. We have been doing some analysis with that data, which was about 1.5 million rides — trying to look at the optimum of the fleet, because having too much might create deadheading by the drivers cruising around. Then on the lower end, you still have to pick up those passengers. That’s why I think we find an optimum based on deadheading. But you can optimize the fleet based on so many other different things.

Jumping to slide 19, why is deadheading important? It’s because we talk a lot about single-occupancy vehicles, the drivers. That’s what, a lot of the time, the congestion is created by, people just driving around by themselves. But what happens with these services is that a lot of the time, you might create even bigger congestion if there are some rates of deadheading, and then they are only carrying one passenger and so on.

For part of my dissertation, I was able to sign up and drive for Uber and Lyft. I was able to collect data specifically on rides that happened in the Denver region. Again, this is based on specific areas because we don’t have the data that we have been hoping to get to really analyze this more in different regions.

What I wanted to show here is that even for the region in Denver, when you take into account the miles or the kilometres that you go without any passengers or with one passenger, or even two, three or four, then you average that based on the number of kilometres or miles, then you’re going to average about 0.78 passengers or vehicle occupancy — how many passengers are in the car. Again, this is just for a specific region. But overall, we feel pretty safe to say that it’s about 0.8 to 0.9 that usually happens with the deadheading occurring.

If you go to slide 20, what I tried to envision or look at is, thinking about a transportation service or a system provided to a city, when you think about how many people you can move per hour per lane via various modes of transportation, if you take into account the space, the area of use, the vehicle occupancy and even the different speeds and so on, you end up moving even less people with these services than you will with cars, unless you start increasing the carpooling, if you start moving more people per ride — when you’re talking about two, three or four passengers per ride — and unless you minimize the deadheading, so having the least possible amount of drivers going around without passengers.

Let me go to slide 21. This is where I kind of wrap it up with the last few slides.

Thinking about regulations, slide 22 talks about what regulations should do. You should think about regulations to support positive outcomes. We want to increase equity and accessibility. We want to encourage sustainable modes. We want to increase vehicle occupancy, those pooling modes. We want to increase the use of vehicles that are high fuel-efficiency and electric vehicles so that we can reduce the energy use. We want to increase safety. Positive outcomes that can come with new modes and regulations.

You also want to discourage those negative outcomes. Is this going to be a more inequitable service? Is this going to continue that car dependency and just provide a ride for the solo riders? Is this going to minimize deadheading or increase deadheading, in this case? Is this going to discourage the low fuel-efficiency vehicles?

Those are the kinds of things that, in terms of regulations, I feel you should do.

[10:55 a.m.]

Jumping to slide 23, thinking about what is needed. What is needed to make better decisions in terms of regulations? And how can research and all the different actors and different things that go into place…? The first thing, without a doubt, is the data. You really need that data to be able to make the decisions. That is an issue that every single city where these companies operate is having a problem with.

The second thing is with experimentation. Once you have the data, once you start setting out those metrics and those target goals, then you have the experimentation to see what can work. You provide some innovative ideas where technology will help, because that is the direction we’re moving. And then thinking about being bold about what kinds of decisions we can make.

Jumping to slide 24, talking more about the data. Again, I started studying this in 2014. I started as just a regular passenger, but I have always had this interest in studying taxis and how these work and so on. But even back in the day, we started seeing that Lyft and Uber wouldn’t release any data to understand some of these issues. That was part of the reason I decided to become an Uber and Lyft driver for my PhD. I developed ethnographic research to collect that data and also survey passengers.

The data that I’m showing here…. There’s nothing to dig into, the graphics. These are just part of some of the papers that I have published by myself or with my colleagues. Again, this is what really will drive how you can measure change and how we can move in the right direction. None of the data or the studies I did here came from the main providers.

Slide 25 talks about the strategy. Strategy 1 is performance standards. Number 2 is fees with incentives with a net. For both of them, again, you need data.

Jumping to slide 26, about the strategy on performance standards. Again, first is data, the requirement to operate. The second is: determine how many, of all trips that you are moving in the region, you want to provide by these services. You should keep in mind there are spatial and temporal differences. One thing is to provide service in the core of the city. Another thing is to provide services in the outskirts of the city. One thing is to provide services from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. in the peak hours or in the afternoon peak. Another thing is to provide those services overnight.

I think, again, having that spatial-temporal is important. Then you can set up target measurements for performance standards. For example, you can set up a target of 1.5 to two passengers per vehicle when you average all the kilometres that these services are providing, including the deadheading or the zero. Then you charge the fee per kilometre based on those that are under those standards and even incentivize or subsidize those that are above the target. This is just an example of how some of the regulations can be provided to really meet those targets and move along in the right direction. The same can happen with equity and some of the other modes.

Strategy 2 on slide 27 is data — the requirement to operate. Then you charge a fee per kilometre driven with and without passengers — for example, 15 cents per kilometre. Then you discount or incentivize the initial pay based on number of passengers. For example, you can get five cents per kilometre for every passenger or for areas with lower income or accessibility issues or for vehicles that are high fuel-efficiency or EVs. Then you can incentivize a move in the right direction that you want to move in.

Then my last slide here, slide 28, is on evaluation. You want to experiment for a period of time long enough — let’s say six months — to overcome those barriers that might come from the providers, the public, the drivers and everyone else and provide the right evaluation to understand what works and what doesn’t work. Then you let data and metrics drive that evaluation, supported by researchers. Then you adjust as necessary.

[11:00 a.m.]

That’s all I have to say for today. I think we’re at the 25-minute mark.

B. Ma (Chair): You’ve still got 12 seconds, if there’s….

Thank you so much. Your timing is fantastic. We’ll now open it up for questions.

R. Singh: Thank you so much for your presentation. We heard yesterday…. I can say for myself that I heard for the first time about the Austin co-op that was operating there. I didn’t know about it before. You also mention it in your report.

Can you just give a little bit more information? When you say it was optimum, why do you say that? How was that operating?

A. Henao: What is out there is limited data. But when we talk about optimum…. I mean, I can go deeper into the engineering and how we calculate this. But in an economics term, you’d think about: once the change of the X is the same as the change of Y, then that’s when you find the optimum of saying that, at this point, you want to have the right amount of supply, given the demand, to minimize the deadheading.

Let’s say for this optimum study, what we were trying to do is: what is the right number of supply — so vehicles operating — given a demand that varies along the day? One thing is to have X percentage of drivers for X amount of passenger requests, aiming so that ratio is the minimum that you will experience in deadheading.

I don’t like to make general assumptions here. But for that specific case, we were talking about…. I’m trying to go back to the slide. You aim for, let’s say, around 25 to 30 percent of the demand that you have the vehicles, which will minimize the deadheading but is still meeting the passenger requests. It’s because if you don’t have enough either, passengers are going to have to wait longer times.

I’m just guessing here, but these companies might be optimizing based on waiting times for passengers. So let’s say they want the passengers to only be waiting two or three minutes. In order to do that, they are going to saturate the market with vehicles to meet that. But then that, again, creates some issues of deadheading. So how do you optimize that so you are balancing the requests for the passengers? Maybe, in this scenario, the passengers are going to have to wait four or six minutes, but the outcome, the positive, is the deadheading is going to get minimized.

That’s where I’m talking about optimization problem.

R. Kahlon: Thank you so much for this presentation. It’s helpful.

I had a question around your fees with incentives. You’ve got a cost associated with how many passengers, how many kilometres you’ve travelled. But there’s also a cost for taking up parking spots in, say, a downtown core. Have you considered that? Have you looked at other examples, where people just occupy all the parking spots in a town, waiting for their trip to be picked up? Obviously, there’s a cost associated with that.

A. Henao: That’s a great question. I think it’s tied to: how do you want to manage the curb space? One of the things that I would like to explore — again, the issue is the data — is different drivers’ strategies. Because I drove for Uber and Lyft and because I’ve talked to a lot of the drivers and am trying to do work around this, I hypothesize that there are three different drivers’ strategies.

One is the typical taxi drivers — that once you drop somebody off, you kind of continue to circle around for a next ride.

[11:05 a.m.]

There is the second strategy, which is thinking about the specific areas that you want to go after you drop somebody off, if you don’t get a request right away. Let’s say you give somebody a ride that goes out to the suburbs. Then you know the probability of getting a ride there is lower, so you start heading back towards the core.

The third one is more on trying to minimize the deadheading or the circling around, which is trying to find a parking spot as soon as possible. I do think that there should be some area of regulation around parking and the use of the curb space. I mean, I’ve done some work. You guys are probably familiar with Donald Shoup’s book about the high cost of free parking. I can’t worry about the high cost of free curb space and what it will do with these services or people wanting to get access to the curb.

I do believe that it should be tied into some of these. That’s a good question. That’s something that could be incentivized or put on top of…. Charge a fee per kilometre driven but also charge a fee per space used. Maybe it’s lower. That way, you don’t create bigger congestion.

Again, it depends on what you as a city or the parliament or B.C. cares about. So it’s trying to incentivize those things in a way that you don’t actually create a worse problem.

R. Kahlon: Great. Thank you for that. Just a follow-up question. You’ve highlighted data, and you’ve highlighted some of the challenges of getting access to data. Are you aware of jurisdictions that have gotten it right, on requiring TNS companies and taxi companies to provide data? And what data do you think is crucial that we ensure that we get access to?

A. Henao: In this, I feel like airports have been very progressive and very successful in trying to deal with these services. Just to give you an example, some of the airports in the U.S. charge a fee for pick-up or drop-off at the airport. That way, because they have to pay that specific fee per passenger, we were actually able to get data on how many people are getting to and from the airport via this type of service.

Again, this is kind of more related to the economics. So once you start saying, “We’re going to let you operate, but you have to pay that fee,” then they pay the fee, and that’s how you get the data. I think there’s some legislation starting to work around this in California. There is a procedure called clean miles. It’s thinking about what specific data is required.

In some of the things where I talk about how technology can help…. If you are able to, say, for every mile or every kilometre that the companies do, tie that to the vehicle occupancy — to know how many passengers are there per kilometre driven — that will be enough to say: “Let’s set up all these metrics.”

They worry a lot about privacy issues and some of the things that they might say, but there are ways, also, around that. If you say that every month or every six months you have to let us know how many kilometres were with zero passengers, how many kilometres were with one passenger, and how many kilometres were with two passenger and so on…. Even that type of specific very general data that doesn’t compromise anything else will help you determine whether or not this is helping with the goals of the city.

Then again, you set up the targets, you set up the metrics, and they should be on board to try to help these. Because also, at the same time, the higher that vehicle occupancy is, the more money they make. So trying to work around some of those incentives that, by giving the data and showing that, then they will do that….

The other thing is, if you provide, let’s say, at the get-go, you’re going to pay for every kilometre that you are going to…. You pay X amount, so 15 cents or whatever you determine it is, for every kilometre that you’re operating. That’s the start of it, then every time they have an incentive, they’re going to show that data.

[11:10 a.m.]

It’s in their own interest to give you that data to show you that they’re meeting certain targets. They don’t want to pay as much, because they’re either having a higher vehicle occupancy or the vehicles the drivers are using are more fuel-efficient or they are operating in areas with lower income or they are giving rides to people with disabilities or they are keeping a safety track record for the drivers not having any crashes.

At the beginning, they make you do something. But then you incentivize to: show me more data that actually you are helping in moving in the right direction.

B. Ma (Chair): Any other questions from committee members? I have a few questions myself.

I found your page 27, your fees-with-incentives strategy, to be very interesting. It’s similar to another strategy that our local public transportation authority, called TransLink, had recommended to us as well. They had recommended a per-trip fee, but that’s because they were after different goals, as you say. They had suggested a per-trip fee that fluctuated depending on the time of day — so in accordance with the amount of congestion in certain areas, effectively — to try to move optional trips outside of peak congestion periods. Congestion is quite a significant issue for us in the Metro Vancouver.

Based on your strategy…. Your strategy appears to be more to do with reducing vehicle kilometres driven per passenger movement, which is also a very important incentive from an environmental perspective and a resource perspective — and congestion as well, of course. Do you see those two types of charges being able to work together — like, almost overlapped, or are they in conflict with each other? How do you feel about that?

A. Henao: I definitely see overlaps. Again, I put examples here of what amount that is. But let’s say if you decide to start X amount of 15 per kilometre, but because this is from one in the morning to five in the morning where there is no public transportation in service or it’s not as good coverage, then you can have an incentive there for ten cents or even 15 cents for operating during those times. That’s when you go from the 15 to the zero — during those times.

The per-trip fee. I mean, that’s what airports are doing. One thing that I always encourage to think about is on the fees, but based on vehicle occupancy. Again, because you might put in some of these…. If you’re not doing them in the right way, you might be discouraging the car-pooling trips, or you might discourage using this service with somebody else and driving yourself. Or even if you can provide or let them show you that a lot of the trips aren’t being made with transit….

I know Uber and Lyft had a conversation recently of, let’s say, even in the platform, if there is a request for trips that could happen in public transportation, you can actually book it that way too. So there could be an incentive in there for: “If you show us that some of the trips were actually in that you have in transit, then we will give you an additional incentive.”

I have conversations, let’s say, with the city of Boulder, which is a smaller university campus city. They say: “We’re not interested in collecting money. We’re interested more in moving people more efficiently.” So in these kinds of scenarios, they don’t care about making [inaudible recording]. Some of the cities actually wanted a net zero. They don’t want to make any money or additional funds for this, just as long as you’re incentivizing those that are providing rides in lower incomes or rides during nighttime or rides that are in more fuel-efficient vehicles or rides that have three or four people in the vehicle.

[11:15 a.m.]

The airports have started implementing that fee just because they see the revenues coming down. That might hap­pen with parking. That might happen with the city as well. This is trying to manage them.

And the additional funds? Use them for supporting public transportation infrastructure or biking or sidewalks or bike lanes — things that the city or B.C. might care about and that you want to incentivize.

B. Ma (Chair): Do you believe that a per-kilometre charge can be used in conjunction with a per-trip fee in order to optimize your outcomes? Or do you believe that if we were to go with fees, it needs to stick with one or the other?

A. Henao: The reason I usually I ask for the per kilometre is because of the data that will allow us to do more work around this or do more research about it. I think the per-trip fee might be okay. But then again, you will have to think about…. Okay. You charge this per-trip fee. So maybe it will be structurally different, depending on the vehicle occupancy or some of the other things.

I think they’re complementary. It’s just working on the details that you will have to work around, and the incentives.

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

Are there any last questions?

Seeing none here, we are going to let you go. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this presentation for us and to actually call in and do this in real time. We really appreciate it.

A. Henao: Thank you for the invitation. Feel free to reach out if you have more questions.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. Wonderful.

Let’s call another four-minute recess. We’ll reconvene just shortly after 11:20 so that we can get our next presenter on the phone.

The committee recessed from 11:17 a.m. to 11:25 a.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): I believe we have Steven Hill with us by teleconference.

This is Bowinn Ma speaking. I’m the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. We have here around the table nine members of the committee, all elected Members of the Legislative Assembly. We also have a live studio audience with us as well. You’re here over teleconference, of course.

Steven, we will be providing you with 25 minutes to do your presentation uninterrupted, and that will be followed by 20 minutes of questions. If you end your presentation early, we’ll just roll the extra time into questions. Did you have any questions for us before we begin?

S. Hill: No, I don’t think so.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. I just want to thank you again for joining us once more. I know that you had presented to us in the previous rendition of this committee as well. So thank you so much. You may go ahead and proceed.

STEVEN HILL

S. Hill: My name is Steven Hill. I’m a journalist based in Silicon Valley in San Francisco and have been writing about issues related to the digital economy, including ride-renting, as I call it, or ride-sharing, ride-hailing. There are a lot of different names.

I’ve followed these companies from their beginnings and followed their rather interesting trajectory as they have sort of morphed their business model trying to find a business model that provides a service to consumers that is affordable but also allows them to make a profit. At the end of the day, that’s what these companies are seeking to do.

In some ways, as you think about regulating and how to regulate these companies…. I think it’s rather simple, with some complexities that I’ll get into. It’s simple because Uber and Lyft are really just another type of taxi. That’s really all it is.

I think a lot of cities have made the mistake of overcomplicating this and making it seem like this is somehow new and different, that this is some kind of new technology and that we have to be more careful about technology. Certainly, there’s technology involved, but in fact, the service they’re providing is the exact same as taxis.

By keeping focused on that, it will help to clarify, perhaps, a lot of the issues that you’re trying to deal with. At the end of the day, the consumer just wants a safe ride from point A to point B at an affordable price.

The experience in city after city, including in San Francisco, of getting this kind of service from Uber and Lyft has been extremely mixed. There are significant downsides to the business model that Uber and Lyft use and that allows these companies to operate, especially if you don’t put the right rules and regulations around them to make sure that your transportation system will work the way you want it to work, instead of the way Uber and Lyft want it to work.

Here’s a brief outline of the problems that you can expect to encounter once you open the doors to these companies.

Environmental issues. People love their convenience. It’s understandable why. You tap the app; the car shows up. It sounds great on paper, but in fact, it’s an enormous price for this convenience.

In city after city, especially major cities where there is a lot of this type of activity, the reason why the cost shows up is really simple. It’s because these companies flood the streets with cars. You can expect that there’s going to be huge increase in congestion in your cities, particularly bigger cities like Vancouver.

[11:30 a.m.]

I’ll give you an example. In San Francisco, at any one time, there are about 1,800 taxicabs on the street — regular, traditional taxicabs. At the same time, there are over 9,000 ride-renting vehicles. There are over 45,000 of those vehicles that have registered in San Francisco.

You can see this pattern throughout the other cities. In New York City, London, all the different cities where this has happened, you see that generally speaking, the number of ride-renting vehicles on your streets will be about four to five times the number of traditional taxis. Cities are already fairly congested. When you suddenly introduce that number of vehicles that are on the streets all the time, and they are roaming the streets looking for passengers, you can expect that there’s going to be an increase in congestion. There’s just no question about it. And congestion hurts everybody.

Certainly, by offering ride-renting, you’ve increased the convenience for those that use ride-renting, but studies have been shown about how many people in a city are using this sort of service. It’s anywhere from, depending on the city, 18 to about 25 percent of people who are using it. For those people, you’ve offered another transportation option that most of them like quite a lot, but you’ve made it way more congested for everyone else, including for public transportation that is not operating underground. So that’s something that you really should consider.

Now, because you’ve flooded the streets with this type of vehicle, what you also are going to be creating are certain labour issues. With so many drivers on the road all seeking to be taxicabs of one type or another, there’s not going to be enough work for everyone. So the wages for the average ride-renting driver, after you subtract their considerable expenses, have been shown, in many studies at this point, to be less than the minimum wage in many U.S. cities.

The expenses for drivers who are doing ride-renting are considerable, for insurance and wear and tear on their car. When you ask a lot of these drivers, “How much are you making?” a lot of them don’t even figure out that…. You know, if you bought a new car, it’s going to last you, normally, at least ten years. Well, if you’re using it for ride-renting, it might last you three or four years. They aren’t experienced in amortizing the expenses of that wear and tear on their car to really know how much they’re making. A lot of them initially think they’re doing well, making decent money, but in fact, they’re not. This is a poorly paid job.

In the meantime, you’re going to be undermining the economic bargaining power of existing taxi drivers because they’re going to have to be competing on the same terrain as these thousands of new ride-renting drivers that you’re going to have on the road. This can lead to rather dire consequences. I don’t say this in a way to make it sound hyperbolic, but it’s real. In New York City in 2018, there were eight taxi and livery drivers who committed suicide because of the economic ruin that ride-renting brought to their lives.

I’m not completely certain how it works in Vancouver and other cities in British Columbia, but in the U.S. system, you have to buy the medallion or the plate, as it’s called. That can be quite expensive, so you have lots of drivers who have paid — in New York City, for example — over $1 million to have this medallion so that they can drive as a taxi. Suddenly, the value of that medallion, after the introduction of ride-renting, plummeted to less than $200,000.

These drivers are basically working-class people. A lot of them are immigrants, minorities, who have invested their life savings into this kind of thing, into the medallion, and suddenly, they find that they have lost pretty much everything. This has led to a lot of economic stress, including suicide for eight of these drivers. It’s a real phenomenon. You have to really think about it, I believe.

The other thing that will happen — it’s happened in city after city in the United States — is that you’re undermining public transportation. In city after city, ridership is down, and the reason why is because Uber and Lyft subsidize their rides. These are global companies with billions of dollars in venture capital, and they use that venture capital so that they can lower the cost of their rides artificially and engage in predatory pricing. The price for an Uber or Lyft has been estimated to be about 50 percent of the actual cost.

[11:35 a.m.]

Basically, the competition, whether it’s the existing traditional taxi companies or even public transportation, have to compete with these venture capital–backed subsidies that are artificially lowering the prices in order to wipe out the local competition. That’s the goal of it. That local competition includes mass transportation, public transportation.

I recently asked someone I know here in San Francisco…. He was waiting for his Lyft to come. I said to him: “Why are you taking that rather than public transportation?” He said: “Well, if I were to take the bus, it’s going to cost me about $3 U.S., and the cost of the Lyft is going to be only about $5. You know, it’s a little bit more expensive, but the convenience is way better. So yeah, that’s what I take.”

I asked him: “What if the cost to you to take Lyft was actually double that, $10, which is actually the cost of that ride?” He said: “Well, yeah, then I probably would do it a lot less.” That’s the economic incentive that you will be introducing into your cities when you bring ride-renting into it.

Again, these are big, global companies. They have billions of dollars in venture capital funding. They are using that funding to subsidize rides. And those rides undercut the local transportation that can’t afford to subsidize it any more than they already are, in the case of public transportation.

In San Francisco, one of the recent…. I’m not some big advocate of taxis versus ride-renting, but I think you do have to be concerned about…. If you undermine the health of your existing taxi ecosystem, what impact will that have? In city after city, we’ve seen taxi companies declaring bankruptcy, some of them going out of business. If that happens too much and suddenly you’re left with just Uber or Lyft, now they’re in a position to increase the prices again and raise them to the cost.

Because keep in mind, these are profit-seeking companies, as any transportation company is. It’s not public, and these companies are going towards their IPOs sometime. They’ve announced they’ll probably do it sometime in 2019. So at some point, they do have to turn a profit.

They’re not going to be able to subsidize these rides forever, unless they can find some other source of revenue, such as using people’s data and monetizing that in some way that allows them to keep subsidizing. No one knows how they’re going to keep subsidizing these rides forever. Uber and Lyft have not given anyone a plan of how they’ll continue to do this forever.

The assumption is that at some point, they’re going to have to start raising the price of these rides. They’re not going to be able to keep subsidizing them forever, because venture capital funders eventually want their profit in their stocks to go up.

Safety. The background checks done by Uber and Lyft are beneath the industry standard in the United States, mostly because they do not include fingerprinting. This is somewhat controversial. Uber and Lyft insist that fingerprinting is not necessary. They actually had to withdraw from Austin, Texas, for a time, because the city council there passed a law requiring fingerprinting. Uber and Lyft pulled out of that city in protest over this law. I guess this is something that you’re going to have to decide. Do you want to include things like fingerprinting?

Also, adequate insurance. Uber and Lyft in different cities have had inadequate insurance on their vehicles. They oftentimes rely on the private insurance of the person who’s driving their own private vehicle. But a lot of times, private insurers in the United States don’t allow you to use your automobile for commercial purposes. If something were to happen…. There have been lots of incidences of accidents happening and the Uber or Lyft driver is completely panicked, because they know that their private insurance doesn’t cover it and Uber doesn’t cover it or Lyft doesn’t cover it. They’re really in a tough situation.

I think you really have to think about these background checks, fingerprinting, insurance. I’ve been doing some reading on line on what’s being debated there. I know you are talking about these issues. I just want to underscore how important that is.

[11:40 a.m.]

I think you also have to ask and be concerned about: are these companies stable? These companies, despite their wild popularity among a certain sector of urban dwellers, are actually losing billions and billions of dollars every year. In 2017, just one company, Uber, lost about $4.6 billion. Lyft lost another couple billion. In 2018, the numbers aren’t final yet, but it looks like they lost probably around the same amount.

They’re losing so much money because they’re subsidizing rides. I mean, the reality is that every time somebody gets in that Uber or Lyft and uses it, the company is losing money. And the greater they expand their ridership, the more money they lose. This is not a stable situation. If you have companies that are looking to drive out local competition and they have not yet found a business model that is sustainable, I think you have to wonder about that and you have to be concerned about that.

Now, in order to find profitability, these companies have engaged in a number of what in Silicon Valley is called, somewhat euphemistically, a pivot. A pivot means you’ve got to change your business model, because you have to keep your investors happy in order to keep those venture capital subsidies rolling in so you can keep subsidizing rides. So they’ve tried a number of different pivots in order to increase their revenues. They’ve tried, for example, Uber Pool. Uber Pool is like…. They try to get more than one passenger in the car. It’s like an airport shuttle. Everybody is picked up in serial fashion one after the other, and then the driver drops them off in serial fashion.

There was big hype around Uber Pool. This is not only going to increase their revenue, the company said, but it’s also going to be better for the environment because you have more people in the vehicle. It has actually turned out to not be such a popular service because drivers hate it. They’re picking up more than one passenger. It’s crazy. They’re driving all over town, dropping people off. They’re not really making any more money for this convenience and more wear and tear on their car.

The consumers don’t really like it that much because, if you’re the first person picked up, you might be the fourth one dropped off. So you can’t really rely on how quickly you’ll get somewhere. So if you have a lot of time and you don’t have to worry about getting somewhere on time, it is cheaper for you. It’s just turned out to be a very mixed experience for the consumer.

They’ve also tried Uber Eats, which is delivering food. Uber Eats has also not been wildly successful in terms of bringing in more revenue. I mean, you’re competing with other food delivery services and pizza delivery services. There’s not a whole lot of money to be made in delivering an $8 burrito, in actual fact. So this has not been a big money deliverer for them.

They’ve also introduced more recently Uber Freight, which is more delivery, competing with more like the FedEx and UPS type of deliveries to deliver packages. But now Amazon is delivering packages. Again, the margins are very low on this and increasingly so. It’s not expected to be a big game changer in terms of improving their bottom line.

They’ve also more recently gotten into the latest transportation craze, which is scooters and electric bikes. Again, the jury is still out on this, with the scooters and electric bikes. For the people who are using them, they like them a lot. There’s more convenience there. But it’s still a small number of people who are using it.

In the meantime, it’s causing disruption and havoc for everyone else, including some of the people that are using the scooters. They’re finding out, when you don’t have a helmet and people are just stepping on the scooters and taking off, unsurprisingly, a lot of them are ending up in hospital emergency rooms because they’re not very well protected in the midst of all the traffic with these big, huge automobiles, where thousands of pounds are coming at you and you’re on a little, tiny scooter.

None of these pivots have significantly changed the bottom line of these companies. They are still losing billions of dollars, and no one can figure out how they’re going to change this formula, how they’re going to make it better in the future. And Uber and Lyft have not announced any plans that have convinced anyone that they have a sense of how to turn this around. So by bringing them in with their subsidized rides, undermining your existing transportation, you are potentially bringing in companies that could be rather unstable in terms of having a stable, reliable transportation grid.

[11:45 a.m.]

These companies also, especially Uber, have been involved in numerous scandals, including ways of using the technology to undermine law enforcement in enforcement of the rules — an infamous scandal called Greyball.

The new CEO of Uber seems to have changed the culture a little bit. We’re not hearing nearly as many scandals as there used to be, so that is certainly a positive. But it’s still something to keep in mind — that this company, not that long ago, was wracked in scandal after scandal.

In short, I understand that consumers want another transportation option. It’s totally understandable. But I think you have to ask yourselves if this is the best way, given that it’s just another type of taxi. Other options include just increasing the number of taxis that you already have and you already have rules around. If the rules around existing taxis are somehow inadequate or there are not enough of them, you can change those. It’s really something to consider.

Uber and Lyft bring the gloss of being hip and modern and techno, with their apps and all these kinds of things, but taxi companies in San Francisco now have their apps too.

The reality is that it’s really been a far different experience in city after city. The app — sure, it’s cool. You can watch the car as it comes towards you. But I’ll tell you what. The reason why that app is cool is because the car shows up so quickly. If that car was taking 30 minutes to get there, the app would just be another source of frustration you could see. “My god, the car is still stuck down on Market Street. How long is this thing going to take to get here?” The app is cool because the car shows up, and the car shows up because they are flooding your streets with many, many cars. That really is the bottom-line, full picture of what you’re getting with these services.

If you do decide that you want to allow these services to compete in your transportation grid, I have some recommendations for you — five of them, in fact.

One, you have to limit the number of Uber and Lyft cars that you allow to operate at any one time. If you just let them flood the streets with cars, you’re going to have all the problems that I have described — environmental, labour, etc., undermining your public transportation. If you limit the number of cars to a reasonable amount…. Again, as I said, you can do this by either having an increase in the number of existing taxis or by allowing a certain number of Uber and Lyft cars. But you have to look at the entire ecosystem, and you want to limit the total number of taxi-type vehicles you have on your streets. Uber and Lyft could fill part of that quota. Traditional taxis could also fill part of that.

Rule 2, no subsidizing rides. You should tell Uber and Lyft: “You need to charge the full cost of your ride.” Because if they don’t do that, they’re going to be undermining your existing transportation grid, including public transportation. You should not let these companies engage in the predatory pricing practices they have used in city after city. Instead, tell them: “You need to charge at least the break-even price for your rides.”

Three, they should have to follow all existing taxi laws. I mean, again, this is just another type of taxi. Don’t overcomplicate it. If you have existing taxi rules and you think they’re good rules — including on background checks, auto insurance and all these sorts of things — Uber and Lyft should have to follow the same rules. If for some reason your rules are not adequate and they are somehow hampering competition or they’re leading to too few cars on the road, then you should look at changing the rules for all of the types of taxi-type vehicles on the street.

Having one set of rules for traditional taxis and another set of rules for ride-renting makes absolutely no sense. It hasn’t worked in city after city in the United States, and now more and more cities here are looking to harmonize these rules and make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules.

Four, you should demand that these companies share their data. Not only data about how many drivers they have on the streets at any one time but also…. Part of what undermines the bargaining power of Uber and Lyft drivers is that they are part of what’s called a distributed workforce. They don’t work in any particular place. They don’t report in any particular place. It’s really hard for them to come together and organize together for better wages and working conditions and these sorts of things.

[11:50 a.m.]

If these companies must provide the data to the B.C. government or to some third-party watchdog type of organization that you establish and oversee, then this data can be shared with existing ride-renting drivers so that they can find each other and they can meet up at a Pizza Hut and sit around and discuss common problems that they’re experiencing and figure out ways to organize together if they need to.

Sharing the data like this is going to be good going forward in the digital economy because who controls data is extremely important. These companies don’t give up the data unless you demand it, because they don’t want these drivers to find each other. They want them to be a distributed workforce that cannot organize and try to get better wages and working conditions.

Five, related to the previous point, you must insist that these companies treat their drivers fairly. Having drivers who are making less than the minimum wage after you subtract expenses is not going to be good for your local economy. New York City recently passed a law mandating that these drivers must make a minimum wage after their driver expenses.

As I said, the studies have found that these drivers are making very low wages, and a lot of them don’t even know it. A lot of people say to me: “Oh, I talk to my Uber driver, and the Uber driver says, ‘I like it. I like the flexibility. I’m making decent money.’” I usually say to those people: “Ask your driver how they like it six months from now, or a year from now.”

Uber’s own numbers show that 50 percent of their drivers leave the platform after working for a year because they discover: “I’m not making as much money as I thought. I’m being treated horribly by this company. There’s no way for me to even talk to them about how to do things better or make it better for me.” On and on and on.

So they leave after a year on the platform. You have to ask yourself: if they have a turnover rate of 50 percent of their driver force after a year, how good a job is this, really? That’s the type of job you’re creating by bringing these companies in.

I see I’ve reached the end of my time. That’s pretty much all I wanted to say to you. I’d be happy to answer questions.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much, Steven. I want to make sure that people have an opportunity to ask questions, particularly around the four areas that this committee is able to deliberate around.

R. Kahlon: Thank you very much for your presentation. We kind of get focused on just North America and how things are done in North America. We forget that this is a challenge throughout the world. We are fortunate in the sense that we can take the learnings from other areas and ensure that they’re in place so that we don’t make the same mistakes others are.

My question to you would be…. Perhaps no jurisdiction has gotten it right. I don’t think any jurisdiction has gotten it right yet. But can you point us to directions and examples of where things are better than not?

S. Hill: I think New York City has certainly taken some steps recently to try and rein in some of the worst of the ride-renting practices — as I said, implementing minimum wage. They also passed a law to try and cut back on congestion. Unfortunately, the ride-renting companies, Uber and Lyft, have sued these laws every time any city tries to do it.

This is the other thing that you’re going to run into with these companies: litigation if you try to put regulations and rules around them. These are deep-pocketed companies. They have lots of lawyers, and they most likely will sue you. They’ll threaten to pull out.

In Austin, Texas, what they did when Austin passed a simple law just saying, “Look, we want better background checks….” First, they said: “If you do that, we’re going to pull out.” Secondly, they said: “Okay, you passed the law. We’re going to….” They spent $10 million to gather signatures on a voter initiative to overturn the law and just put the city in play for almost a year in fighting this law and mobilizing against it and vilifying the city council. They really play hardball when it comes to this kind of thing.

The voters of Austin actually voted down the Uber and Lyft voter initiative. Even though they love ride-renting there, they still said: “We want better background checks.” At that point, Uber and Lyft had to withdraw, because they threatened to withdraw. So with their tails between their legs, they did withdraw from Austin. They waited about a year and then came back into Austin. They’re now back there.

[11:55 a.m.]

These are the types of company that you’re inviting into your city. You have to recognize that and put the right rules around them and be ready to fight to keep those rules.

New York City, I think, is trying to do some good things. Austin, Texas, I’ve mentioned. San Francisco…. We’d like to do more of these sorts of things, but the big mistake we made in California is that we actually passed the regulations at the state level and tied the hands of local governments to be able to put in place their own laws and regulations. I don’t recommend that at all.

If you do that at the B.C. level, at the provincial level, you want to at least allow local governments to also add on. So you create a floor at the provincial level, but you want to allow local governments to add on to that if they wish, because what you’ll discover is that the needs of a big city like Vancouver are going to be much different than the needs of a smaller town or even a smaller city. Mostly, these affect places that are…. You know, you have a lot of tourists, and they want to use ride-renting and these sorts of things.

In the smaller towns and cities, it’s not so much of an issue. So you want to have the flexibility in your regulation to allow Vancouver to have the laws that will fit for Vancouver and not fit for some place in upper B.C., where you have smaller, rural communities, or somewhere else.

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

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Yes, just one question.

You’ve suggested, Mr. Hill, a lot of things around regulating this and regulating that for the purposes of congestion, of driver wages, of things we think we might be seeing or might see. But then you talk about the need for cities to potentially have the rights to add on to the regulation to suit their needs.

Could they, then, opt out of that same regulation? What we certainly can see happening here in B.C. is that the needs and what might work or not work in Vancouver might be very different from what might work or would work in a small town in British Columbia that currently doesn’t have any taxi-type service, where the ability of some kind of ride-share to operate would actually add great value to a community and not have any of the negative implications of congestion, etc. Yet they are unlikely to start up if there’s great regulation. That’s why they don’t have taxis. So how would you balance that?

S. Hill: I would balance that by having a provincial law that creates a floor and then allow other cities to add on to that as they see fit. So in a smaller town, you may not need to have a law that is concerned about congestion, but you certainly will want to have something that makes sure that the wages are adequate. I mean, why create low-wage jobs where the drivers themselves aren’t even clear on how much they’re making?

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Okay. Let me stop you there, because it…. I’ll clarify.

In a small community, for example, right now, we don’t have an opportunity for someone to pay someone to give them a ride somewhere. Regardless of whether that person who would give them a ride somewhere is willing to do that and would like to do that, there’s no legal way for them to do that at this moment in time. The availability of some kind of platform — like Uber, Lyft or something made in B.C. — could give them that opportunity. They would be doing that, knowing they’re doing this once, and the amount of money is going to be small, but they’re doing it because it’s a service to their community and they’re already going that way.

I mean, I think we have to put some onus on the individuals to take ownership of their own financial choices and their own ability to determine whether or not it is worthwhile for them. I don’t think, in these cases — in small towns, for example — anybody is going to be looking at it as a job or even as a wage subsidy, but they might look at it as a gas subsidy.

S. Hill: Are you saying that there are no taxis at all in these communities, that the laws don’t even allow taxis to exist?

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): No. The law would allow a taxi to exist. The economics wouldn’t allow for a taxi to exist.

[12:00 p.m.]

S. Hill: If the laws don’t allow for a taxi to exist, then I don’t see how bringing in Uber and Lyft is going to make that better.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): No, no.

S. Hill: I mean, you might get…. Sure, they can subsidize the rides for you. But these companies have a history of…. For example, when they first started, they took 5 percent of every fare, so the drivers made the rest of it. Now they take about 30 percent of every fare.

They’re always trying to take it out of the pockets of the drivers in order to keep…. Even though they’re losing money, they lose less money because they’re relying on just a steady turnover of drivers and people in a down economy that need a flexible employment situation.

I can’t answer the specifics of your question. You have to decide for yourself. But just recognize the types of companies you’re inviting in. I guess that’s what I would I say.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Hill. We really do appreciate you taking the time again to call here. Can you tell me where you are calling from again? Was it Washington, you said?

S. Hill: No, I’m in San Francisco.

B. Ma (Chair): Oh, you’re calling from San Francisco. Thank you so much, Mr. Hill. We really appreciate it.

S. Hill: It’s my pleasure. Good luck to you there.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. According to my schedule, the next presentation doesn’t begin until 1 p.m., so that’s one hour. We will enter into recess and reconvene at 1 p.m.

The committee recessed from 12:01 p.m. to 1:02 p.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): We have with us now Mr. Clark Lim, who will be our next presenter.

Mr. Lim, you will be given 25 minutes to present, uninterrupted. That will be followed by 20 minutes of questions from committee members. If you end your presentation early, we’ll simply roll the remaining presentation time into question time. We also ask that comments and the presentation, as you know, be focused on the four questions before the committee now.

Do you have any questions for us, Mr. Lim?

C. Lim: No, that’s good.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you, again, for coming back to present.

CLARK LIM

C. Lim: Thank you for having me again. I appreciate the opportunity to provide feedback into this very important issue and the regulations.

I have, I think, about ten slides here. I will be, actually, addressing three of the four questions. I feel that the third one, regarding price and fare, is actually quite complex, and I think I’ll defer that one. The other three I will refer to.

In terms of my approach in providing input, as my profession and my expertise, I will be providing a traffic engineering and transportation planning perspective and, really, a first-principles approach. With all of these changes going on, it’s very confusing. So having some sort of bedrock, from fundamentals, I think, is good. I’ll start from there and provide my reasoning as to why I’m suggesting any recommendations.

I like the new term of TNS, transportation network services. I think that bodes well. It’s not just a corporate approach. It’s also a service that could be non-profit or government. From my perspective, when I’m answering these, I’m including taxis with modern dispatch systems, app-based ride-hailing as well as, eventually, the evolution of some form of transit, possibly. That’s sort of the way I’ve looked at trying to respond to these.

[1:05 p.m.]

I also take a modally agnostic approach, in that it’s objective, and I don’t really have a bias to any modes. I’m more for ensuring that people can get where they want to go to and that goods get to places efficiently.

On the terms of reference, I realized I had to take a certain stance on how I addressed the terms of reference and the questions. I had to look at a broader policy perspective on the recommendations and the criteria suggestions. I’m really utilizing a triple-bottom-line approach. That’s where I’m coming from, in terms of how I’m moving forward with how I’ve put my thoughts together and prepared my responses.

The first question, regarding the establishing of boundaries. My understanding is that for transportation, the purpose of the boundaries is to manage the amount and the distribution of supply. There’s also a certainty of territory and markets for any providers or concessionaires, for calculation of fees. There are many benefits and needs for boundaries. They’re really logical frameworks. Especially in the past, they were essential in a time when we didn’t have timely information of supply and demand.

Now comes technology in the form of smartphones and whatnot, and now we have high-resolution information in real time. Not only do we know the status and location of the supply — for example, the drivers; we also know the location of the demand as well as where they want to go to. That’s, actually, a huge game changer. Having all this information come in, able to be archived and used not only for historical purposes in comparing but also to predict demand is what really gives the ability to efficiently shape the supply.

Finally, the flexibility in this kind of system allows you to sort of play with the rules and set new rules. Because of that, I really believe that the approach to still using boundaries may limit the modern TNS systems and, therefore, their efficacy. Really, we need to eventually go to a boundaryless approach or system. Having said that, I appreciate the current status quo and where we’re at, and you can’t just overnight turn the switch. We still probably will need some sort of boundaries to support legacy administrative purposes during a transition period. The transition period is really the most challenging, I’d say.

One approach is to use what we call geofences. They’re literally the boundaries programmed into all the devices and systems. They mimic the static boundaries, but they’re dynamic in the sense that you can have boundaries for different times of day, for different people and, maybe, licences or whatnot. It’s quite flexible. I think that when you look at boundaries, you want to consider all of the new options that you have in front of you with these new technologies.

In terms of recommendations on the first question, I would suggest adopting a transition plan and possibly “living boundaries,” kind of a work in progress that can be shaped to accommodate. As you learn about these new TNS innovations, I think, to hard code it may be to your detriment. So keep it flexible, and let the service providers be aware that you are experimenting still. Investigate, eventually, a boundaryless system to maximize the potential of this technology. Finally, require some sort of appropriate, granular raw data from these providers, because it will be essential, actually, to research and start to adjust these boundaries or to ultimately develop a boundaryless type of framework.

The second question is on balancing supply with demand. I’m going to start off by saying that from a system perspective, an efficient system is one in which the supply and demand fit like a glove. You don’t have too much supply; you don’t have too little. It’s just right. So there’s no waste in supply, while you’re fully meeting all the needs of the people.

Practically, what we want, really, are these TNS vehicles to be fully utilized with what we call minimum deadheading. In other words, we want to have the vehicle kilometres be equal to or less than the passenger kilometres consumed, because you can have more than one passenger. What that really means is having these drivers drive empty less, roaming for passengers. The less you can do that, the more efficient the system is.

[1:10 p.m.]

On the need for public convenience and necessity, the probability of convenience and necessity is increased if the passenger demands are known ahead of time, those being their origins — where they are — and where they want to go. If you know that about your customers, then you can start to shape your supply ahead of time. So if somebody wants to leave, maybe, two hours from now and they want to go downtown or to Richmond, you can adjust your supply to match that. This is where we get into AI and prediction systems. This is key. Prediction is golden, and this is what will help to make the system very efficient.

Thirdly, in terms of providing supply, we have to be careful not to oversupply. You might have to curb supply where there are other sustainable alternatives or congestion.

Speaking to those points — I think I spoke last time — we have to be careful. There’s this relationship between the users of ride-hailing as well as transit, and you may end up cannibalizing and shifting people from a sustainable mode to this other mode which may or may not be sustainable. However, in places such as rural, transit-starved areas where transit isn’t very well- and cost-effectively provided, TNS will be, actually, a boon. It will be a social benefit, because there are a lot of people who may not have the means to get around. They can’t drive. This would be, really, their only alternative.

If you were to look at the demand, and you’ll see it’s going to be in many places that are congested, to start to throw vehicles there would also cause problems. What happens is that when you throw just a few vehicles in an already saturated environment, you’re going to have exponentially worse congestion and travel times. So we have to look at it and figure out what’s going on there. Should we throw fuel into the fire?

An example would be downtown. It’s quite busy at peak periods. You wouldn’t want to just throw all your supply here. You might want to work with Transit to have them trigger more transit services and have, maybe, people dropped off in less congested areas where, then, these TNS providers can pick them up. So you’re not adding to the congestion.

That begs the question of: how do we know what’s congested? This has been a problem for many urban areas for years. We did do a study back in 2003 on congestion. Most recently we have ways to use big data, and this is an example of actually measuring congestion in the peak period and quantifying it and having an index. This is, for example, in the greater Vancouver area. Another example, using the same system, is in the Okanagan, where we can quantify congestion to tell you where it is. These are systems that are used for various other purposes but can be used as a data set to feed into and support the efficiency of TNS providers.

In summary, for this question, the recommendations are to consider the synergies with other modes and, as I mentioned earlier, to require appropriate granular or raw data from these TNS providers to support further research and optimize the supply and demand. Possibly, you can do the reverse. You can actually, maybe, influence the demand. You can suggest to people who want a ride now: “If you wait ten, 15 minutes, half an hour, it’ll be cheaper. Why go now? You’ll just be stuck in traffic anyway.” So there could be some two-way communication and adjusting both supply and demand.

There are other data sets you can use, such as congestion information. There are travel surveys that we have across all of…. Most of the B.C. communities have these travel surveys, understanding where people are going to and from. There’s traffic volume data. There’s a lot of data that you can combine and fuse together to build more intelligence to make the system more efficient.

The third question I would like to address, the fourth one on your list, is on the recommendations for the type of licence class. To start off, I really believe this is…. I think we all agree. It’s understood that it’s a balance between safety and participation. You want to have adequate people participating in these kinds of services to meet the needs. But the key there is defining a limit to risky drivers and not to allow them. What is that? That’s not my field, but I think there has to be some sort of definition. I’m sure ICBC would define that.

This itself will affect the supply. On the one hand, it could actually control excess supply. If there are too many people wanting to drive…. There are many countries and cities in the world where there are too many taxis, licensed and unlicensed, driving around, wasting gas and adding congestion — oversupply for the demand. You don’t want that. So having some sort of a barrier, if you will, a licensing, will put a cap on that.

[1:15 p.m.]

In other cases, you may not have enough supply, and this may actually be a barrier, even though you have a certain level of risk or a certain tolerance. It may be a factor to not provide enough drivers. In that case, I would recommend not to degrade that standard of entry, to keep it the way it is. I would suggest that the onus is on the TNS providers to provide the incentives to get an adequate supply. I think there’s where the market can play.

In terms of the criteria for what could be used, I’m not really an expert on this — other than, in terms of traffic engineering, some of the safety side of things. But you can imagine age and experience are key criteria. You’d want somebody with enough experience. We do understand, through our accident data, that people who have about ten, 15, 20 years of experience are probably the safest drivers, in terms of collision history. As you get older, or when you’re very young, the accident rates tend to go up. So age and experience could be factored in.

Driving record, of course, and, possibly, police background checks. Then you have medical and physical conditions — to make sure that people are fit to drive. They have, obviously, good eyesight or some corrective measures, as well as reaction time.

Possibly the condition of the vehicle. This is something, I think, that may or may…. It could be done through the TNS, that they ensure that. I don’t think we want to really bring in the motor vehicle branch again. But again, the vehicle condition is something that should be considered.

Finally, there’s the basic skills and knowledge that drivers are tested on, but I would suggest more enhanced or strategic skills and knowledge. This includes an awareness of locations. One of the things is that when you have taxi drivers, sometimes they don’t know where you’re wanting to go. You’re sort of both lost. It could cause, obviously, unsafe situations.

In terms of the current class 4 that ICBC has — which is a restricted class, a version of class 4 — it actually may be adequate, but maybe with some emphasis on what I call strategic skills and knowledge. What that really is…. Because these ride-hailing drivers may end up in situations that are unique to them, but it’s a common, reoccurring, unsafe situation, you would want to ensure that they’re skilled and trained up in those situations.

One of the classic examples is the exiting and entering into and out of traffic flow, where you have numerous incidents with motor vehicles, cyclists — especially if there’s a bike lane — and pedestrians. Because these manoeuvres are happening way more frequently than a typical driver commuting to work, the frequency of this will be very high.

I’d like to just show you an example of…. How do you measure this? Because that’s one thing. How do you measure the safety of these kinds of manoeuvres? Well, Dr. Tarek Sayed at UBC civil engineering has developed, I think for the last over ten years, an automated safety quantification system, using basically your basic camera. We use computer vision techniques, which will look at the whole scene and identify people — salient objects that are moving — and see if there are any conflicts, in terms of collision and movement.

This is an example he did in New York City, on Sixth Avenue. What results, then, is a heat map of safety. We can actually quantify the degree of severity, when it comes to the near misses, and where they’re located — and not only that, the type of people involved. So in this little area here, which is quite significant — you can see it’s quite hot, just in terms of the heat map — these are incidents mainly due to pedestrians and right-turning vehicles, which is actually common in many places, but you actually see that.

What you have here is a classic example of taxi conflicts. We can see taxi conflicts and quantify them. We can actually do economic analyses to tell you in terms of what improvements could do to reduce these conflicts. Ultimately, for example, ICBC would incur them. So there are techniques that we can employ to quantify safety. I think that’s the good news.

We’re using, again, all of these advanced technologies that are, on the one hand, causing a lot of these changes. We’re using it for our purposes to improve that system.

[1:20 p.m.]

The last slide here, my recommendations, then, to this class of licence. I would suggest, at minimum, enhancing the existing class 4, the restricted, with an emphasis on strategic skills and knowledge in these unique situations ride-hailing riders would be involved in — everything from, again, in and out of traffic to understanding the different locations in the region and jurisdictional rules.

Also, I would be remiss to not say: try to obtain more data at a granular level and, if possible, kinematic data, because we know these phones can actually provide deceleration rates. Those would actually help in terms of monitoring the safety of these systems.

With that — I think I ended on time — I will open up for questions.

B. Ma (Chair): Absolutely. Thank you. You actually ended before your time was up.

Are there any questions?

R. Kahlon: I hate monopolizing, being first every time. I’ll try not to be.

Thank you very much for your presentation. A consistent theme we’ve been hearing is access to data, and we hear it again from you. You just touched on, at the end, some of the data that you think should be captured. Maybe you can share with me what you think some of the potentials are. By having access to the data, having access to TransLink data, as a province, as a body that holds data from different modes, what are the possibilities that you see for planning and safety?

C. Lim: In fact, understanding how these apps work…. They’re obviously recording the location of both the provider, the driver, as well as the people who demand. Knowing just their time…. It’s a time stamp of their location, basically, and where they wanted to go. Then there’s all that information about how long it takes to get there and which routes they take. If some of those basic pieces of information — nothing to do with the person and any other privacy issues — can be provided, you can see a very, very clear pattern of where the activities are and where the demands are. From that, it’s quite powerful.

It could be a few simple, what I would call, variables or information pieces. And it’s just provided at what we call a big-data level. So it’s quite a large number of these. When you combine that with, again, TransLink’s sort of picture of transit riders and where they’re switching and boarding, you combine with maybe…. Then there are taxis — obviously, they’re another part of it — as well as just the general travel survey. What they do is they collect information on how people travel within the region and for what purpose, which mode and what time they leave.

You combine all that, and you get a very good picture of what’s going on in any region. Then, again, I’ve mentioned these other data sets like congestion. Not only does it add, but it also helps to validate some of the data. That’s one of the issues. Sometimes we collect data, and you have another data set which is contrary to what you get. So when you have all of these data sets, you end up with a pretty good picture, and they are, hopefully, self-validating.

It’s really no different than having…. We all have eyes and ears and mouths. We have five senses. The more data you have, the more senses you get. Our body is designed to capture information and make sure things are the way they are, and there’s sort of confirmation from all the senses. That’s kind of the approach. It’s, basically, as simple as that.

R. Singh: You have answered, I think, part of the question that I had. You talked a lot about congestion and the supply. Would that be related to data, too, to find out which areas need the supply? And it shouldn’t increase the congestion.

C. Lim: Yes. I’m sort of guessing. There might be a supply of, let’s say, 10,000 of these drivers in any given hour, maybe at the maximum point. Again, I’m sort of guessing based on gross numbers, but we could have up to half a million cars on the road at any given time. So it’s a small drop in the bucket in a sense, comparably. But again, if they’re going to places where it’s very, very congested, they can add problems.

This is where they will be providing information as to their travel times, and you could derive congestion based on how they’re travelling. They’re a smaller sample size. But knowing what’s going on, and if you have the ability to…. You know, these TNS algorithms have the ability to deploy supply to certain areas and to know that it’s congested already. Again, it doesn’t help anyone.

[1:25 p.m.]

These are the kinds of little things that can really help. Otherwise, you will get the situation like in other jurisdictions where they are seeing congestion grow.

The beauty of these systems is that we can monitor congestion and see if it has gone up a blip because of the deployment or the allowing of these TNS providers. The data provides information not only to make real-time decisions of efficiency but that also will be used to monitor and provide diagnostics so you can make improvements and ensure that things like equity and fairness are also at play.

S. Chandra Herbert: I think the data is really important. Thanks to Mr. Lim, I just read an interesting survey about University of California in Los Angeles where I think they said there were about 11,000 trips — I think it was Uber and Lyft combined — that never actually left the campus. It was picking up one person on one corner, driving them two blocks to their class or whatever. They didn’t want to be in the rain or whatever, and I guess transit was more expensive or not there at all.

Of course, you increase pollution, but sure, it’s more available. Interesting issue. Now, of course, if you’ve got congestion, it could be even worse.

I wonder. You talked about boundaries and legacy boundaries. Some of those issues, I know, certainly impact taxis in a big way, given they’re very restricted to quite small boundaries in some cases. Any thoughts on if we were to move towards no boundaries for TNS companies, about moving the same direction for taxis — around fairness, for example, ending deadheading, some of the things we’ve talked about?

Also, any thoughts on TransLink’s suggestion of a minimum price on trips in order to reduce competition or cannibalization of the transit system?

C. Lim: Yeah, the latter I haven’t, really, but on the first question, I guess, fundamentally, a taxi and a ride-hail are the same. They’re from the same sort of genetic background. Obviously, their business models are slightly different, but from that perspective, I think they can eventually go into a boundaryless system.

I believe they have the technology right now to do that. I think it’s more the business model and the revenue model maybe…. Again, I’m not an expert on that. You’d have to talk to experts in that area. But fundamentally, I think they’re the same, as far as I’m concerned. One just has more markings on it. The other one doesn’t. From that, I think they should be able to. I can’t see fundamentally why not. There would be more of a social or a business issue.

You mentioned that TransLink wants to add additional fare…?

S. Chandra Herbert: They suggested a minimum fare, potentially, for ride-share companies so that they can’t undercut the cost of transit, for example.

C. Lim: Yeah, I think that makes sense. But again, in all fairness, you’d have to see what…. They may not want to go that low too. I would imagine that to go that low would be detrimental to their business and their revenue model. But I think that sounds reasonable, and I think that’s a good starting point, to have discussions with any TNS providers and have that discourse with TransLink. I think that’s a good idea.

I am, in particular, worried about that shift. There’s a lot of investment in transit, and there has been. So as much as I’m modally agnostic, that’s investment. That’s my investment and my taxpayers’, so I do want to maximize investment. We can’t just shift willy-nilly, because fundamentally, we want to be completely open and fair.

I think there is a bit of responsibility to the decisions we made in the past to sort of respect those. But there will be the shift. We can’t deny. Innovation is coming. We can’t stop it, and not should we, I believe, to some degree. I think we have to learn to adapt. That’s going to be the challenge — to have all these institutions adapt, including government as well. The private sectors are much more nimble.

The worry is eventually privatization. Some people argue it is going in that direction. That could well be the case. I would hope that we can adapt our institutions, B.C. Transit being one. Another example: Ministry of Highways. So it’s not just TransLink. There are a lot of different institutions. This is why I think I said the previous time I was here that we may need to review governance models.

[1:30 p.m.]

B.C. Transit, for example, is a classic example of a governance model that is modally siloed. If you had a B.C. Horse and Carriage, then yeah, it would be pretty much gone. But it is going to happen at some point, especially in the rural areas.

These are concerns. I don’t have the full answers, but all I can say is that it seems like those things are coming downstream. It’s something for, I think, you decision-makers. It’s a hard decision, but I would at least hope that you would see those things and take heart.

P. Milobar: Back to the data. It seems that a lot of companies, not just TNSs — I’m thinking the hotel industry, a whole wide range of service industries — protect that type of data pretty fiercely, from occupancy rates to travel times for TNSs to all of that.

It seems we already have a transportation network out there. We have TransLink running buses everywhere there are sitting in the traffic. They could be providing real-time reporting on congestion. We have taxi fleets out there that could be providing real-time information right now. We don’t require them to, yet you turn on the TV and you get your morning road report, and you can tell by the green, red and yellow arrows how quickly the traffic is moving on the freeways. There seems to already be congestion-tracking that way.

Frankly, if I click on my Waze app, it will tell me the fastest route, based on real-time road conditions and what’s going on out there. In fact, whenever I’ve taken an Uber, a Lyft or a taxi, a lot of drivers rely on that particular app to renavigate themselves around, to get you from your start to your endpoint in the fastest way possible.

So why the need to try to make data collection to TNS providers part of the conditions when we don’t make it a condition for any other transportation network that’s out there?

Interjection.

C. Lim: Yeah, you can interject if you know anything of the….

B. Ma (Chair): Sorry. Did you want to comment?

A Voice: No, that’s okay.

C. Lim: I would say that fundamentally, it would be useful — and a lost opportunity to not obtain some of that data, especially if it is government-produced or if the taxi companies are willing to provide it somehow. The thing is, if you want to monitor taxis, they’re visible, so you can track them. You can count them on the roads. The problem with ride-hailing is that they look just like anyone else driving to work, and you don’t know if they’re ride-hailing or not. They’re not marked, so they’re almost invisible to our current ways of collecting information.

I think it’s important to know how these new services are growing and being used, because I think the prediction is that they will be a significant part. They won’t be sort of half a percent of all the trips, but they could be bigger than transit, even. With that, I would say, kind of significance, I think governments would be remiss if they didn’t collect the information to some degree. Obviously, it has to be fair. There are privacy laws and whatnot. But even if they were to be provided samples, there’s a lot you can do with just even a bit of data, using statistical methods and whatnot.

I think we just need to get a handle on how people are using these technologies. It’s important. I always argue that we shouldn’t get too much data but just as much as needed. The question is: how much data? This is why I mentioned appropriate means and to what level of granularity. But it’s a discussion that has to be done with these TNCs.

I think there may be some room for negotiation. As you build your regulations, maybe there can be negotiations as to what constitutes a fair sort of data dump being sent to government — having all the right non-disclosures, privacy and whatnot sort of wrapped around that. Ultimately, it would benefit them to some degree, because we want to make sure that people are utilizing these systems and taking advantage. There’s social value brought from them. So I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to provide information.

B. Ma (Chair): Are there any other questions from committee members? If I was hearing some of the background noise earlier, if I’m interpreting the background noise correctly, I believe there was a change recently to require taxi drivers and taxi companies to provide data to government — whatever data they have — through the apps that do exist. That change is recent. The data collection requirement was also a recommendation that was produced as part of the first report of the Crown Corporations Committee as well. Thank you for re-emphasizing that.

[1:35 p.m.]

My question for you has to do around the management of service supply in relation to consumer demand. It’s been fairly consistent so far. We’ve heard from other presenters that it’s not ideal to simply allow every car that wants to drive on the roads to do so. But there are varying ways that we can help manage that without necessarily using, for instance, vehicle caps or limiting licensing numbers or so forth. Some of those examples were per-kilometre charges or per-trip fees and particularly those dynamic ones that could be adjusted according to time of day or location of pickup in order to manage congestion.

Do you have any comments on any of those concepts that may have been raised?

C. Lim: Yeah, that’s actually a very good and core question. It touches on that fare revenue, which I wanted to avoid because it begs the question of equity fairness. How do you optimize for society? There’s a utility approach. There’s sort of a different policy approach when it comes to maybe social justice. There are so many things that you need to start with to…. I think it has to be done.

There’s a lot of background work, which would actually help in other areas, not just in this. Or mobility pricing — the bigger version of this. But just overall society, what is equity, and how do you, as government, ensure equity, and what does it look like?

Fundamentally, I think any person who wants to go somewhere…. You think of any trip you want to make. Probably the best way, if you had a dream way to travel, would be just getting in a car, not having to worry, and being driven to where you want to be driven — a limousine, basically. That’s the ultimate. This form of transport gives you that.

Really, how many people want to transfer between buses if it’s raining, for example, or be driving and stuck in traffic? You can’t really do anything but keep your eyes on the road, and you had a stressful day…. To be driven is really the ultimate goal, I think, for people to travel. This is why if you were to ask how many people want to use this, I’d say everyone wants to use it. So the appetite is almost 100 percent. The question is: is it good for everyone to use this, and should we have this being the future?

Autonomous vehicles may be that future. But for now, this is kind of the way there. Again, I think, as I mentioned, there are these other investments that we have. From a fuel efficiency and emissions perspective, I don’t agree that ride-hailing…. It’s just like an SOV. It’s not a car pool. It’s not efficient. There are two people, but it’s only one person needing the ride. The driver is a human algorithm. They’re not really travelling there. You can’t count them.

I think there’s a limit in terms of emissions and efficiency from an environmental perspective. There are all these kinds of constraints at play. Once we have electric vehicles, it might change a bit, but then there’ll be more congestion.

We have to kind of look at it all. We have all these modes, and we have to find the right balance and mix to what the optimum mode share would be, because as a society, we do have these mode share targets. The city of Vancouver does; TransLink does. How does this fit in?

I’ve been doing research for the last 15 years on trying to include these into the classic mode share. It’s not easy. We had to define what it was. That was why I spoke the first time as to trying to define this.

I think once we define it and we let it in, then it’ll be a matter of understanding what the potential is. Pretty much, we have to determine what degree, amount, of mode share is healthy for them to have, this new TNS mode. I don’t have the answer for that. That’s going to be something, I think, that ought to be of interest and will have to happen, not just here but around the world.

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

Any…? Yes?

J. Johal: Can I ask just one question?

B. Ma (Chair): Absolutely.

J. Johal: Just to my colleague Mr. Milobar’s question in regards to data collection, do you have, broadly speaking, any understanding of how data collection has worked in the United States? I think it was Seattle last year where Uber and Lyft were compelled to share some data, but I think they ended up suing because it became a bit too granular. I think it was by zip code, and they didn’t want the zip codes released. Do you foresee any challenges for us?

I think the broad issue about data collection is wonderful: more data, better decisions. Do you see any challenges for us in that way?

C. Lim: Yeah. A lot of the data will be collected by these devices that we all have in our pockets. It’s very accurate. I actually make apps to collect data on travel for research purposes, for example, and it’s very precise. Then it’s a question of: how precise do we want it, and do we need it?

[1:40 p.m.]

Once I have that data, I can then round the numbers, if you will, and just say it’s in this one-mile area or this zip code or this city. We can reduce down and make kind of fuzzy or unclear the data to protect people. It’s sort of like pictures where you have people’s faces blurred out. That can be done, so I don’t think that’s the issue. I think the question is: where is that line?

I think researchers want the data as clear as possible, whereas, obviously, the data providers, I guess for their competitive advantage, may not want to divulge that. There has to be some sort of balance, and I think this is where it’s a three-way discussion, including with government. But yeah, I think we’re going to hear a lot of stories about that.

At the end of the day, data is the new commodity. Oil was a commodity when we had combustion engines. We’re moving into a new era of data being the new commodity, and all of these big companies that we’ve heard of — Google and Facebook — are all based on data, the same as Uber.

I think the whole argument and a lot of the discussions will be around data, and there will be a lot of legalese, a lot of regulations. There’ll be all sorts of things around it — technology, feasibility issues and whatnot — but it’ll be about the data, I think. It tells you where we’re heading towards as a society, which is going to be very data-centric, which is really about your identity. Data represents your identity, who you are and maybe your values. So it’s actually pretty profound.

J. Johal: Just out of curiosity…. You said you create your own apps. I’m just curious. What do you look for? Is it just per trip, where you’re going? I’m curious about what kind of data, the specific data that you’re looking for.

C. Lim: When I build my apps, I collect things like…. Every second I can get the time-stamp and the position. So I have people…. For example, I showed you the congestion data. It was nice to have that data there. But do we know it’s accurate?

It has to be professional-grade, and if that’s the case, we have to validate it and do some sort of statistical testing. So we have people ground-truth, have high-precision data. We collected actual x, y positions along that, and we compared their travels through the whole region to what we were getting in this data that we got through crowdsourcing. It was very, very high, what we call R-squared. It was very, very good, so we knew then that it was professional-grade and we can rely on it.

The kinds of apps that we create are very precise in that sense. They’re actually not that hard to do. It used to be very difficult. In 2003, we spent almost, maybe, a quarter million collecting data, using GPS to develop a congestion map in the region. Now we can do it much, much cheaper, and the devices are just amazing. We have these devices that are very complicated, and we’re using them for simple things like collecting positioning. So it’s not a problem of: are they accurate enough? They’re overly accurate, I’d say — too accurate.

J. Johal: Thank you so much.

B. Ma (Chair): I was going to say that we use our phones for looking at cat photos.

S. Chandra Herbert: Speak for yourself.

B. Ma (Chair): I have a lot of cat photos on my phone.

I also understand that Google…. Researchers often partner with Google for trip data and so forth at a very granular level as well. Is that right?

C. Lim: Yes. Definitely. There are a lot of data providers, yes. That’s the thing now. There’s so much of it. We went from a data drought to…. Now we’re drowning in data, just literally within a few years. It wasn’t gradual. Now, as a traffic engineer, I’m actually working more on things like servers and data storage and things like that, because it’s just…. It’s quite a lot, but it’s great, because it’s like a dream come true for people like me, I guess, who really like to play with data. But then, after that, it’s about taking the data and making meaning out of it.

The analytics are important. That’s where a lot of this will…. The discussions will be around the AI and analytics and how we convert that data into nuggets of information and, ultimately, into decisions that you’ll make — and make decisions on investments in people’s lives. It’s all part of the same vertical.

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

Any other questions from committee members?

Mr. Lim, really appreciate you coming down to speak with us again. I hope you have a wonderful day.

C. Lim: Thank you for having me, and all the best on the study.

B. Ma (Chair): Our next presenters are here, I believe — Laird Cronk and Denise Moffatt from the B.C. Federation of Labour. Fortunately, we are also completely caught up on time.

If you don’t have a presentation to load or so forth, just take a seat, and we’ll begin as soon as you’re ready.

[1:45 p.m.]

You may or may not have seen previous presentations. You will have 25 minutes to present uninterrupted. Following that, there will be 20 minutes for questions. The time that you don’t use for your presentation, we’ll just roll into the questions.

We also ask that you really focus on the four questions that we’re tasked with reviewing, which are around boundaries, supply, fare and pricing regimes and driver licensing. As much as possible, tie it into those four areas.

Do you have any questions for us before we begin?

L. Cronk: I don’t, no. All good.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much for coming out. Please proceed.

B.C. FEDERATION OF LABOUR

L. Cronk: Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee. I will stick to one of the four. I’ll get to it in a couple of minutes. There’s a bit of a brief preamble. While I would love to just speak to you, I made sure I have this written and prepared so I don’t lose any of the points I’d like to make. It might be more interesting the other way, but it’ll be thorough.

Again, thank you for the opportunity. As president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, I speak on behalf of affiliates with 500,000 members that they represent in every aspect of B.C.’s economy. The goals of the B.C. Fed are best exemplified by its slogan: what we desire for ourselves, we wish for all. That means that in addition to advocating for the rights of unionized workers, we seek to improve working conditions for all British Columbians whether they are in a union or not.

Throughout this consultation process, I’m sure you’ve heard extensively about the needs of the companies who are interested in profiting, which makes sense, through the implementation of ride-hailing. You’ve also undoubtedly heard from consumers who are interested in additional affordable transportation options.

We are here today to talk to you about our area of expertise: the needs of the working people. We focused our comments on the third question in your request for feedback — the criteria that must be considered when establishing a price and fare regime. In setting a price and fare regime, you must consider the working conditions of the drivers who will be performing this work.

Instead of creating precarious, low-paying work, the goal of expanding passenger transportation services must include protecting existing good-paying jobs and creating new stable employment — jobs that pay well, provide benefits, have some security to allow workers to support themselves and their families.

Unfortunately, in most markets where ride-hailing services have been adopted, this hasn’t always been the case. Though consumers have enjoyed additional transportation options and corporations have earned substantial profits, workers have struggled to earn the minimum wage.

To reverse this trend, British Columbia has an opportunity right now to get ride-hailing right. This can be easily achieved by enforcing existing laws, supporting fairness and balance in the employment relationship and providing support to workers who are impacted by changing regulations.

I’m going to start by talking about our existing employment standards. As a former employment standards officer, this is personal to me as well. To ensure that the drivers in this system have decent wages and working conditions, all we need to do is apply our existing employment standards laws.

Ride-hailing drivers are employees, not independent contractors. The current definition of “employee” contained in the Employment Standards Act is broad and can and must be applied to these workers. These drivers are not independent contractors, as they lack control over many aspects of their work. The ride-hailing company and its mobile application exerts significant control over the workforce.

Ride-hailing companies are not technology companies alone who lease access to an app. They’re transportation companies that provide a service to the public through their employees. For example, the company determines how work is offered and accepted. They set fares. They collect payments. They prescribe routes and take profits from the drivers’ work. They impose a driver-performance rating system, set conduct standards and terminate those who do not meet those standards. Companies even control the number of drivers who can compete for the work, in often cases.

We cannot rely on ride-hailing companies alone to look out for the interests of workers. They have a record of oversaturating the market with drivers, driving down fares and consequently impacting drivers’ take-home pay. By requiring minimum hourly wages, companies will be disincentivized from flooding the driver pool at the expense of the workers and their dependents.

These drivers are employees as we define them under the existing law in B.C., and as employees protected by the Employment Standards Act, drivers are entitled to receive at least the minimum wage, overtime pay, vacation pay, meal breaks and access to other employment protections.

[1:50 p.m.]

In other jurisdictions, the question of employment status is already being tested. For example, in December in the United Kingdom, the Court of Appeal supported a tribunal ruling that found drivers to be Uber employees and, as such, entitled to minimum wages, paid holidays and other protections. These protections are the minimum necessary standards for a good job.

Flowing from this employment status, ride-hailing companies must make statutory deductions from drivers so that workers have access to employment insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. These are important supports for workers, and employers must pay their fair share.

Another law that must be enforced is the Workers Compensation Act and the occupational health and safety regulations. The health and safety of workers and their passengers is essential to a successful industry in ride-hailing. Under existing laws, employers must register, pay WCB premiums and follow the act and its regulations. This equally applies to ride-hailing companies.

Ride-hailing companies must ensure rigorous health and safety standards, functioning health and safety committees and training for workers and regular inspections to make sure the rules are being followed. In addition to ensuring the drivers have sufficient training to manage on-road conditions, training and worker safety programs must also be developed and implemented for areas such as working alone, violence prevention and bullying and harassment.

While there are existing laws in place, we encourage the Workers Compensation Board, through this committee, to review the regulations to ensure that they address industry-specific workplace hazards so that workers are not injured or killed on the job. Additionally, board officers must conduct regular inspections to ensure the standards are being followed, and employers who fail to follow the rules should be held to account. Finally, should an injury occur, workers must have access to full and fair compensation.

In every workplace, there must be fairness and balance between workers and employers. This is best achieved when workers join together to negotiate terms and conditions of employment. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld workers’ rights to organize. Drivers in the passenger transportation industry must also have access to this right. Ride-hailing companies do not always have a track record of good labour relations. Workers need a level playing field and more clout to deal with powerful multinational companies. This requires a close examination and improvement of the B.C. labour relations code.

In its recent report, the Section 3 review panel, tasked with making recommendations on the code, highlighted changes to the workplace and the growth of precarious work. Under current laws, drivers in ride-hailing and workers in other on-demand or gig industries have little chance of exercising their Charter organizing rights.

The panel suggested that the Minister of Labour appoint a single-issue commission on sectoral and multi-employer certification. A minority recommendation also advocated for a return to card-check certification. These changes to existing labour laws would provide more opportunity for gig economy workers, like in ride-hailing, to organize into unions and correct the power imbalance that exists in many workplaces. We therefore call for a return to that card-check certification and support the establishment of a commission on sectoral and multi-employer certification.

Despite the record of many ride-hailing companies, some Canadian companies are looking at different operating models. Unlike multinational ride-sharing companies, whose drivers have often reported long hours and low hourly earnings, some companies understand and have tried to enter into the value of prioritizing the work conditions of their drivers. After all, happy workers result in happy ride-sharing customers.

For example, one Canadian company, TappCar, which operates in Alberta and Manitoba, has a unionized workforce. TappCar drivers have negotiated better working conditions, like health and dental benefits, and receive a higher percentage of the fares. The emergence of TappCar simply demonstrates that a more balanced approach to worker rights is possible and can form the foundation of a successful business model in ride-hailing.

In the ride-hailing industry, predatory lending has also thrown off the balance between workers and employers. Some ride-hailing companies have played the dual role of lender and employer by being the financier of cars for their drivers through sub-prime loans. Higher rates, early termination penalties and payback schemes that encourage drivers to work long hours to reduce their loan can prey on and exploit workers who are desperate to make ends meet. Regulations must be established to protect workers from predatory lending by their employers, as playing this dual role creates an inappropriate level of dependency for the ride-hailing worker and a disproportionate amount of power for the employer.

Finally, as a result of the implementation of ride-hailing, workers in our existing passenger transportation sector may well be impacted. Every effort should be made to minimize the impact on these existing workers. Should there be an impact, the B.C. Fed recommends that a meaningful and fair transition program be established to assist workers.

[1:55 p.m.]

Thousands of taxi drivers have taken on significant debt to pay for licences. Depending on how this legislation is implemented, those licences may well plunge in value. A transition program should include access to training and income supports. The program should be supported by government, and ride-hailing companies should contribute their fair share.

As our government looks to develop a new industry in our province — and we get one opportunity to start — it’s incumbent on them to ensure it is built on good jobs. There is already much too much exploitation of workers in our province. Corporate profits and consumer demands should not outweigh the basic right of every worker to fair pay and safe and decent working conditions.

Our recommendations to this panel. Classify ride-hailing drivers as employees under the existing definition of the Employment Standards Act. Ensure that ride-hailing companies and their drivers are contributing to employment insurance and Canada Pension Plan. Drivers should also be able to access these benefits.

Make sure the ride-hailing companies pay workers compensation premiums for all their employees, including drivers, and ensure that companies have robust health and safety programs. Review health and safety regulations to make sure they provide appropriate protection for drivers and develop new regulations as required.

Establish a commission on sectoral bargaining to ensure that workers in on-demand industries such as ride-hailing have access to their Charter right to organize. Amend the B.C. labour relations code to return to card-check certification.

Regulate vehicle leasing and loan programs so that ride-hailing companies cannot exploit their workers through predatory lending schemes. And finally, minimize the impact on existing workers in the passenger transportation industry. Where this is not possible, establish a plan to provide income support and to transition into other employment. Ensure that ride-hailing companies participate in their fair share of that.

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

Any questions from committee members?

R. Kahlon: I do have a question. I didn’t want to be first again. I miss Andrew Weaver, because he would always take turns with me. But I’ll go first.

Thank you for your presentation. I think Ontario’s Supreme Court is now looking at a case regarding one of the TNS companies on the question of whether they’re employees or contractors. I know we had this discussion last round as well about this. Maybe you can go through…. You gave some points on why they’re not contractors, why they should be considered as employees. Maybe you can just touch on those again.

We have had some presenters come to us and say there should be a minimum wage set so that if a driver drives, they are guaranteed to make that wage — just maybe some thoughts on that.

L. Cronk: There are several cases throughout the States. I won’t quote individual cases. The landscape is shifting almost weekly on this. There have been rulings of employee…. There have been rulings in some states, and in prov­inces, not. But the Federation of Labour believes that the current employment standards description is sufficient to cover these folks as employees.

My employment standards days, I admit, are a little rusty. It was a number of decades ago, as a matter of fact. But there is a four-pronged approach used for whether somebody is an employee or not. When you look at the ride-hailing world that exists, for the most part, today, they have very little control.

They may appear to be an independent contractor, to some. It must be them that does the work, not somebody they hire. They don’t have hiring or firing rights. They don’t control what the rate is. The company controls the rate. They don’t control their profit margin. They are often scripted in how they deal with the folks who ride in their vehicles. And if they are not rated properly…. We’ve anecdotally heard of cases where the ride cost is taken away from them.

There is clear evidence out there, and I would say it leads to many of these cases. We had a prominent one. I’ve lost the state that it was in. It happened in 2017, where again, they were considered to be employees. There’s enough control from the…. They’re often branded as how they’re an app and nothing more. Far from that. There is much control over the driver.

R. Kahlon: And the wage piece. Some have suggested that we should set a minimum wage or some living wage or what­ever to drivers. Have you put any thought into that?

L. Cronk: Our view is that once covered by the Employment Standards Act as an employee, the minimum wage piece would fall into line. I mean, there could be discussion, I’m sure, around government setting the fare and the percentage.

[2:00 p.m.]

That’s something else to consider. First and foremost, we would make the argument that they are employees. And then the minimum wage. All of the regulatory schemes, the act and the regulations, are already in place to cover that.

R. Singh: Thank you so much. In the last round, we discussed this in great detail — with the advent of ride-hailing, more precarious part-time jobs. I would be interested…. If ride-hailing comes and if there’s a cap on the supply, do you think that will reduce that part of it, the precarity of it? Or would it be beneficial for the workers if there’s a cap, like the number of cabs coming onto the street?

L. Cronk: I’m not sure what you mean by the gaps on the street.

R. Singh: No, cabs. Rather than unlimited, we put a limit on it.

L. Cronk: Oh, I see. It could play a role. I don’t think that it prejudices whether or not they’re employees. I mean, they’re employees if they meet the definition in the act. Could that play a role outside of that? Absolutely. I think yes.

Sorry. I have construction hearing.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I’m curious about your position that they should be classified as employees. How do you see that as different from the taxi drivers who are renting a car for the day but they don’t own the car? How is that different? They’re driving for a taxi company with a fare regime set in place. They have no control over it. They have no control over how they pick up passengers. How is it different? Can you explain that to me?

L. Cronk: I don’t profess to sit before you as an expert on the taxi industry. I’m sure you’ll hear from many in the taxi industry on that front. What I can tell you is the distinct employment standards tests that are applied when you look at the control through the ride-hailing companies logically result in these folks being employees.

I wouldn’t compare it to the taxi industry. I would look at it per the Employment Standards Act and these employees. That’s the true test.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Well, then, have you looked at that for taxi drivers in the past?

L. Cronk: No, I have not. I’m here to talk about the ride-hailing piece.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I understand that, but we’re talking about individuals who are going to act in almost, essentially, the same way, the only difference being that a TNS or whatever can’t pick up a street fare. More or less, that’s what we’ve been discussing or what we had been discussing and what was proposed in the last go-round. So I’m curious as to you presenting that piece here but not referencing at all the situation for the thousands of drivers who don’t own the vehicle that they drive on a daily basis and them not being employees and not having unionized….

L. Cronk: I can simply say this. I don’t mean to repeat, but two things. I wouldn’t do the disservice to the panel of talking about the taxi industry like I had knowledge that I don’t have of it. I’ll allow them to make their own position on that. Because I don’t know that, I can’t make the comparison myself. I haven’t done a deep dive into the taxi industry and that long-established system.

In this system — I know this from my employment standards days; this is law — you apply the act to the potential employees on the face of it. You don’t compare it to other industries to decide if they’re employees or not. On the face of the test in the act and the language in the act, they should be employees.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, Mr. Cronk. President Cronk, I should say. I think last time, former president Lanzinger was here, and this issue actually did come up. I’m jogging my memory a bit, but my understanding at the time was the B.C. Federation of Labour’s position was that within the taxi industry, if somebody was working in a similar kind of way, where they didn’t really have too much control over their hours, the Fed believe that they, too, should be classified as employees.

I understand there was a recent Labour Relations Board ruling around taxis and employees or people who rent cars, depending on your point of view. I believe they said that they are employees. I’m not an expert, but I guess, to understand it better, is it…? I understand that in some of these apps, if you don’t check in a certain number of times in a month, you can be fired, although you’re also, supposedly, an independent contractor.

Is that the kind of thing that you’re talking about, about lack of control of your own agency, I guess?

L. Cronk: Yes. The act looks at more than one component. They’ll look at control in the workplace. They’ll look at whether or not it is you, or you can have somebody else do the work for you. Do you have that control, or does the employer, potentially, say it must be you?

[2:05 p.m.]

They’ll look at the equipment — whether it’s supplied or whether it isn’t. That’s another component of it. They’ll look at whether you have hiring or firing rates if there are other folks. They’ll look at pieces where it may look like you’re acting like an employer, but you’re acting as an employer on behalf of the employer.

For example, if you’re collecting fares, you’re collecting them on behalf of the ride-hailing company. You’re not collecting them as a contractor, because you’re passing that money back to them, and then they make decisions on that.

They’re setting the rates. They’re setting your wages. They are essentially…. When you get the route, you have to follow the route. They’re setting your prescribed activity when you’re actively doing it.

You have to look at these things in an overall piece. In terms of your original comment on taxis and whether they…. Again, because I don’t have the deep-dive knowledge of the taxi industry, I wouldn’t say that the Fed wouldn’t take a position that they should be employees in some cases.

I would also say that in the jurisdictions…. This is shifting landscape across the country, because it’s a burgeoning industry. Other jurisdictions that have deemed them to be employees under their employment standards acts also have taxis.

J. Johal: Thank you for your presentation as well. My colleague Ms. Cadieux touched on some of the questions that I want to ask you, so I won’t go long.

I just have one question, particularly in regards to a transition fund you had talked about. I was recently talking to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, and I think one of his relatives had owned half-share of a taxi. He’s retired and wasn’t a driver, but he owned a share. I think he unloaded it for about $30,000 or $50,000. About five years ago, that probably would’ve been $300,000 for a half-share.

One would argue that the market is already sort of taking the arrival of ride-sharing — not here but in other jurisdictions…. It’s already worked into the price. So the comments you’re making about a transition fund, I find interesting. I think in the ’90s — I brought this up yesterday — you recall the federal government bought back the fishing fleet to a certain degree.

I’m curious as to what you…. If you could elaborate a little bit more on a transition allowance, how do we deal with some of these folks who are dealing with that disruptive nature of this technology, taking into context all industries are being disrupted?

The Federation of Labour, of course, would know that very well. You have such a wide range of employees, from those working in sawmills to many other places, and everybody’s being disrupted. When you talk about a transition allowance, or helping folks transition, what are we talking about?

L. Cronk: Fascinating question. I’m glad you asked it. You can talk about all sorts of industries federally as well, where the removal of coal across the country…. The federal government has seriously dipped their toe into a transition, it looks like, and are in consultation for the workers that are affected in Alberta and other places on that front.

To your point on the licensing, that they can sell off at the end, I would never begrudge a worker who had put money into a licence to receive something for that at the end of the day. Not to be glib, but $50,000 is nothing to be sneezed at. But when you’re talking about facing unemployment, $50,000 in Vancouver will get you about a planter at the end of a driveway.

I think we need to keep in perspective…. Again, I don’t mean to make light of that money. That’s important. But really, a government looking at a major change to an industry that could result in a lot of disruption for existing workers should, I think, look beyond what they would certainly be entitled to with that payout and say: “How do we ensure that this workforce — still, many will have an awful lot of years left in employable years — receives meaningful transition to something?”

Governments often look to industries that, for them, are somewhat transferable skills to help mitigate those training costs. My point is, and our point is, that government should take seriously the disruption, try and minimize this disruption and, where it’s there, provide meaningful training so that they’re not just taking out what they put in themselves to the cost of the taxi licence, but they actually have something as citizens that they can look forward to productively for good-paying, family-supporting, community-supporting, taxpaying jobs.

A. Olsen: I guess I’m going to struggle to get through this, because I kind of sensed what my colleague MLA Cadieux — what her line of questioning was. While on one hand you say that you’re not an expert in the taxi industry and that you’re not directly comparing them, I believe in your testimony — at least from what I heard — you were kind of using that industry as the wall to bounce your ball off of.

[2:10 p.m.]

You may not be directly comparing them. But you were juxtaposing them and suggesting that one industry, or one aspect of the industry, provides this kind of labour, and the other aspect of it that we’re talking about here coming in basically shouldn’t be allowed because of the labour conditions, which other people who have provided us testimony have told us that essentially, they’re the same.

I think that there’s probably a much longer conversation that we could have somewhere else on another day about the two and the Fed’s position on taxis. I guess I need a little bit of help understanding where the distinction is for you.

On one hand, we’ve been told that there’s very little distinction to be made. On the other hand…. As well, you suggest that…. Anyway, I repeat myself.

L. Cronk: Again, I’m not going to try and dive into the taxi industry as an expert, because I’m not. But I will say this. I heard you mention a minute ago to the effect that we’re saying we shouldn’t do this because of the employment issues. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this. I’m saying while you do it, you should bear in mind the most important commodity within the ride-hailing system, which is the employee or the person driving the vehicle.

We’re not saying: “Don’t do ride-hailing.” We’re saying: “Respect the worker along the way.” There’s a big distinction between those two things. I think I’ll leave it at that.

P. Milobar: Thanks for your presentation. I appreciate you weren’t here last year making the presentation, but most of us were here, and the same issue around “are they an employee or not under employment standards?” came up. That was a year ago. Move forward ten months, and we finally have Bill 55. Now here we are two and a half months later.

I’m just wondering. Has your organization sought out clarification, in partnership or as part of a submission by the government to get clarification, around whether or not drivers in TNSs are actually employees or not? Or is the hope: don’t worry about what the employment standards branch may or may not think about it? Do you want the government to bring in rules that just say: “Regardless of what the branch may think or not think, this is the new rule and this is the new classification”?

L. Cronk: That’s a good question. I would put it to you this way. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as the president of the Fed to have this come in without clarity for the ride-hailing companies, clarity for the potential drivers of these vehicles on whether employment standards apply or not.

Have we applied to employment standards for an opinion on it? No. I’m not even sure we’d have the process under the act to make that application until somebody was in the position. But I think this commission has the ability to work within its framework to make a recommendation that that should be done before ride-hailing comes in.

That should be looked at and determined so that we don’t spend the next six months or a year of ride-hailing with the best intentions on one side or the other and a whole bunch of employees trying to battle for something and find out afterwards whether they are or they’re not. If they find out that they are and the ride-hailing companies didn’t think they were going to be, now you’ve got some mayhem in the system that you have an opportunity right now to stop from happening.

We contend they should be employees. I would closely…. Like contention 1(a), we need clarity.

P. Milobar: So just to clarify, your preferred method wouldn’t be, necessarily, an overriding rule brought in, a piece of legislation or a regulation by government. You’d rather it run a proper course through the branch and get them to make a ruling independent of political interference.

L. Cronk: Well, the branch will make its own ruling regardless. They’re within their mandate to make it under the regulations that they have. The Employment Standards Act needs revision. The Employment Standards Act needs to start to look at the differences in the gig economy and sectoral bargaining type of arrangements and how that affects workers in the union and non-union area, particularly non-union there.

I think there’s room for this commission and government to look at whether or not this can be concluded before ride-hailing comes in. I don’t believe there’s an avenue for the Federation of Labour to receive that from the employment standards branch, so I’m appealing through this body to get that done.

[2:15 p.m.]

J. Sturdy: Thank you for your explanation there, your thoughts. It’s interesting.

I want to dive a little bit deeper on the issue of minimum wage or a living wage or some formal wage level. I’ve heard this from many different parties at this table. Understanding how the app actually works…. You may have the app on for an extended period of time, or you may be sitting at home watching television. You have an opportunity to determine whether or not you want to accept a ride, which I do think actually plays into the issue of whether you’re an employee or not. But we’ll leave that one aside.

What would the Fed’s expectation be around compensation or minimum wage? Is it when you accept the ride, or is it when you turn your app on?

L. Cronk: Another really good question. I don’t want to take my 1997 employment standards hat and put it on and tell you what the ruling would be under the act. We are sufficiently convinced these are employees. Then the act would apply, and the act would decide what that is.

There is some technical expertise needed on the question you’re asking that I don’t profess to have exactly, but I can tell you this. There’s a minimum two-hour call-out right now. I recognize this isn’t an everyday occurrence, but at one end of the spectrum, if somebody performed a 30-minute drive in a day, the Employment Standards Act would require at least two hours of pay. It used to be four; it’s been reduced to two. We would contend it should be back to four. Nonetheless, that would be one example.

What happens in terms of an on-call provision…. I could cite chapter and verse of how we deal with that under collective agreements. Employment standards will have its own version of it. They’ll be sufficiently codified within their documentation to be able to deal with that.

The primary question is: are they an employee? Then the rest of the act follows that. So there will be some minimum call-out provisions in the act that will apply. The going in, going out, going in, going out, waiting at home — I’d have to defer to an employment standards ruling on that.

J. Sturdy: I’d just comment, then, that I think you’re maybe very urban-centric. In much of British Columbia, the reality is you get a call or a couple of calls a week. So the question…. I would suggest that what you’re proposing would ensure that we’d never see ride-hailing anywhere but where there’s a density of activity.

L. Cronk: I don’t think a two-hour minimum necessarily, if there was a call in a day, at minimum wage, is going to put ride-hailing out of business.

J. Sturdy: It will make it impossible, absolutely. On Bowen Island, you will not have ride-hailing. I guarantee you that. In Pemberton, you will not have ride-hailing.

I think you need to consider that when you’re thinking about society overall. I’m not trying to be argumentative, but when you’re talking about the rest of British Columbia, there’s an important service to be provided, as well, that needs to be facilitated and supported.

L. Cronk: Maybe a conversation for the Employment Standards Act and how it looks at gig and sectoral issues coming forward as well.

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

Mr. Cronk and Ms. Moffatt, thank you so much for coming out today.

Our next presenter is Mr. Joe Castiglione from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. Can I say thank you so much for taking the time to come up here from San Francisco to present to our committee. We’re very, very grateful.

J. Castiglione: I want to just thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you about our experience in San Francisco.

B. Ma (Chair): Wonderful. You will be provided with 25 minutes of uninterrupted time to present. We normally then have 20 minutes of questions afterwards. But given the distance that you’ve come, and we are running a little bit early…. You’ve already agreed to allow us to extend your question time a little bit, and we’re very grateful for that as well. We’ll run questions all the way till 3:15, which is the next presentation. So it will go ten minutes long.

Do you have any questions for us before you begin?

J. Castiglione: I don’t think so.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you, again, for making your way up here. Please proceed when you are ready.

SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY
TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY

J. Castiglione: First, I’ll start with an introduction of myself and the agency that I work for. My name is Joe Castiglione, and I’m the deputy director for technology, data and analysis for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.

[2:20 p.m.]

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is an agency that was created about 30 years ago to administer funds — we’re primarily a fiscal agent — that are collected from sales taxes. We then distribute those funds and prioritize projects. In the intervening decades, we’ve taken on some additional roles, including the Congestion Management Agency for San Francisco County as well as charge for all of the long-range planning that happens in the county for transportation. It’s in these capacities that we undertook a lot of the work that we’ve been doing on TNCs.

I want to first talk about…. My presentation, I think, is slightly different than some of the others. I know there was a request to address the key issues or topics of interest to the committee that included where they should operate and boundaries and so on, but I want to take it a little bit further.

Number one is to say that in reviewing those questions, I think there is a much broader set of concerns, which are in some cases explicit and in some cases implicit, that go beyond things like just the geographic coverage but address things like how we ensure timely and reliable service. What is an appropriate fleet size, if that’s a question we want to answer. How do we think about and address questions of congestion? How do we deal with equity and affordability issues? What about the public safety concerns and disabled access and, as the prior speakers were just talking about, wages?

The first speaker this afternoon referred to how we understand…. The term we call it is TNC in California, for transportation network company, so you’ll have to forgive my habit of referring to TNCs and not TNSs. I’m also going to refer to miles and not kilometres. And, you know, how do we deal with things like the existing investments we’ve made?

That could be something like a taxi medallion, as we call them in San Francisco. But it could also be something like, for example, in the Bay Area, where we’ve made a multi-billion-dollar investment to extend BART, the heavy rail system, all the way to our airport and the implications that we’ve seen with respect to ridership on BART in light of the availability of TNCs. Of course, there’s always the question of compatibility with the existing regulatory regimes and, everyone’s favourite topic, data.

What I’d like to do first is walk you through a brief history of TNCs in San Francisco — and I mean very brief — and then describe to you or present to you a profile of TNC activity. The reason why I’d like to do that is because I think it brings into relief some of the questions that I think you all have been grappling with. Then I’d like to describe to you some very comprehensive quantitative analysis that we have done on the effects of TNCs that we’ve seen in San Francisco. I think all of this is with an eye towards giving you an understanding of the outcomes that have occurred in San Francisco in the context of the California TNC regulatory regime, which I would say is generally pretty permissive.

San Francisco, of course, is maybe not the place where TNCs started but certainly the place where they got a lot of early traction. Between 2010 and 2012, a few different TNC companies came on line in San Francisco and, in fact, are based in San Francisco, including Uber and Lyft and some that didn’t last. They existed initially well within the existing regulatory framework.

In fact, Uber was essentially a licensed carrier, but then it became somewhat extra-regulatory. So then in 2013, the legislature in California determined that the California Public Utilities Commission would be the regulator for TNCs statewide. This is a little bit different than how taxis have been typically regulated, which has been at the level of the individual municipality.

The effect is that we actually have in San Francisco two different schemes. We have taxis operating, and we have TNCs operating. Indeed, the line between them is blurring a little bit as taxis have adopted apps and so on. But there are some significant differences, including the fact that there is no cap on TNC fleet sizes in San Francisco. Of course, there is a cap on the number of taxis that can operate.

There are no pricing controls. Of course, pricing for taxis in San Francisco is regulated. There are no TNC per-trip fees, which many jurisdictions have enacted around the country, in the U.S., except for some exceptions at airports by virtue of ground access. And there’s no TNC data that’s going to the jurisdictions. TNCs are required to report data to the CPUC, but none of that data is shared with jurisdictions.

[2:25 p.m.]

That’s a pretty brief history. I think in San Francisco, when TNCs first came on line, people were super excited about having this new mobility option. It was inexpensive. It was responsive. Getting a cab in San Francisco was always very difficult. It sounds like that’s probably been the case here in Vancouver. It was really viewed as an unmitigated positive.

Now, TNCs have been in San Francisco for almost nine years — about eight years, a little bit more. In the last few years, it did seem as though we reached a bit of an inflection point where people were saying: “Well yeah, this was really great. I really appreciate it. But it seems like there are an awful lot of these cars on the street right now.” The way that we identify these vehicles in San Francisco — and in the state, in fact — is that there’s a trade dress, essentially a sticker on a window. Not quite as strong a brand as, say, a Yellow Cab but still identifiable.

It was around this time that our decision-makers said: “Well, can you help us answer this question?” And I want to maybe emphasize a couple of things. One, one of the earlier speakers mentioned that more data leads to better decision-making. I think that that’s absolutely true, and that’s an ethos that we embrace very strongly at the transportation authority in San Francisco.

Everything I’m going to present to you is all very data-driven, all the analysis. We always get peer-review by academics, by other agencies, and importantly, all of the data that we use for this analysis, we make available to the public. It’s anonymized. It’s aggregated. There’s no risk of any personally identifiable information being released. We believe that that kind of transparency is really important so that if somebody else wants to come along — another agency, another researcher, another company — and say, “Well, I think you got this wrong,” they have the data to make such an assertion.

We came out with a report. It’s called TNCs Today. It came out about 18 months ago, and we sought to answer a few key questions. Number one was just how many TNCs are operating in San Francisco. By that, I mean both the number of people who we think are driving for TNCs as well as the number of vehicles that are on the road at any one time. How many TNC trips are occurring in San Francisco, where are those trips occurring, and when are those trips occurring?

How much VMT TNCs generate. The term VMT refers to vehicle miles travelled, so this is a kind of measure of how much driving around TNCs are doing. The reason why this is really important is that in the state of California — and, specifically, in San Francisco already — we’ve embraced VMT as a new standard for assessing the environmental impacts of transportation and land use projects, as opposed to, say, what would have been traditionally used — something like roadway level of service or speeds.

Finally, and this is a bit of an equity perspective, do TNCs provide geographic coverage across the entire city?

There are a couple of links here that I include because for each one of the reports that we put out, in addition to being able to, as I said, download the data and download the report, we also create an interactive visualization of the data so that folks can go in and play around with it. I personally have a lot of fun with it, and I encourage people to check it out.

The first question is: how many TNCs are operating in San Francisco today? The first thing I’ll say is that it’s really difficult. In San Francisco, because TNCs are regulated by the state, we have no way of knowing exactly how many TNC drivers are driving in San Francisco.

However, by virtue of doing business as independent contractors in San Francisco, they are required to register with the city. So we were able to, with the comptroller’s office, basically estimate how many drivers are doing business in San Francisco and, based on their doing-business address, figure out how many are actually San Francisco residents.

It was pretty striking. There were about 20,000 people, a little over that, that we estimated were TNC drivers. Interestingly, less than 30 percent actually had San Francisco residence or business addresses. About 70 percent of the people who were driving around in TNCs, or the drivers, are coming in from the other eight counties in the Bay Area.

What you see…. There are a couple of charts here. For the most part in this report, we try and compare TNCs to taxis. So the data from TNCs that we have comes from the very end, November and December, of 2016. You might of course first be asking the question: “Didn’t you just say that you can’t get data?” Well, this was a very compelling, I think, public question that we were being asked.

We did try and solicit and request from the CPUC the data on TNCs. They said it was not in the public interest to share that with us, even as a public agency. So we had a collaboration with some computer scientists at Northeastern University in Boston who scraped the APIs of Uber and Lyft for about six weeks, handed over to us about 12 terabytes of telemetry data, which is basically all of the location, spatial and time-stamp data of when all the vehicles are out of service, when they’re driving around looking for rides.

[2:30 p.m.]

With the help of my esteemed colleague, Drew Cooper, we were able to kind of distil that down into the information that you see here. We have had a chance to validate it a couple of times and get some insights into some data that has been shared with us. In all cases, the data has essentially measured up extremely well.

What you see here, in the chart on the left, is the black line represents the number of TNC vehicles that are out on the street at any given time of day. The yellow line represents the number of taxis that are out on the street by time of day. This is in late 2016.

What do we see? On the left is a typical weekday. It shows that there are at least, in order of magnitude, more TNCs on the street in San Francisco than there are taxis. I think this speaks to the question of: what is the impact of having an essentially unconstrained supply? There is a tremendous amount of supply that kind of rolls in to satisfy the demand that’s happening in San Francisco. At peak times of day, there are about 15 times as many TNCs on the streets as there are taxis.

The other thing that I would note on the chart on the left is that it looks like you see two peaks. There’s an a.m. peak, and there’s a p.m. peak, on a typical weekday. This looks very much like the travel patterns we see for people driving themselves, for taking transit. So a lot of the rhetoric around TNCs really filling needs around evening and weekend service is absolutely true but ignores the fact that there’s tremendous — in fact, the vast majority — travel happening during the peak periods and in the midday.

We do see evening travel, though, that’s quite notable on the weekends. You see that reflected in the chart on the right, where you can see the black line keeps going. As you move farther and farther to the right, it still stays at a very high number. That shows that TNCs are quite active up until about midnight on Friday, and then it begins to tail off.

How many trips are happening in San Francisco? In San Francisco, there are about 170,000 trips on a typical weekday. We estimate that that’s about 15 percent of all intra-S.F. vehicle trips. That’s a very significant number, because eight years ago, it was zero percent. As I said, it’s between ten and 15 times the number of taxi trips.

I should also note that this is a conservative estimate. This was just intra-S.F. trips. So folks going back and forth to SFO, the big airport, or down to Silicon Valley, or possibly even across the Bay Bridge to the East Bay or to the North Bay, are not reflected in this. As a share of all intra–San Francisco person-trips, not just vehicle trips, it’s about 9 percent. Somebody noted that it may, at one point, overtake transit. Certainly, the trend line that we’ve started to see is that TNCs are very much competing with transit at this point.

When are the trips occurring? I won’t dwell on this too much, other than to say a couple of things. The chart on the top shows by day of week. So the farthest to the left is Monday. You can see the number of trips grows, from about 120,000 to 130,000 on Monday to about 220,000 on Friday. This was, again, about two years ago, so undoubtedly, it’s higher still now. Then it drops off. It stays very high on Saturdays and drops off on Sundays.

Then, in the chart on the bottom, you can see that time-of-day pattern. You can see that there really is a consistent a.m. and p.m. peak during the weekdays, and then, on then three peaks off to the far right, you can actually see what we call the kind of getting-out-of-bar spike, where there’s that little third spike at the end, and that happens around midnight. So that is really happening and is evidenced in this data.

Where are trips happening? I think this is the main takeaway from the TNCs Today report, that the majority of the trips that are TNC trips are happening in the most congested parts of San Francisco at the most congested times of day.

That’s what you see kind of lighting up here. This is a heat map of TNC activity. For those of you who are familiar with San Francisco, you’ll quickly recognize that that really bright spot in the northeast quadrant is our downtown, our South of Market. It’s really where the vast majority of the employment is. It’s where the high-density residences are.

You do see some kinds of corridors light up as well. The Geary corridor in the east-west — again, a very high transit-use corridor — typically carries the bus lines that are over 50,000 or 60,000 riders a day. And then the Mission corridor, which heads north-south down towards the county line, is of course also where there’s a lot of high-intensity transit.

At the peak periods, we estimate that the share of auto trips, vehicle trips, happening in the South of Market, which is really our kind of growth area right now, is about 25 percent. So it’s a very significant share.

I won’t dwell on this one too much. I don’t know that VMT is as much of a concern for you all as it is for us in San Francisco and in California. This shows the amount of VMT that’s generated by TNCs and taxis relatively. We can break out both what we call in-service, when they’re carrying a passenger, or out-of-service, when they’re basically just deadheading and not carrying a passenger.

[2:35 p.m.]

We estimate that TNCs add about 570,000 vehicle miles of travel every single weekday, so over one million in a typical week. That represents about 6½ percent of the total VMT on San Francisco streets and about 20 percent of the intra–San Francisco VMT.

It’s not all a bad picture in the sense that TNCs are actually a little bit more efficient from a deadheading perspective than taxis, most likely by virtue of the fleet size. There are so many of these vehicles out there, they simply don’t have to drive as far to pick up their next ride, whereas the taxi fleet is much smaller, so there’s a lot more deadheading. We estimate about 20 percent of total VMT generated by TNCs is deadhead, which is just all essentially bad. There’s no passenger being carried by it. But for taxis, that’s almost 40 percent, so it’s significantly higher.

With respect to the question of equity, do TNCs provide a high degree of geographic coverage throughout the city? This was a little trickier to explain, but we tried to look at this a couple of ways. In the chart on the right, you see the ratio of TNC trips to taxi trips. The darker areas show that TNCs are actually doing a much better job of serving the western and southern parts of the city, which are often less transit-accessible, and some of the lower-economic, lower-income neighbourhoods, if you can imagine there are any in San Francisco anymore.

It actually shows that TNCs were providing accessibilities that taxis simply weren’t providing. Conversely, in the map on the right, you can see that this is the ratio of TNC trips per population and job. So it’s almost like how many trips you’re making per person. You can see, actually, though, that most of these trips are still concentrated in that northeastern quadrant, which is the most congested part of the city.

What this report showed us was that there are a lot of TNC trips. They’re happening in the most congested parts of the city, for the most part, at the most congested times of day. They are providing some accessibility in the evenings and on weekends, perhaps when transit service is less pronounced. But what we couldn’t answer is: what does this mean? Are TNCs affecting our transit ridership, which has been pretty much flat? This is a bit surprising, because we’ve added a lot of population and jobs, as you can see underneath the chart on the right. Something like 70,000 new people moved to San Francisco between 2010 and 2016. Over 150,000 new jobs between 2010 and 2016, yet our transit ridership was flat.

San Francisco has a very high transit mode share, relatively speaking, for American cities, but we couldn’t say anything about whether TNCs were affecting transit ridership. We couldn’t say anything about whether TNCs were affecting congestion, who was using them and for what purposes, how much they were paying, what the true occupancy was, etc.

We just released our most recent report last October, which seeks to answer the kind of top-line question that everybody said, which is: are TNCs affecting congestion? I mentioned earlier that we, as the congestion management agency for San Francisco, track congestion and have been doing so since the early ’90s. What you see on the chart and the map on the right is what we call the level of service. It’s essentially a measure of speed. You see a fair amount of yellow, which is kind of average, a few places that are orange, not too many places that are red but a fair amount of green too.

That was 2009. By 2017, you can see that the entire South of Market and north of Market networks had changed to red, which essentially means that speeds had dropped really precipitously. It’s not just limited to the northeast quadrant. Speeds dropped everywhere, on average. This is the one place where I did a conversion from about 27 kilometres per hour to about 19. So it was a rather significant drop, more than a 25 percent drop, in speeds. Delay went up by about 63 percent.

We did look at things like auto ownership. There was no change in auto ownership on any kind of per-capita basis. But as I said, we did have a lot of population growth, a lot of employment growth and some network changes — for example, reconstructing the big freeway that connected the Golden Gate Bridge to the downtown, taking roadway capacity for bus lanes and for bike lanes. All those things can affect congestion as well.

What we sought to answer with this report is: of all these factors, or at least these four primary factors, how much does each account for the changes in congestion that we’ve seen? This is what we found. When you look at the effects of network, population growth, employment growth and TNC growth, this is the change in congestion, using three very common measures of congestion, that we attribute to each of those factors.

In all cases, about half of the increase in delay, we estimate, is attributable to TNCs and about a quarter each to population and employment growth. Very little increase in congestion is due to network growth — something like between 1 and 4 percent.

[2:40 p.m.]

The measures that we used were delay, a common measure that not just economists but other people like to use, as well, because it represents how much extra time people are spending stuck in traffic; VMT, which, as I’ve mentioned, is a really important metric for us for environmental quality analyses in the state of California and the county of San Francisco; and then just average speeds, which is a very common measure. That’s what we use for our level of service, and it’s very understandable to everybody. The changes, however, did not play out equally in space and time.

Here’s a look at changes in average speeds for the five time periods that we looked at. What you can see during the middle of the day — that’s 6 a.m. to nine, nine to three and three to six — is that on average during this period, speeds decreased by about three miles per hour, and between 45 and 55 percent of that increase, we estimate, was attributable to TNCs. There was a really precipitous decline in speeds in the evening, though, where the average speeds went down by over four miles per hour. I’m not sure. Was that six kilometres per hour or something? We estimate that about 75 percent of that change was due to additional TNC traffic.

Here’s how it played out in space. Now, I know that you aren’t familiar with the supervisorial districts, but that’s what each one of these bar charts represents. I’ll have to describe to you what each of these locations is. You can see that this is a measure of the increase in hours of delay, every single typical weekday.

D6, which is district 6, represents the South of Market, Treasure Island and Mission Bay, places where we’ve had a huge amount of growth in the last six years: over 12,000 hours of additional delay every single day, but less than 50 percent of that is actually attributable to TNCs. In fact, employment growth accounts for something like 36 percent of the increase in delay, which I think would conform with people’s visual impression of South of Market, which is a huge number of new towers, Salesforce, etc.

District 3, however, also increased by about 6,000 hours of delay. District 3 is the traditional downtown core, Chinatown and North Beach It has not experienced that much population or employment growth, but it did have a fair increase in delay. Over three-quarters of that delay, we estimate, is due to TNCs.

If you go out to some of the western neighbourhoods, like district 4, the Sunset District, there’s very little increase in delay between these two years, and certainly very little that would be attributable to TNCs. This, I think, has implications when folks start to think about policies.

In district 3 and district 6, where there was the greatest increase in delay, we actually have incredibly rich transit service — heavy rail, light rail, bus. In district 4, we do have some bus service, some light rail service, but it’s not nearly as intense as it is in the downtown core. So there are different places where TNCs can be more or less effective in helping to provide those kinds of mobility options to folks.

In summary, I guess I would say…. This is a slide that one of our collaborators, Dr. Greg Erhardt at the University of Kentucky, created. When we try to answer this question of do TNCs contribute to congestion…. Well, when we look at deadheading, almost certainly they are making congestion worse through deadheading, driving around without passengers. It varies by city, varies by location, but it certainly does increase congestion.

Pickups and drop-offs. This was something really interesting, I think, that we did in our study. It speaks to the importance of the granularity of the data. For example, data that’s reported to the CPUC is done at a zip code– postal code–level that’s relatively aggregated. In San Francisco, there are about 30, so they’re quite large. The data that our collaborators were able to share with us and that we were able to then distil actually allows us to get estimates of the actual number of TNCs that are driving around on every directional street segment, including an imputation of where the pickup and drop-off locations are.

We then — I won’t bore you with the statistics — did some panel regression models to say how much do each…? Are TNCs contributing to congestion? And then: what are the factors? Is it when they’re driving around with a passenger? Is it when they’re driving around without a passenger, the deadheading? Or is it the pickups and drop-offs? I don’t know if this is your experience here or in other cities where there are TNCs presently, but it’s not uncommon to see folks getting in and out of cars that are blocking traffic, interrupting flow, blocking transit. We actually found that what we call the PUDO, the pickup and drop-off effect, was significant, about 80 seconds of additional delay.

[2:45 p.m.]

This is not just the time that the person is getting out of the car. As they’re getting out of the car, there’s also a car behind them that’s queued up and a car behind them that’s queued up. What we’re quantifying is all of that delay. On minor arterials, it was about 80 seconds for pickup and drop-off, and on major arterials, it was about 140 seconds for pickup and drop-off.

With respect to the spatial distribution — almost certainly increasing congestion. I think the first speaker this afternoon referred to the fact that if you add one vehicle in the downtown core in the peak period, that is a very different effect than adding one vehicle out in the neighbourhoods in the middle of the night or after bars are getting out.

With respect to ride-sharing, there is some evidence that there is some increased ride-sharing. I think the companies have done a great job of trying to promote this. Certainly, people are choosing…. Now, whether they end up getting paired with somebody…. It does suggest that increased ride-sharing is probably helping to mitigate some congestion.

Mode substitution. Now, this is where it gets quite interesting because there is a body of literature that’s really actually out there right now. You know, if somebody were just driving in their car by themselves or maybe with their family and they decide to take a TNC instead — perhaps they want to come home after drinking — it’s kind of a net wash. They would have driven anyway. Another vehicle is on the road.

For every person who would have taken transit and is now in a TNC or would have ridden a bike or would have walked even — the UCLA example was mentioned earlier — that’s a new vehicle trip, holding on to the fact that there are even induced trips. The idea is that by providing a new mobility option, which is undeniably a good thing, you’re actually getting people to travel more, and that also adds more vehicles and adds more delay.

Right now the literature suggests that about 5 to 12 percent of TNC vehicle trips appear to be induced trips. That’s kind of a good thing. People are wanting to take trips they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. But something like between 50 and 60-plus percent of the TNC trips are shifts from transit, from biking and walking. And that’s not really the direction that we want to be going. I think it also speaks to the question of competition versus complementarity with respect to transit.

On that transit first mile, last mile, the literature is a little bit ambiguous. We have found some evidence that does provide first mile, last mile to heavy rail, commuter rail. But for light rail, urban light rail and buses, it does actually seem to consume some of that ridership.

We haven’t just been engaging in these kinds of quantitative analyses. In fact, our next report is specifically looking at the relationship between TNCs and transit ridership. But we’ve also done a couple of other reports.

One that I want to mention first is the emerging mobility report findings. This looked at not just TNCs. TNCs are one new mobility option. You may not experience it with quite the intensity or frequency that we do in San Francisco, but it seems like, every couple of months, we have a new mobility option — mopeds, electric scooters, dockless shared bikes. What this report seeks to do is to try to understand, along some of these principles that the city has established, how well we’re measuring up on things like safety, equity, labour force issues, and so on.

And it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are some things that I think have been really good — for example, with respect to safety. This, I think, does speak to some of your questions about what kinds of regulations may be appropriate. Drivers are subjected to background checks. But there are things that seem like they’re perhaps not the most safe — like relying on in-app messaging. The safety training is not actually required.

One of the things is that, in California, drivers can drive for, I want to say, ten hours in a day. But if you’re driving for two services, there’s nothing…. The TNCs do, I understand, monitor to make sure that people don’t drive for ten hours on their service, but there’s no coordination. So many, many drivers drive for multiple services at the same time. They could easily drive, if they wanted to, for 20 hours, and it would go undetected.

In fact, the San Francisco police department did a study on traffic infractions between 2014 and 2017 in that really dense South of Market area. About 75 percent of the traffic infractions, regarding blocking lanes or illegal U-turns, were accruing to TNCs. As I said, they only represent about 25 percent of the trips there, so that’s a much higher level of incidence.

With respect to equity, some of the concerns that have been identified in our study were that there were no low-income fare products. There was no way for folks — at least, at the time this report came out last summer — to book or pay unless you had access to the Internet or a smartphone. On the other hand, they do provide accessibility at times and in places where that might not be available.

[2:50 p.m.]

I do think this needs to be understood, though, when we talk about why there are so many drivers in the core. It’s much easier for a driver, probably, to have a hope of making a reasonable wage if they’re in a high-density area. That’s why we have 70 percent of the drivers coming in from outside San Francisco. They’re not staying in their home counties to drive around; they’re coming into the city to drive and make money.

It suggests that TNCs do provide better accessibility in some of the neighbourhoods that aren’t well served by taxis. With respect to disabled access, again, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are options that are available, but they actually cost more, which seems inequitable. Again, with labour, for sure, there have been great opportunities for people to enter the workforce, but the wage rates often aren’t very transparent.

I would encourage you, if you look at the…. I’m going to skip ahead right here. This is all in the emerging mobility evaluation link that I provided at the bottom. We have a TNC regulatory framework paper that also talks about not just the regulatory framework in San Francisco and in California but across the United States — which I think might be a helpful reference point, if you haven’t discovered it already — and then the two reports that we put out in the last 18 months: TNCs Today, the profile, and TNCs and Congestion.

I want to just finally talk about the data. It was raised: “Well, why should we be putting a burden on TNCs to report data that other people aren’t required to report?” Now, in San Francisco, that’s not the best argument, because we actually do require people to report this. For example, taxis have an API, and all of the analysis that you saw for taxis is based on the same type of telemetry data that we get for TNCs. It’s based on the same data that we get for taxis.

Similarly in San Francisco, there are shuttle buses, the Google buses, the big tech shuttles. They also have to provide telemetry data to the city to make sure that they are operating only on approved arterials and so on. The information is required of other providers in San Francisco.

There have been no issues with personally identifiable information being revealed. It is highly detailed, which has allowed us to do things like understand what the curb implications and the delay implications may be with pickup and drop-off, which have direct implications, potentially, for policies. But it is, again, all anonymized and aggregated.

Conversely, the TNC data in California is just reported to the state. We can’t see any of it. No agency has seen any of it. And it’s very aggregate. For example, if you wanted to try and answer the question of first- and last-mile transit access via TNCs, the data that’s currently reported under the state regulatory regime would not be precise enough to allow you to make those conclusions.

I hope I didn’t go on too long. Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you about the work that we’ve seen and the outcomes that we’ve seen in San Francisco.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much. I hope committee members will forgive me. I did allow that presentation to complete.

J. Johal: First of all, thank you for your presentation. That was great to see. I learned a lot. We have a tendency in Vancouver here, sometimes, to compare ourselves to New York and what’s happening in New York. I always think that when you’ve got similar-sized cities like San Francisco or the region and Vancouver, it’s a much better example for us to learn from.

A very broad question, first of all. Your presentation was very interesting. If we look at societal standards, employ­ment standards, minimum wage, those are the kinds of conversations we’ve been having over the last couple of days. Taking that into context with everything you’ve said today, is your community well served in regard to those two industries — taxis, TNCs? You’ve got transit, but the overall needs of your community…. With what you’re seeing, what you’ve explained to us today, do you believe your community is well served?

J. Castiglione: I think embedded in that question is: what is the objective? If the objective is…. As a congestion management agency, we obviously keep our eye on congestion. If we see a very radical increase in congestion over the course of a relatively short time frame and then see that about half, by our estimates, of that increase is attributable to one sector, then that might be a cause for alarm. We might say: “Well, maybe that isn’t serving the city as well.” But as I observed earlier, for sure, TNCs are serving areas of the city that were not being well served by the taxi industry. I don’t want to get into a critique of the taxi industry in San Francisco, but I’ll offer a few tidbits.

[2:55 p.m.]

One is that ostensibly, by virtue of the medallion, holders are supposed to have their vehicles out on the street all the time. Basically, that’s the privilege of having that medallion. Our analysis suggests that we’re nowhere near close to that. Maybe 50 to 60 percent of the vehicles are on the road at any given time, which is far short of what they’re required to be. So from an equity perspective, I think there’s a compelling argument to make that, in fact, this is an improvement in the city.

From the perspective of, say, wages, this is one area where we haven’t been able to say too much. I want to take great caution in it. My role is as the director for technology, data and analysis. I don’t make policy decisions; I’m not a board member. But with respect to wages, we just don’t have any good information about that.

I think there have been studies that have come out now that have said something like after accounting for costs, people are making something like around what the minimum wage is in San Francisco but certainly not significantly more than that. If that is deemed to be….

San Francisco is a very expensive place to live. What’s happening is that we’re having a lot more vehicles. People aren’t…. As I said, 70 percent of the drivers probably can’t afford it. Probably the reason why we have 70 percent of the people driving in is because San Francisco is an expensive spot to live. The trade-offs between wages and costs of living are complex.

I’m not trying to dodge your question. I just think it’s: what is it that we’re trying to achieve? I think the reality is that we’re trying to achieve lots of things, and it’s: how do we balance them?

J. Johal: Yeah. I appreciate your answer. One of the things in your presentation that you talked about was no fleet size, no pricing controls, no per-trip fees, no data reporting. I’ll exclude data reporting just for a moment. We’ve been debating many issues here. One of them is class 4 or class 5. Class 5 is what the average driver would have. Class 4 is a higher standard, greater responsibility. Has there been any broader conversation in San Francisco?

It is the Silicon Valley. It is, I would argue, the tech capital of the world, so things are a little different there. But has there been a conversation there — you lead the world, in many cases, with many of your start-ups — in actually looking at some of these issues and bringing in a class 4 or class 5 type of system, a geofencing conversation or price controls? Has there been that type of conversation after the fact, presently?

J. Castiglione: I can partially answer that question. I don’t know whether there have been after-the-fact questions about whether there needs to be a new licensing regime. I haven’t heard anything about that, and I don’t think there’s been sufficient evidence to suggest that there has been any great increase in risk or exposure to the public with the current licensing regime.

With respect to things like geofencing, there has been some precedent for that now happening, and that has often been done in a collaborative spirit by the companies themselves. For example, around the Caltrain station, which is in South of Market, a very busy area, tens of thousands of folks take the train up from Silicon Valley or down to Silicon Valley, and there is geofencing around there to help manage the congestion around that node. That’s one of the highest TNC locations that we see, although many of those TNC trips appear to be going short of a mile to downtown, and there’s a bus that does that.

There have also been some examples of voluntary geofencing around a very popular kind of eating and dining street, Valencia Street. So there are some examples for the ability to flexibly do that, and again, the first speaker this afternoon mentioned that. I think there are great prospects for doing that.

J. Johal: A final question. I guess Uber and Lyft would, for you, technically be local companies, being Silicon Valley.

J. Castiglione: That’s correct.

J. Johal: Here we’re having that conversation as well. We have, here in my community, illegal ride-hailing already, which is language-based. We have a very large Chinese community that’s already being serviced, even though the service is illegal. How well have cooperatives or smaller companies — perhaps focusing on geographical area, not Uber or Lyft — fared in San Francisco?

J. Castiglione: Well, there were at least one or two other TNCs that came out — I think Side Car was one of them — around the same time as Lyft in 2011 or 2012 and that no longer exist. It was smaller and didn’t survive.

The taxis do have a cooperative that is legally a TNC and has an app. It’s not just street-hail. You can hail them via the app. I can’t speak to whether they’re doing better or worse or just holding their ground, but they’re still out there on the street.

There have been other…. This was in the news a couple of weeks ago. San Francisco is a bit of a petri dish for these new mobility options, like Microtransit, which is basically kind of crowd-sourced transit routes in San Francisco. There were a few of these companies. Now they’ve all gone by the wayside. The last one — Chariot, I think — announced they are folding imminently. They’re owned by Ford.

[3:00 p.m.]

I think it’s challenging for smaller entities to do so. Again, I think the taxi is probably the one that has sustained, but that is probably due in no small part to the fact that they do have established relationships, history. Folks who show up in San Francisco and don’t have an app know they can get a cab and so on.

P. Milobar: I’ll just touch on one, and maybe a follow-up question, depending.

You touched on the more outlying areas in terms of…. It’s actually been a bit of a benefit, underserved by the taxis, and the congestion in more of the downtown cores or the more heavily densified areas, either by people living in those areas or working, or both, in those areas — much like the downtown core of Vancouver or the capital regional district around Victoria. However, we have large stretches…. I mean, in the city I’m from, 100,000 people, we joke it’s called rush minute and not rush hour, right? So we have a pretty divergent system in British Columbia in terms of transportation areas.

It stands to reason, arguably, that all the downtown cores, as they densify, are going to see congestion regardless of what types of transportation options are out there, simply because you keep increasing population in an area that was designed at the turn of the century, the last century. It’s probably not meant to withstand that type of population growth and employment growth without some sort of congestion happening.

The question, I guess, I have is for those outlying areas. As you referenced, it’s typically lower socioeconomic incomes in those areas, as there are in most cities the farther you get out. Have you noticed…? You said underserved by cabs until the TNCs came in, and they’ve been able to fill that void. But did the TNCs result in a putting on hold of any transit expansion into those areas as well? Typically, those areas aren’t just underserved by taxis. They’re underserved by public transit as well, because the volumes don’t justify more frequent runs every five, ten, 15 minutes, service like you’d see on a major corridor to a university or anything like that.

Have you seen anything where the TNCs, other than in that downtown core congestion, have threatened outlying transit expansion or anything like that, other than that they’ve provided more service to those areas?

J. Castiglione: In San Francisco, I would say no. San Francisco continues to be very bullish on transit and is a “transit-first” city, which was established — I want to say in 1972 — as a policy adopted by the Board of Supervisors. We continue to make big….

On one of the maps that I showed you of where trips are happening, I highlighted the Geary corridor, which is a big east-west corridor in the northern part of the city. We’re making a huge multi-hundred-million-dollar BART investment in that corridor — in the Van Ness corridor, which is kind of the western boundary of the northeast quadrant, the densest part.

We in the city continue to make big transit investments. We still…. I think there’s a commitment and a belief and, in fact, lots of analysis that transit in many areas still is the most efficient way to move large numbers of people around, particularly at particular times of day.

I think there are a number of what I’ll refer to as the more suburban counties. The Bay Area is a big area. It’s about 7,000 square miles, and nine counties, total, have been beginning to think about restructuring suburban bus lines and that sort of stuff, and do pilot programs. There was a pilot program to serve SMART, which is the new rail corridor. They opened up in Marin County. People are definitely exploring that.

I know, at the regional level, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which essentially leads all the transportation funding for the whole nine-county area, is very much looking at…. When we think about the future, we need to be thinking about how suburban transit is reconfigured to reflect some of these new mobility options.

P. Milobar: To follow up on that, your best-educated guess on this or eye on it, around the congestion in more of those downtown cores. I’m reasonably familiar with San Francisco. It’s been a few years, but I’ve been there several times in the past. It seems the growth has been clipping along pretty good.

Do you feel that had TNCs not come into existence in the last nine years down in San Francisco, right from the cutting edge, the leading edge, to today, you would have seen a significant difference, based on those population growth and employment growth areas, in the congestion that you see today — without TNCs? Or would it be marginal because people would have still been needing to find some way — either personal vehicle, more buses, more whatever — to get around in those areas?

[3:05 p.m.]

J. Castiglione: That’s a great question, and that’s specifically why we did this analysis with these pie charts.

What this shows is that of the increase in congestion…. And let’s be clear. San Francisco was congested in 2010, too, just not as congested. But of the increase in congestion between 2010 and 2016, about half of it was due to TNCs. That means the other half was due primarily to population and employment growth. We might not have seen speeds decline by four, five, six miles an hour, but it would have declined by two, two and a half, three miles an hour. There still would’ve been a significant….

P. Milobar: I guess I mean if TNCs didn’t exist at all, do you think that other 50 percent that they account for would’ve disappeared completely in today’s day and age? Or do you think maybe half of that still would have shown up on the roads, just in a different form than a TNC?

J. Castiglione: It would show up partially in some people driving. It would’ve shown up in some people taking transit and biking and walking.

P. Milobar: Okay. Thanks.

R. Kahlon: Thank you for the thoughtful presentation and your thoughtful responses. You’re very diplomatic in the way in which you answer. I appreciate there are implications to the way you answer as well — back home as well.

I’ll try to phrase this question in a very open-ended way. You were an early adopter, and you’ve paid some prices along the way for being that early adopter. We are late in the game, and we are able to learn from the challenges other communities have faced.

If you were in our shoes and you were able to draw this up from the beginning…. I’m not asking you to tell me specifics, because you might not be able to tell me specifics. But at high principle levels, what issues would you want us to really consider? Obviously, you’ve laid out the argument for the congestion, which is something that everybody who has presented has said to us, except for, perhaps, the TNC company.

My question to you would be: in principles, what issues do you think we should pay special attention to? I think you laid out a couple around safety and others, but maybe if you could just recap that for us. That would be helpful.

J. Castiglione: Sure. As I mentioned at the outset, one of the reasons for structuring my presentation as I have is to say that San Francisco does represent a relatively, not entirely, unregulated atmosphere. There’s very little local control. There’s very little with respect to controls on supply, pricing — all that sort of stuff. So I think it represents an example of what you might see if you adopted a more permissive regulatory strategy.

I think it’s probably pretty safe to say that you can expect a fair amount more congestion but that it will be particularly focused in the core. I think it’s fair to say that you will probably see increased accessibility and benefits to people who are maybe living in some of those suburban areas — or the times of day. I don’t mean to use this as a trope, but when the bars are getting out, and people need to get home, and the taxi supply is insufficient, there are certainly going to be benefits around those.

The next comment is going to be a little bit embedded in the fact that our most recent work has been on congestion. Congestion, of course…. Again, if I haven’t said this already, we are a congestion management agency, not a congestion elimination agency. I think we have a pragmatic realization about what we can do with respect to congestion.

I think everyone has seen such a precipitous decline in roadway performance that the city is now…. We’re about to embark on a study that’s looking at congestion pricing. That’s not congestion pricing for TNCs specifically. It’s to say: “What would congestion pricing look like in the city?”

We had done a look at this about ten years ago to say: “What if we had different congestion pricing schemes around the core or cordons and invested in transit with the benefits?” We’re going to be reviving that work and taking a look at it now, in light of what we’ve seen happen in the intervening ten years.

Within San Francisco, the state has, I think, now authorized a couple of counties, at least, to essentially impose a small fee — I think it’s up to 3½ percent — on some measure of receipts for TNCs, provided…. I think it’s a two-thirds vote by the citizenry. On the one hand, that could potentially be good, because it would generate revenue that could help to mitigate some of the, say, congestion impacts. But I would say whether it does good or not is also reflective of how it’s structured.

[3:10 p.m.]

For example, if…. And this is my opinion. I think there are tremendous accessibility benefits in some of the more far-flung or lower density areas. Does it make sense to, in a sense, tax those users equivalently, when that one additional vehicle doesn’t have the same impact on congestion as somebody who’s jumping in a TNC to make a short trip in the downtown core at the peak hour, where the impacts are going to be much greater?

If there is a desire to look at things like fees, trip fees or something like that, structuring them in such a way that they — I don’t want to say penalize — incentivize better behaviour and perhaps penalize less productive behaviour, I think that that’s worth looking at.

I think it’s also important to acknowledge that, again, congestion doesn’t arise just from TNCs. It arises because there are people who want to go out and do stuff, go to their jobs and have fun with their families. So making sure that whatever regime is implemented acknowledges that and is fair about that is, I think, important.

The counter-argument would be like: “Well, Joe, you may get in your car, and you drive somewhere with your family, the three or four of you, and that’s fine. You’re doing it twice a day. That’s a different impact than somebody who’s driving around and making 12 or 15 or 20 trips in a day and all of the VMT and vehicle hours of travel that that represents.”

I think it’s a matter of understanding what the implications of different usages are and then potentially crafting policy solutions that, again, incentivize the kinds of outcomes that we’d like to see.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thanks for clarifying what the congestion tax that I’ve heard of in San Francisco is like. You mentioned one of the areas that had a huge increase right downtown and the delays. I live right downtown in one of the densest parts of Vancouver, and certainly a fear that I would have is that you would get that increased congestion for those short trips — from Denman Street up to Granville Street, in our context. That could certainly make congestion worse as you peeled people away from the bus to something else.

Have you seen any loss in transit numbers, in transit riders? You said it was fairly flat, but the population went up. In downtown here, we’ve had population go up. We’ve had the number of cars entering and exiting downtown actually go down, yet the number of people working down here as well has increased. The only places we’ve seen an increase has really been on transit and cycling and walking, which is where you want to go. My fear is that we would start to head back in the other direction again if we start to rely on vehicles.

J. Castiglione: Yeah. So, as I mentioned before, transit ridership has been flat, and we would expect it to be much higher when we have basically increased the combined population and employment in the city by 25 percent or something like that.

Our next study is looking specifically at that to say: “Well, where have we seen changes in jobs? Where have we seen changes in where people are living? Where have we seen changes in supply? How reliable is transit? How accessible is it?” That’s our next study. It should be out in the next two or three months. It’s a very fine-grained look, I would say a bottoms-up look, at the effects of TNCs on transit. I don’t want to make predictions about what it will say, but the expectation would be that transit ridership would have been higher.

That said, there was a study that came out a couple of weeks ago that was an aggregate look at the effects of the introduction of TNCs. It looked at, I want to say, 26 cities and regions around the United States, all based on publicly available data — the national transit database, census data, etc. It said something like for each year, because as the market matures, people…. The first year the number of people who rode in TNCs when they were regulated in New York City was 60,000. Two years later it was 600,000. So it takes time for a market to mature.

What this aggregate analysis showed was that for each year, I think it was, that TNCs were available in a region, transit ridership goes down by about 1.4 percent. So over the course of the seven or eight years in San Francisco that TNCs have been available, we would expect that transit ridership would have consumed probably about 12½ or 13 percent, or it would be 12½ or 13 percent lower, as a consequence of that.

We’re going to have data out to kind of, essentially, validate that in San Francisco. But I think it’s a fair…. It’s not just this study. There’s an increasing number of studies, and our own analysis, that reveal that the majority of TNC trips are in fact shifting from transit, bike and walk.

[3:15 p.m.]

We also, strangely…. We’ve made tremendous investments in bike infrastructure in San Francisco. We saw bike ridership going up and up and up for a number of years, and in the last three years it’s started to plateau and even drop off a little bit, according to our census. Whether that’s correlated with TNCs, we don’t know yet. But it is, again, also a surprising trend given the kind of growth we’ve seen in San Francisco and the kind of folks who are moving to San Francisco, who are very much overlapping with a bike kind of demographic.

A. Olsen: One of the intriguing aspects of having you come and speak to us was so that we could apply what has been learnt in an area to the four specific areas of regulation that we have to provide comment and advice on. Your presentation painted the picture of San Francisco but doesn’t speak to the four points that we have to then hit on.

I don’t know if you spoke to that at the very beginning of your presentation, but I’m just wondering if there is, as you’re wrapping up here, any more direct advice that you can give us, as we’re drafting and have a responsibility to find a balance in this.

J. Castiglione: Thank you. I didn’t mean to disrespect the wishes of the committee to get more explicit kinds of responses to those questions. I felt that based on my own experience and our experience in San Francisco, we could better represent an example. That’s also maybe a reflection of what I view as my role, which is to provide technical analysis to our decision-makers but to, quite consciously, not make policy recommendations.

That said, for example, your first question, I think, was about the boundaries. Again, I hope that the experience that we talk about in San Francisco can help say something about that. For example, this map shows…. This is the intensity, and again, I want to just do a plug. This is an interactive map. You can go and play around with it and zoom in and look at all of the data, essentially.

With respect to boundaries, this clearly shows that a lot of the concentration of the activity is probably in the places that we want it least in the sense that it’s the most congested part of the city. As I mentioned before, there’s a time-of-day dimension to this. It’s at the most congested times of the day.

I don’t want to make a recommendation, but I think consideration of the expectation that you might find the greatest impacts occurring in the densest parts of the city is probably a likely outcome under a relatively liberal, permissive regime like we have in San Francisco, where there’s no cap on supply, where there are no restrictions on where anybody can go or, functionally, how much they can drive.

I want to go back and remind myself of some of the earlier questions you have. Balancing supply and demand. It’s very difficult for me to respond to that. The data set that we had did not include any information on pricing. We can use information on standard rates, but we don’t actually know how much people pay. Of course, one of the distinguishing features of TNCs is that the price can respond to the demand at any given time in an attempt to kind of balance supply and demand. But it’s often hard to know what the true price is.

Like, for example, I think there have been…. My boss, in fact, texted me yesterday about how she was finding that when she requested a shared ride, it was actually cheaper than taking transit. She was getting quotes for $2.50 to take a mile- or a two-mile-long ride, which is lower than it costs to hop on the bus and, obviously, infinitely more convenient to just have somebody pick you up rather than wait for a bus and walk, and so on and so forth.

I think the other question that’s uncertain about pricing is to what degree the current prices are sustainable. Presumably, they are…. I mean, there have been various estimates about how much is VC-funded. It’s not my area of expertise, but suffice to say, the true cost is not being reflected in the price. If those true costs were reflected, would we see the same uptake in demand? I don’t know. So that’s a very tricky question to answer.

I’m not familiar with the big ball of the kind of public convenience and necessity regime. If I understood that, that was about needing to make the case — is that right? — to get a taxi licence. Again, in San Francisco we have not had that experience because TNCs have largely…. If you want to drive for a TNC, you largely sign up and do a basic background check and essentially you can start rolling.

Prices and fares. As I mentioned earlier, we fix those for taxis. They’re entirely unfixed for TNCs. I don’t know what it would look like if those prices were fixed or if they were aligned with taxis. In my experience, as a user of both TNCs and taxis in San Francisco, I would say TNCs are typically about 65 percent, 70 percent of the cost of a taxi, so significantly cheaper. In the transportation forecasting realm, which is my background, we say there are only two things that really matter, time and cost. They’re basically interchangeable, so when you have something that’s discounted 30 percent, the demand is going to go up for that.

[3:20 p.m.]

Then with respect to licensing, I think this is probably the area where there are the most examples that you can find. I would recommend, if you have time, to take a look at that regulatory framework report, because it does document not just how we’re doing stuff in California but across the United States. It does address things like licensing.

B. Ma (Chair): Interesting. Thank you so much.

Any other questions from committee members?

J. Sturdy: Just a quick one. I wondered if you’d done any work on parking and parking requirements and the amount of land that is dedicated to parking. And are you going to be amending that as time goes forward?

J. Castiglione: Well, that’s an interesting question, because one of the things that people often talk about, as well, with these vehicles, with AVs or with TNCs…. Ultimately, with automated vehicles, AVs, maybe we’ll need less parking, because people won’t need to just…. They’ll get dropped off, and then the car will go pick up someone else.

The first thing we’ve done with respect to parking…. I would say there are two efforts that are underway. In San Francisco, there are no more parking minimums. It used to be that you had to build at least a half a vehicle parking spot per unit. At this point, you could put up a 500-unit building in San Francisco and not install any parking, which is viewed as good, because parking often….

I can give a couple of examples: (1) it drives up the cost of every unit individually, but (2) there’s a…. For example, there’s a building right next to where we…. Our office is in what we call the Twitter zone. It was this area that was an economic redevelopment zone, essentially, where Twitter and Dolby…. We’re in the same building as Uber, which makes things slightly uncomfortable, Square and all of these tech firms. There are these huge buildings that are going up there. They built parking before this zero minimum, and a bunch of the parking is just vacant. It’s not actually being used. So that does suggest that there’s a different kind of consumption of parking that’s happened in the past, and we’re not requiring parking.

There’s another aspect of parking, which is what I’ll refer to as on-street or curb management. In San Francisco, we’re doing a couple of things around that right now. One is looking at how we award residential permit parking, because that makes it very cheap for people to drive around the city, if they’re not paying for parking.

The other is repurposing curb space. Essentially, a car that’s parked at a curb, static for two or four or eight hours a day, is maybe not the most productive use of that curb. A TNC or maybe even transit — you know, another use — could be making use of that curb space. So we’re considering it in that way.

People very quickly spin off into the hypothetical future. Again, one of the things that I hope you take away from this presentation is that in San Francisco, we have this eight years of experience. We don’t need to just hypothesize about what might happen. We actually have information about what is happening and what has happened.

When it comes to what the future looks like with respect to AVs and TNCs — if they become even more widespread and whether we’ll need as much parking — I think it’s an open question. There has been everything from the utopian visions where we’ll have wider sidewalks and no need for parking at all to more dystopian visions where academic researchers will say, “Well, people aren’t going to want to park their car and pay for it,” so they’re just going to drive around really slowly and consume that road space. You may end up with worse congestion without parking. So it’s an open question. Hopefully, we’ll live to see what the answer to it is.

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

Any other members?

All right. I have a few questions for you before we let you go. I know we’ve held you quite long here. Thank you so much for your patience.

Can you confirm that in San Francisco, the drivers’ licences required for TNC drivers and taxi drivers are different — that taxi drivers require commercial licences, and TNC drivers do not?

J. Castiglione: That is my understanding, but please don’t quote me on that, because that is not the focus of my expertise. But the regulatory landscape paper that I refer to does answer that question specifically.

B. Ma (Chair): In terms of that regulatory framework paper, does it provide recommendations? Or is it kind of like a compilation of existing regulations?

J. Castiglione: It’s more an inventory of existing regulations, again, in San Francisco, in California and across the country. I don’t recall whether it includes at the end some recommendations.

For the most part, we have tried to remain relatively silent on recommendations, in part because we want to provide, first and foremost, information to our board and then solicit from them guidance on what we should then look into next.

B. Ma (Chair): Does the report identify challenges that have been experienced in the frameworks?

J. Castiglione: Absolutely. Yes.

B. Ma (Chair): They do?

J. Castiglione: Yes, yes.

[3:25 p.m.]

B. Ma (Chair): Oh, fantastic. I’d like to maybe suggest to members of the committee that we include that report as part of the committee’s research, the work that the research team is doing — if there are any issues and components of the report that are relevant to our four questions.

J. Castiglione: Yeah. I think it’s a useful compendium of what the landscape was in San Francisco a year or so ago — and across the country. The other report that I referred to, Emerging Mobility, I think also might be of interest to you. It talks a little bit more about the principles.

There are these ten principles that the city has established around all mobility options, as I mentioned before: safety, equity, so on and so forth. That report looks not just at TNCs but all of the kind of emerging mobilities. Where possible, we provide some kind of quantitative assessment of how aligned the services are with these principles.

It does feel like, for lack of a better word, there’s a values basis around any kind of regulatory regime. This reflects what the decision-makers in San Francisco identify as our core values.

B. Ma (Chair): The work of the committee’s research team already will include going through the submissions that we’ve received and compiling that information. Would committee members be comfortable also including those two documents from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority in that exercise as well? Yes? Any concerns?

All right. Susan, can we have that done? Thank you so much.

My last question for you…. Again, I recognize that you might not have direct answers but based on your experience.

There’s been a lot of discussion about how to manage congestion. Some of the ideas or strategies that have been discussed, either positively or negatively, have included applying vehicle caps or licence caps for TNCs, similar to the way taxis are, or per-kilometre fees or per-trip fees depending on geographic areas and time of day and so forth in order to incentivize certain times of day and geographic areas during which and within which we want TNCs to operate, and disincentivizing other areas.

Based on your experience, do you have any comments on any of these strategies?

J. Castiglione: I would just echo what I mentioned a few minutes ago, which is that I think we do recognize the need to look at some of these strategies. We have a bunch of what I’ll put in the bin of pricing and incentives projects right now — or research studies.

First and foremost is the congestion pricing work. That’s very much going to be looking at the very things that you’ve identified. For example, in some of the original congestion pricing work we did, people could pay a one-time fee to enter the core, and then they could come and go as they pleased. That probably doesn’t make sense in the context of TNCs that are carrying multiple passengers. So we are very much looking at congestion pricing in all of the various flavours and incarnations that that can take.

We’re also looking at other pricing strategies like managed lanes on freeways. That doesn’t necessarily speak to the TNCs quite as much, because I think the vast majority of the TNC usage is surface arterials. But in a sense, that actually, I think, really aligns with the transportation infrastructure that you have here in Vancouver with respect to the reliance on major arterials as the primary thoroughfares throughout the city.

So yes, we are doing and are going to be interested in pursuing all of these kinds of options. I don’t think there are any prospects of vehicle caps. That would require a rather significant change at the state level, and I don’t think there’s the appetite for that.

I think one thing that I would say, and I would offer this as a concluding comment, is that the story of TNCs and, really, the story of any kind of urban transportation these days is very context-specific. There is no one-size-fits-all. It’s not that the impacts are bad universally everywhere. It’s not that the benefits are great universally everywhere. There are benefits and costs depending on when and where. I think any kind of policy response should reflect the fact that there’s that kind of nuance.

While a vehicle cap might be useful in San Francisco — I’m not saying it is — maybe in other parts of the state that don’t have as rich or mature TNC markets it doesn’t make sense to have a cap on anything. Perhaps those areas should grow out more. So I think any kind of policy prescription or regulatory regime should allow for the context sensitivity of different types of policies.

[3:30 p.m.]

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much. Really grateful for your time today, for coming up here again and for allowing us to go over time.

J. Castiglione: It’s my pleasure. It’s an honour to have a chance to speak to you all. Thank you.

B. Ma (Chair): My apologies to committee members. We are 15 minutes over time. We’ve eaten up the surplus, and then I gave it a little more.

Our next presentation is Mr. Joseph Okpaku from Lyft. You’re probably ready because you’ve been waiting for a few minutes. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Now, the format’s very simple. I will set a timer for 25 minutes. We’ll ask for your comments to be, as much as possible, focused on the four questions that we have before us. This committee only has the mandate to look at those four questions. I’ll set a timer for you — 25 minutes. Following that, there’ll be 20 minutes of questions. Do you have any questions before we proceed?

J. Okpaku: I don’t believe so.

B. Ma (Chair): You’re ready to proceed?

J. Okpaku: I am. I do have one question. With respect to the time, is there anything visual that will…?

B. Ma (Chair): Yes, my timer here. I’ll turn it towards you.

LYFT

J. Okpaku: Good afternoon, Chair, Deputy Chair and members of the committee. My name is Joseph Okpaku, and I am the vice-president of policy at Lyft. Thank you for the opportunity to work together to develop a regulatory framework that would allow Lyft to operate in the province.

I’d like to tell you a little about Lyft’s history, mission and the many ways we believe Lyft will benefit the residents of British Columbia. It’s my belief that going over this background will help this committee get guidance on the four issues that I know you’re considering. I’ll be glad to answer any questions at the end of the presentation.

Lyft first launched in 2012, based upon an idea that was both simple yet audacious. What if we could allow people to leverage one of their most expensive assets, their cars, to give rides to their neighbours in their spare time?

It would allow people to actually make money from their car, rather than just putting money into it. It would open up transportation options for people who historically had not had great options if they didn’t live in or near a downtown area. And it would allow people to forgo car ownership, which costs Canadians, on average, $13,000 per year, with the confidence that they could still get where they want when they want.

For example, in cities like Seattle and Portland, about 30 percent of Lyft riders do not own cars. In Toronto, 63 percent of Lyft users do not own or lease a personal vehicle. And 68 percent of non–car owners say Lyft has impacted their decision to not own or lease a personal vehicle. People thought the idea of ride-sharing was crazy. But since 2012, Lyft has provided over one billion rides.

[3:35 p.m.]

We’re now helping 23 million passengers get to their destinations each year, and we’re giving 1.5 million drivers each year an opportunity to earn income in their spare time. We’ve significantly reduced instances of impaired driving, allowed people to get to and from work easily, or to and from school, and we’ve helped people get to public transit options by providing a first-mile, last-mile solution.

In addition, since last spring, all Lyft rides have been carbon-neutral, and Lyft is now a fully carbon-neutral company. Last year, we made a multi-million-dollar investment to create a program to offset over one million metric tonnes of carbon. We’ve purchased enough renewable energy to cover the electricity consumption of every Lyft office space, every Lyft driver hub and every electric vehicle mile on our platform. We are now one of the top ten voluntary purchasers of carbon offsets on the planet, and every ride now contributes to fighting climate change.

Lyft has demonstrated its commitment to the community in other ways, including our Round Up and Donate program. This program allows passengers to pick a cause of their choice and have their fares automatically rounded up to the nearest dollar. In just over a year and a half, Lyft passengers have rounded up 20 million rides to donate over $10 million U.S. to charitable causes, such as fighting homelessness, helping natural disaster victims and providing aid to cancer patients. In Toronto, Lyft passengers have donated to the SickKids Foundation, and we hope to bring Round Up and Donate to B.C. soon.

While we are not yet operating here, it is important for us to get a better understanding of the communities in which we operate. One of the ways we do this is to support organizations that align with our values. To this end, in 2018, we became an official sponsor of Vancouver Pride, a relationship we hope to continue. In this way, Lyft has become much more than a bold idea. Every day, we are delivering on our mission to improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation and to make our cities more liveable.

I’d like to take a moment to quickly walk through how the app works. You start by simply opening it up on your phone and typing in your desired destination. A few ride options will appear, the most common of which are a classic Lyft or a shared Lyft. All prices are displayed up front so riders can make the best choice for their money and time.

Let’s say you choose a classic ride, our traditional Lyft ride. Within minutes, you’ll be matched with a carefully screened driver. Your phone will display your driver’s name and picture; the car make, model and licence plate; along with an ETA for pickup at your current location. You can even watch, as your driver approaches, on a map and call your driver if something changes, like if it starts to rain and you want to head down the block to take cover. When your driver arrives, you confirm your name and destination, you get in, and you’re off.

Your screen will map the way to your destination, as well as your ETA. You can also share your route with friends or family directly through the Lyft app. Simply tap “share route” from the menu of your screen, and your friend or family member can track your trip and your progress in real time. Once you’ve reached your destination, you’ll receive a ride summary email that recaps all the trip details.

You’ll also be prompted to rate your driver on a scale of one to five stars. This is where you can also note anything that he or she did exceptionally well or if there are areas for improvement.

This rating system is an important tool for safety. Rides with low ratings and concerning feedback are automatically flagged for our trust and safety team to investigate and take action, which may include instant removal from the platform, if appropriate. If a safety-related complaint is lodged following the ride, we will deactivate the driver so that he or she is not able to give any more rides until after we’ve investigated the complaint. This is a new level of responsiveness, accountability and transparency that has never previously existed in the transportation industry.

The benefits that the Lyft platform has provided millions of drivers to date are obvious, but I’d still like to take a moment to go over them. Since Lyft’s launch in 2012, Lyft drivers have earned $10 billion U.S., and we’re not talking about people doing this as a full-time way of making a living. In fact, 91 percent of Lyft drivers drive 20 hours a week or less, so Lyft is allowing people to make money in their spare time on their own schedule.

Our community of drivers includes parents, seniors, college students, teachers during summer breaks — anyone looking for a flexible opportunity to make extra income on the side. In places like Los Angeles, aspiring actors are driving for Lyft because they can go to an audition whenever they want. In Nashville, Tennessee, there are numerous Lyft drivers who are musicians who drive for Lyft between gigs.

[3:40 p.m.]

In fact, 96 percent of Lyft drivers say that they drive for Lyft because having the flexibility to choose when they drive is extremely important. And 79 percent of them schedule driving around jobs, classes, child care and other activities.

Passengers also greatly benefit from having Lyft in their communities, perhaps in more ways than you might think. It may come as a surprise that the single most important factor in upward economic mobility isn’t education; it isn’t housing. It’s transportation. More specifically, it is access to transportation and commute time.

Both Harvard University and New York University have reached this conclusion. It makes sense. If you can’t afford a car, public transportation becomes critically important to your economic survival, but a by-product of our infrastructure crisis is that transit doesn’t serve every neighbourhood equally. It also doesn’t run with the same frequency for people who are working overnight shifts as it does for people who work during the day. This is why there has been such high demand for Lyft in underserved communities. In fact, 44 percent of all Lyft rides start or end in low-income neighbourhoods.

Lyft isn’t just helping people get from point A to point B; Lyft is helping people get to work. Lyft is giving people back time to go to a kid’s hockey game or a piano recital. Lyft is helping people everywhere get home to their families.

Public transit is vitally important to our cities, and from the moment that Lyft launched, we worked to complement public transit. Here in Metro Vancouver, we’re looking forward to working closely with TransLink, and we share their commitment to improving the passenger experience.

Many of our riders are also transit riders. In fact, over 20 percent of our passengers say that they use public transit more because of Lyft, and we now have dozens of partnerships with public transit agencies. Some of these partnerships are first mile, last mile, while others have allowed us to replace underperforming bus routes so that public transit funding can be reinvested into routes with higher demand.

As an example, one of our most innovative partnerships is GoMonrovia, which we designed and implemented in partnership with the city of Monrovia in southern California. Monrovia’s suburban land use pattern made it difficult to operate a traditional public transit service. Prior to our partnership, the main mode of public transportation was a dial-a-ride shuttle bus that cost the city about $1 million U.S. a year to provide fewer than 100 rides per day.

Through the GoMonrovia program, the city replaced that dial-a-ride program with subsidized ride-share trips pro­vided by Lyft. Passengers pay no more for a ride than they would for a normal bus or rail fare. As a result of this partnership, Monrovia has seen ridership ramp up tremen­dously. Whereas the former program facilitated 30,000 rides annually, a similar amount of funding has allowed Lyft to provide over 30,000 rides per month, with over 12 percent of them connecting with the Los Angeles rail system.

The GoMonrovia program provides not only a first-mile, last-mile connection to the train station but also access to bike-share and eventually, we hope, scooters. We have implemented elements of this program in cities across the U.S., but GoMonrovia is a great proof-of-concept for the full mobility package.

Research shows that our passengers are more multimodal than the general population. According to our 2019 economic impact report released this month, 46 percent of all Lyft riders use public transit at least once a week. In Toronto, that figure is 83 percent. I’d like to say that again: 83 percent of Lyft riders in Toronto use public transit weekly, at a minimum. This is why our transit partnerships are so fruitful and why we continue to create more.

We’ve recently launched a new feature that definitively demonstrates our commitment to complementing public transit. Currently, our new Nearby Transit feature allows Lyft users in four major U.S. cities to see real-time public transit routes and schedules directly within the Lyft app. We recently debuted the feature in Seattle, where Lyft users can seamlessly use Lyft or use the bus, light rail or ferry to get to where they’re going.

This allows prospective riders to choose the most affordable and flexible trip that works for them, even if that means not taking a Lyft. In other words, we are literally encouraging riders to not use Lyft when there’s a public transit option nearby. We hope to be able to offer this feature in Vancouver.

The past six years provide great insight into the behavioural shifts that are possible with widespread adoption of ride-sharing services. People are moving away from owning cars and gravitating towards public transit and other safe and responsible transportation habits.

[3:45 p.m.]

Perhaps the most quantifiable benefit Lyft has provided cities is a reduction in impaired driving. Lyft is most active during times when drinking is common. Fifty percent of all Lyft pickups and drop-offs in Seattle and Portland happen between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. in retail areas that offer bars, restaurants and other nighttime destinations. In Toronto, 58 percent of Lyft riders are less likely to drive while impaired, due to the availability of Lyft. Because of Lyft, people are making the intentional and conscious decision to not drive while intoxicated. This past New Year’s Eve we provided almost 4,000 rides every minute.

In Miami-Dade County, which has the largest police department in the southeastern United States, it was recently announced that there has been a 65 percent decline in impaired driving arrests in 2017 compared to the four years prior. Other U.S. cities and states are seeing similar declines. In Philadelphia, drunk-driving arrests have decreased by 17 percent since ride-sharing was first introduced. The state of Georgia has seen a total decline of 16 percent since ride-sharing arrived. Keeping impaired drivers off the road is an immense public safety benefit that we’d like to bring here to British Columbia.

Now, the key to unlocking all of these benefits of ride-sharing is having a critical mass of part-time drivers. As I’ve mentioned before, 91 percent of all Lyft drivers in Canada and in the U.S. drive less than 20 hours per week, which is why reducing barriers to entry is critical to reaping the benefits of ride-share.

Without regulations that recognize this need for flexibility, British Columbia will not experience the benefits of ride-sharing. I’d like to show you why by explaining a little bit more about how drivers get approved to drive in the Lyft platform. It is our hope that when you understand how seriously we take safety and how we’re able to provide a safe platform for both drivers and passengers, you’ll agree with our suggestions for a regulatory framework that ensures flexibility without sacrificing safety.

In the U.S., we’ve developed a streamlined process for getting people who want to drive up and running on the platform. Lyft drivers are extensively prescreened and have to pass a thorough driver record review. In Canada, Lyft contracts with a company called Sterling Talent Solutions, an international provider used by 25 percent of Fortune 100 companies and numerous municipalities, to conduct driver background checks annually. Prospective drivers pay nothing for this background check, and they don’t need to spend precious hours in line at a government agency office. In fact, in the U.S., ride-share drivers pay zero upfront costs to get onto the Lyft platform.

We urge British Columbia to adopt a regulatory framework that requires these background checks, so that a uniform standard for safety across B.C. can be established. We also seek regulations that enhance safety by requiring companies like Lyft to utilize technology that provides consumers with new transparency and accountability features.

In addition to robust background checks, every ride should be required to be tracked by GPS, as Lyft currently does, and all rides should be required to be cashless. It should be required that before any ride, passengers receive their driver’s picture and name, the make and model of the vehicle and the licence plate number before they enter the vehicle. Companies should be required to provide both the driver and the passenger an opportunity to rate each other after the ride.

These built-in features and our background check process help us maintain extremely high safety standards and still allow part-time drivers to join the platform without unnecessary barriers. It is our hope that B.C. will agree with an approach that has allowed for millions of safe, affordable rides to be completed in the U.S. and Ontario.

This brings me to licensing. We ask you to consider the model that currently applies in Saskatchewan. In that province, Lyft drivers must possess a class 5 licence. In addition, they must not be in the graduated licensing program for novice drivers. They must have two years post-graduated-licensing-program driving experience in Canada or in a jurisdiction with equivalent licensing requirements. They must not have been suspended or disqualified in the previous ten years, and they must not have accumulated more than 12 demerit points in the past two years.

At the risk of repeating myself, the ability to allow prospective drivers to gain access to the platform without unnecessary barriers and without compromising safety is the key to the success of Lyft. Since drivers are only planning on driving a few hours a week, it must be convenient for qualified drivers to sign up. Onerous requirements with no corresponding safety benefit will only serve to be a barrier to entry that prevents B.C. from unlocking the benefits of peer-to-peer ride-sharing. This goes back to the goal of critical mass. With more unnecessary hurdles, there’ll be fewer drivers, and the more unreliable Lyft becomes.

[3:50 p.m.]

Before I close, I’d like to address a few proposed requirements that would severely diminish ride-sharing as a transportation solution for British Columbia. Throughout this process, geographic boundaries on where Lyft can operate, a cap on the number of Lyft vehicles in operation and price controls on passenger fares have been discussed as measures for levelling the playing field. But in practice, these restrictions would do the opposite.

Let’s first discuss geographic boundaries. Kevin Desmond of TransLink emphasized yesterday that boundaries should reflect actual travel and mobility patterns, not simply municipal jurisdictions. Lyft aims to give all residents in all neighbourhoods a convenient and affordable ride. That doesn’t just mean downtown Vancouver or bustling commercial centres. We encourage drivers to offer their services in all neighbourhoods, including areas that are traditionally under­served.

Oftentimes we see high demand in neighbourhoods poorly served by existing transportation options like taxis and public transit. For example, passengers who want to get from Sooke to work in Victoria are often left without any reliable or efficient modes of transportation to do so. Restricting Lyft with arbitrary boundaries will only cause already transit-poor residents to suffer more.

Furthermore, geographic boundaries are part of why taxis have to drive back empty after dropping off passengers in different jurisdictions — which is a waste of time, gas and kilometres travelled — and lead to frustrated passengers. If geographic boundaries are arbitrarily imposed on ride-sharing, we may continue to see those same frustrations from passengers who simply want to get to their destination.

Vehicle caps present a similar challenge in that they would prevent Lyft from meeting demand where it is. In fact, caps would incentivize drivers to look for fares in the most congested parts of the city, whether the demand for a service exists there or not. This means high ETAs and high fares for people in outlying neighbourhoods.

The compound effect of geographic boundaries and caps would make Lyft unreliable, which means more people will return to driving themselves home after a night out at a bar.

Lastly, let’s talk about price controls. Price caps make it difficult to achieve a critical mass of drivers at peak times. This is because they disable the kind of up-and-down pricing flexibility that is needed to incentivize drivers to offer their service when riders are willing to pay more for it. If a late-night ride when demand is high pays a driver barely more than an off-peak ride at 11 a.m., it will not be appealing for drivers to make themselves available for those late-night rides.

This is a long way of saying that dynamic pricing keeps the market healthy. It’s an equity tool to ensure reliable service in areas or time periods of lower demand. Dynamic pricing also serves as a significant safety tool in that it encourages more drivers to be on the Lyft platform on weekends, late at night or on holidays, when people are out drinking and need a ride home.

Moreover, the proposals regarding vehicle caps, geographic boundaries and price controls would prevent the widespread individual economic benefits and increased mobility that ride-share delivers.

We recently commissioned a study to examine the potential economic impact in British Columbia if Lyft were able to operate here. Here’s what it showed for Vancouver and Victoria: $47 million in estimated annual new spending by Lyft passengers at local businesses, $37 million in estimated annual driver earnings from Lyft rides and $37.5 million in estimated value of time saved by Lyft passengers.

Furthermore, our 2019 economic impact report for Toronto found local spending increased by $25.9 million due to the availability of Lyft. The combined value of time and travel cost savings as a result of Lyft was $45.4 million.

Like regions across North America, British Columbia demands a new solution to old transportation problems. Nobody knows this better than the residents themselves. In fact, according to a recent poll, six in ten residents want Lyft available in the province as soon as possible, eight in ten want Lyft to operate by the end of the year at the latest and nearly eight in ten also expect to have the same service they’ve experienced in places like Seattle and Toronto.

We urge you to make this happen by prioritizing regulations that can allow British Columbia to experience the many benefits of ride-sharing that have been enjoyed for years in the U.S. and Ontario.

Thank you very much for your time. I’d be glad to answer any questions that you might have.

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you so much. We’ll begin with Ms. Singh.

R. Singh: Thank you for your presentation. You really emphasized the flexibility, and that’s also one of the reasons that you are advocating for a class 5 licence.

[3:55 p.m.]

My question would be: the person who’s transporting people, how can we just say because they want flexibility…? They’re working for flexible hours. Why should it be different for a taxi driver and a person who’s just driving for two hours? The safety is a concern. They’re both transporting consumers.

J. Okpaku: Of course. It’s a great question. It’s really two separate things, so I’ll address it in two separate parts.

We strongly believe that safety, as I said before in my presentation, is one of the strong points about Lyft, because safety is more than just the licensing that someone goes through to get onto the platform. Safety is the ability to make sure that you know who you’re with and if, for some reason, you don’t have a pen and paper on you, you’re able to easily figure out who you are being transported by.

Safety is also making sure that there is no such thing, as I said before, as an anonymous ride where someone with a Lyft platform…. Each ride is being tracked by GPS and, again, as I mentioned before, you can share your ride, your route, with somebody else.

I think it’s important for this panel to look at safety holistically and realize that, if you’ll excuse the saying from the U.S., there’s more than one way to skin a cat. So looking at safety holistically, with all the measures that we’ve put into place with respect to accountability, to transparency and whatnot, we do strongly believe that safety is not at issue and that the five or six years that Lyft has operated have clearly demonstrated that.

Now, with respect to the difference between taxis and ride-sharing, I don’t have numbers about this for British Columbia specifically, but historically, taxi driving has been a full-time occupation. And so it makes sense that people are more willing to go through more bureaucratic hoops and jump those hurdles for a full-time occupation than they are for a part-time occupation. So that’s why Lyft had to come up with a system that still prioritized safety but did so in a way that did not cost the driver to get onto the platform and did not put undue burdens on the driver to get onto the platform.

Broadening the scope of your question a little bit, we’ve never once…. We’ve testified at hearings like this all across the U.S. and in Canada at least hundreds, probably thousands, of times. This is not exactly the question that you asked, but I would say that in terms of the comparison between taxis and ride-sharing, whatever regulations make sense for the taxi industry, whatever the regulatory or legislative body, they should adopt that. We’ve never once, in those hundreds or thousands of hearings, ever weighed in on what makes sense for the taxi industry.

We do strongly believe that if you regulate Lyft like a taxi, you’re going to get a taxi. The benefits that have come with ride-sharing that taxis have not been able to offer, servicing areas that are underserved by public transit or that are, frankly, underserved by taxis….

In the U.S., there is, frankly, a bit of a racial component to this. There are a lot of communities of colour that have historically been underserved by taxis, and Lyft has provided a huge boon to those people who historically have not been able to get from their homes in the neighbourhoods that they live to where they need to go. So if we’re really focused on trying to bring those benefits here to British Columbia, we do need to see if we can find a way to accomplish those same safety goals but maybe a little bit differently than we’re accustomed to doing it. And that’s what we think we’ve done in the U.S. and Ontario.

J. Johal: Thank you for your presentation. I appreciate some of the concerns you’ve raised.

It’s a very simple question, actually. If we brought in class 4 licensing, if we brought in geofencing and if we brought in limits on vehicles, would you enter this market?

J. Okpaku: We’ve never entered a market with all of those things in place. The decision whether to enter a market or not is slightly above my pay grade, but I would say it would make it extremely difficult for us to enter this market.

J. Johal: Okay. One of the other issues we’ve been talking about broadly…. There have been issues about minimum wage, employment standards, the gig economy. First of all, do you view yourself as an employer, and two, is there any jurisdiction that you operate in where you are expected to meet a minimum wage or a minimum threshold?

I’m just curious. That’s a broader conversation that we’re having as legislators just simply because there are many other industries that are being disrupted. So (1) do you view yourself as an employer, a traditional employer, and (2) have you had to meet minimum wage standards, whatever that may be in the jurisdiction?

[4:00 p.m.]

J. Okpaku: Sure. It’s a great question. The answer to the first question is no. To elaborate on that a little bit more, independent studies and surveys have shown that — for the reasons I’ve mentioned before — because drivers value the flexibility and like doing this in their spare time, the majority of drivers in the U.S. do not want to be treated as an employee. They don’t want to have to be scheduled for particular shifts.

In fact, I believe around 81 percent of drivers in the U.S. either have a full-time job or are currently looking for a full-time job. They view Lyft, as I’ve said before, as a way to kind of fill in the income gaps or to get through a short period of time in which they may not have full-time employment. So the employment model is really a model that the majority of drivers do not even want in the U.S. or in Ontario.

To your second question, the answer is one market, with a very large caveat. I know that New York City has come up a couple of times in the course of this panel’s deliberation, but it’s really important to recognize that New York City does not have ride-sharing as we’re discussing it. I just want to make sure that everyone’s really clear on this.

Yes, Lyft operates in New York City, but Lyft operates in New York City as what is essentially called a black car, which is similar to any other vehicle. That’s a market where the vast majority of Lyft drivers are full-time drivers. They are more willing to go through the regulatory hurdles, to procure their own personal commercial insurance, to pay the licensing fees, because they do view this as full-time employment.

That is the one exception to the rule, and to the extent that New York City has been mentioned here before, again, it’s really important to recognize that in New York City, there is no such thing as peer-to-peer ride-sharing.

J. Johal: Do you have any caps on vehicles in other jurisdictions?

J. Okpaku: Again, the only place that has recently considered that would be New York City. Everywhere else we operate throughout the country or in Ontario, there are no caps.

Again, at the risk of repeating myself, which apparently I’m doing a lot…. First of all, the context for the number of vehicles on a ride-sharing platform is a little bit misleading, because the natural inclination is to compare this to what we’re used to, which is a taxi regime. So you’re thinking about this in terms of how many vehicles are doing this full-time. But a vehicle can be “on the platform” for literally one ride a day, and then that person is driving themselves to work or to school or home.

To answer your question more directly, except for New York City, where ride-sharing does not exist, no, there are no places where caps have been imposed on ride-sharing.

J. Johal: My final question. You talked about your drivers logging on, the background checks and all that sort of thing. This morning we had someone from the Justice Institute talking about training programs for taxis. I think it was three or four days or five days. They’re talking about an on-line course for Lyft and for other ride-hailing TNCs.

One, do you do similar on-line courses in other jurisdictions, and two, I guess, is four hours enough? I mean, the question I think the other side has been talking about to a certain degree is: why are we doing a week and the on-line folks are only doing four hours, potentially? Your response to that?

J. Okpaku: I did hear the testimony earlier today. It was a bit of a surprise to us, frankly, because it was the first we had heard about it. Without knowing more about what that potential program would entail, it’s kind of hard to really offer an opinion about it.

Generally speaking, there does not exist a jurisdiction which requires the type of training that I believe is the type they are contemplating. We do offer videos on our own about the way to be the best Lyft driver that you can. But in terms of government-required on-line training, it is a very rare occurrence. There may be one or two markets in the U.S. that do that.

J. Johal: Are you opposed to that?

J. Okpaku: Again, it kind of depends on the…. The devil’s in the details. I would probably need to know a little bit more about it before we could offer an opinion about it. It is clearly better than a five-day training process, but without knowing more about it, it’s hard to offer a really definitive opinion on it.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I’ve got two sort of separate questions. One thing that came up at least once this go-round…. I’m kind of now unsure where I’ve heard it, whether it was this go-round here or whether it was the last time we were meeting. Something came up as it relates to drivers and their ability to drive, and whether or not they’re employees and such again, in that companies like Lyft, like Uber, are “firing” drivers if they don’t do a certain number of hours or shifts or perhaps because they got a low rating.

[4:05 p.m.]

Now, arguably, a company is going to want its representatives, whether they are contractors or employees, to be the best they can be, and should have some autonomy to determine who is working for them. However — without justification or cause or whatever. How does that work for Lyft with drivers?

I can see the safety suspension makes sense, right? You look into it, see if there was any problem or if it was just somebody who was ticked off or hit it accidentally. Who knows? But what is the process for determining whether or not a driver stays with the company, and are there any minimums in terms of how often a driver would sign on?

J. Okpaku: Sure, it’s a great question. The first part of your question — we never offboard anybody because they’re inactive. The only exception to that — and this is, again, using the United States as an example — is if you have failed to update your insurance between rides, and by the time you try to get back on the platform, your insurance is not updated or your drivers licence is not updated. Then we would prevent you from driving until you fix that. But aside from that, you can give one ride today and not drive until, you know, a year from now. Assuming that you still are maintaining a clean criminal background and a clear driving record, you’re still able to get back onto the platform.

The second situation that you raised…. There are, kind of, two broad components to that. Using the rating system, if someone is consistently getting low ratings, then yes, that person may be at risk of being offboarded. Now, before that happens, we will reach out to that driver and tell that person: “Hey, listen. You keep getting these ratings. You may want to….” If there is specific feedback that we can give…. “Here’s what some of the ratings have noted. Your car smells like cigarettes, so you should probably stop that” or whatever the case may be. If they are repeatedly getting low ratings — and this is separate from safety — then they may be at risk of being offboarded.

The other category, though, is safety. If there is a significant safety incident that we can confirm through an investigation, then yes, we might offboard a driver immediately. If, for some reason, a driver is alleged to have been driving under the influence and we were able to investigate that and corroborate that, then yes, we will prevent that driver from being on the platform.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): My second question is around data sharing. There’s been a lot of conversation about data and the importance of data in driving good decisions. Certainly, government loves data, and some of us love data. Certainly, some of the presenters have loved data — most of them academic.

The insinuation is made that companies are very apprehensive to share any of that data. So you sort of get these competing claims about congestion or peak-period drivers versus non-peak-period, etc. When are people using this, and when are they not? We’re getting competing perspectives on that and competing lobs across the floor in terms of who is providing what — accurate or inaccurate data.

It would seem that it would be in the best interests of companies to provide data — obviously within reason, de-identified and so forth. Is Lyft sharing data readily with jurisdictions that want that data, or is that a major problem from the company’s perspective?

J. Okpaku: It’s another great question. In the majority of markets where Lyft is regulated, Lyft generally shares data with the regulatory agency that oversees it. This can span from safety reports to just ride patterns. It may vary from market to market.

More recently we have struck an agreement with a program called SharedStreets where we are sharing more robust data so that city planners and transportation experts can have access to aggregated data to kind of see what the traffic patterns are and how ride-sharing plays a role in it.

Often, where some of the, I guess, disagreements over data have arisen kind of fall into maybe one of two or maybe three categories. I’ll use California as an example. We are regulated by the state in California. In a recent proceeding, numerous cities, including San Francisco and San Diego, were requesting a lot more granular data. In fact, one of the requests from one of the cities wanted to see a real-time portal into Lyft rides.

[4:10 p.m.]

Now, while I can understand, to an extent, the benefit of that type of data, we do believe that that need can be met by aggregated trip data. The concern on the flip side is the fact that we’re talking about data which is showing where people are going. We’re talking about data which is showing where people live. Again, Lyft drivers don’t start their day at work from a depot. They start their day from work at home.

In a recent hearing, in front of the U.S. Senate, I believe, the Federal Trade Commission actually commented on this very fact. They said that this is the type of data that should be treated the most sensitively because it could show which church you’re going to, or if you’re going to a mosque, or if you’re going to an HIV clinic. We do want to be very careful about our users’ data and make sure that we are protecting all of the data, because it can show sensitive information.

We’re still working to strike the appropriate balance to make sure that cities and planners can get what they need — hence, the recent partnership I mentioned — but doing so in a way that protects our users. I can see that there are some that may wish that we provided a little bit more, and we understand that, but we are working to try to find a good middle ground where we can help planners get the sort of data that they need to make informed decisions.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much.

R. Kahlon: Thank you for your presentation. In New York City, they’ve got caps. You said you don’t operate there as a ride-share. Do you operate there as a taxi?

J. Okpaku: Well, technically we were considered a black car. It’s not a yellow taxi. I’m not sure if you’ve been to New York, but if you’ve taken a Carmel…. Technically, that’s the category we fell into.

R. Kahlon: So the business model would be a taxi model?

J. Okpaku: I’m just trying to be technically accurate. In New York, technically, it’s not a taxi.

R. Kahlon: So you go and you pick somebody up. That person is an employee. They work for you. They’ve got their own car kind of thing? How does it work?

J. Okpaku: Not an employee. The majority, if not all — whether taxis or black car drivers in New York City — are all independent contractors. So they’re not an employee. That’s historically true across the country, whether it’s taxis or any other form of for-hire vehicle transportation.

R. Kahlon: I am just trying to understand. You said you operate in New York City but not as a ride-share. Can you explain what the difference would be in the way that you operate?

J. Okpaku: It’s still an app, and you can still request the app, but the drivers are licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission. It is the only place in the world where we operate a non-peer-to-peer ride-sharing model. You have to have a commercial plate and procure your own commercial insurance, which basically adds a zero to the end of your annual insurance bill. The reason that drivers are willing to do that in New York is because they do this as a full-time way of making money. But that is the exception to the rule of ride-sharing throughout the U.S. and throughout Canada.

R. Kahlon: So everyone on that is full-time. There are no part-time people?

J. Okpaku: I’m sure there are some people who drive a little bit less than full-time, but the costs make it fairly prohibitive, in the New York system, to drive just on a part-time basis.

R. Kahlon: Just understanding that…. So you have a full ride-share model, but you’re flexible in markets. You’re flexible in New York to find another option.

J. Okpaku: We created a new model just for New York City, because New York City is a fairly unique market.

R. Kahlon: There’s money to be made, because it’s a big market, right?

J. Okpaku: Well, it’s a very unique market. It’s a big market, obviously. But again, it is not only the exception to the rule across the country; it’s actually the exception to the rule in New York state itself. Everywhere else in New York state the law was recently passed to allow for peer-to-peer ride-sharing. Frankly, getting into the weeds of it, politically, it was extremely difficult to get approval for peer-to-peer ride-sharing in New York City.

R. Kahlon: I appreciate that. You probably understand where I’m going with this. There was a question raised, which is: if A, B and C happened, would you operate? You said, “We never operated,” which is a good, diplomatic answer. At the same time, your company has shown that you’re very flexible on markets, to be able to respond and to work within them. That’s all I’m trying to get at. I’m not trying to…. I don’t need another answer; I just wanted to make that point. So thank you.

J. Okpaku: Thank you. I would just say that…. I wouldn’t say “multiple markets.” It’s one. And I wouldn’t say “very flexible.” I think it’s a very unique exception that still tends to prove the rule.

[4:15 p.m.]

A. Olsen: I have just one question. I appreciate your answers around the safety issues, particularly the licensing issues, and I’m on the record from the debate in the Legislature, where I felt that perhaps we could go without the class 5, with maybe some extra conditions on that. I appreciate that.

One of the things that’s a challenge — when Uber was here yesterday and Lyft today — and that I’d just like to give you an opportunity to provide some insight on is…. The challenge being that both yourselves and your competition can provide what you do, but recognizing the fact that there could be other entrants in the marketplace that could do something else. So how would you suggest that we deal with the regulatory framework in that we’ve got to provide the safety and security to British Columbians no matter who’s delivering the service? I mean, I appreciate the explanation that you gave, but maybe you could just provide a little bit of insight into that.

J. Okpaku: Sure. It’s a fantastic question. Actually, we really enjoy talking about safety because we do legitimately believe that we’ve taken safety to another level in the for-hire vehicle industry. I would require…. A driver should have a relatively clean criminal background check history. This varies from market to market, but essentially what we do in the United States is make sure that a driver has not been convicted of any crimes of violence or theft within a significant period of time, and there are some places and some crimes which are just disqualifying altogether.

I do think that background checks and checking the history of what a particular driver has done is only part of the battle, right? Because once they get on the platform, how do you make sure that once they pass the checks they’re still being responsible drivers? That’s where I would urge this panel to consider some of the technological enhancements that we’ve brought to the platform.

If I can take a second, I’ll go into a little bit more depth about how our feedback system works. As I mentioned before, after the ride is over, you are prompted, as a passenger, to rate your driver. If you rate anything less than five stars, it’ll prompt another page which gives you a couple of different areas where perhaps the driver has an area for improvement — like cleanliness of the vehicle or if they were polite enough.

It also has a safety category, and if you click safety, that’s automatically triggering an immediate alert to our 24-7 trust and safety team. But it goes a little bit beyond that as well.

There’s also a free-form area where you can enter comments into and provide more details about something. Let’s say you don’t click the safety button, which would automatically trigger a review. Let’s say that I’m taking a ride, and after the ride — I have a fantastic ride — I mention: “I had a great ride to the drugstore.” The word “drug” is one of literally thousands of keywords that are in our system that will, again, trigger an immediate review. Now, in this case, the situation that I just described is innocuous. There’s nothing to be concerned about. But obviously, that’s a word that you want to be flagging in case there’s an issue with a driver.

I would strongly urge…. For what it’s worth, this is something where…. I’ve testified about our safety procedures and processes literally more times than I can count. At the risk of being impolitic, in the debate about safety, I have yet to see anyone propose this for incumbent industries, and I do think it’s a fairly obvious method to ensure and enhance safety for all for-hire transportation.

For ride-sharing specifically, I would think that that’s a starting point, to make sure that there is an ability to have immediate feedback and to have a system in place so that if a driver needs to be pulled off the platform immediately, we can do so electronically and prevent a driver from getting access to any more ride requests until an investigation is completed. I think that’s kind of a baseline to ensure safety across industries, not just for ride-sharing.

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

Any other questions from committee members?

I would like to follow up a little bit about Mr. Olsen’s question. Taking into account that you have very robust safety programs within your own company, I think I appreciate where Mr. Olsen is coming from in that there are many other potential entrants that do not have the kinds of robust safety programs and maybe not the same safety ethic that your company appears to prioritize, according to your presentation.

[4:20 p.m.]

As legislators, we’re often needing to take a look at the entire gamut of companies and organizations that may operate under the regime, and it isn’t necessarily a criticism of any particular company’s very robust program but rather to protect the public from those companies that maybe do not have as robust a program is basically what I’m hearing. I can certainly appreciate that perspective.

Can I ask you…? Going back again to your comment about New York not having ride-sharing, we often hear that B.C. is the only major jurisdiction without ride-sharing. I’m now hearing that New York City you don’t consider to have ride-sharing. Even with Uber? Uber doesn’t operate ride-sharing the way that we’re talking about in terms of peer-to-peer ride-sharing?

J. Okpaku: That’s correct.

B. Ma (Chair): Really.

J. Okpaku: Yes.

B. Ma (Chair): So New York City does not have ride-sharing.

J. Okpaku: That’s correct. Not peer-to-peer ride-sharing. I know the terms have a little bit of overlap.

B. Ma (Chair): Yes, they’re so flexible. Absolutely.

J. Okpaku: Right. Not peer-to-peer ride-sharing — correct.

B. Ma (Chair): So we are not the only jurisdiction without peer-to-peer ride-sharing.

J. Okpaku: No, you are not.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. Thank you for that.

Now, in terms of the class 5 and the class 4 difference. You’re familiar with the class 4 versus class 5 here in B.C.?

J. Okpaku: Generally, yes.

B. Ma (Chair): It’s basically a class 5, plus you have to be 19 years of age, two years driving experience, a cleanish driving record, no motor vehicle–related Criminal Code violations, no debts or fines to ICBC — they’re the insurer, of course — and then a road test and a knowledge test in the beginning. When you’re getting your class 4, you get a road test, a knowledge test and then a medical test.

The medical test, road test, knowledge test — you oppose those aspects of the class 4 licensing. Is that the barrier that you’re concerned about?

J. Okpaku: It is. Again, I don’t pretend to have the most nuanced understanding of all the aspects of the delineation between class 4 and class 5. But one thing I’ll say at the outset is that….

I’ll give an example. When Lyft first launched in San Francisco, we were requiring drivers to apply through the app or on line. For a brief period of time, we asked people to come to our San Francisco office to go through the process in person. We saw a significant decrease in the amount of applications to get onto the platform, because people are thinking about this as a part-time way of making a living. Or they’re considering getting onto platform, but they’re not entirely sure what they really think about this. I mean, this a little bit new for people to transport people in their personal vehicles.

We realized quickly that the model is very sensitive in terms of the ability, the need, to be able to get people onto the platform quickly. As a result, we came up with a system, as I mentioned before, which in most jurisdictions has a background check process that is at least on par, if not more broad or more robust, with what was required in the states where we operated. For example, in a couple of states….

Arizona, for example, for taxis. Yes, they had a requirement for a background check, but it actually did not have any list of disqualifying crimes. Literally, you could have had a background check and had a murder conviction and gotten onto the platform. I understand that…. I’m trying to get, in a roundabout way, to your question.

B. Ma (Chair): That’s all right. We’re just really short on time, so I wanted to bring you back to the licensing. Criminal record check — that’s part of a separate requirement. We’re now talking about drivers licensing.

You do operate under a commercial driver’s licence requirement in Alberta and other provinces? Is that correct?

J. Okpaku: We don’t operate in Alberta.

B. Ma (Chair): You don’t operate in Alberta at all. Okay. Thank you.

Are there other jurisdictions where you operate with a similar commercial licence requirement?

J. Okpaku: No.

B. Ma (Chair): Except for New York City, where it’s not peer-to-peer ride-sharing.

J. Okpaku: Well, again, there’s no such thing as peer-to-peer ride-sharing.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much. I apologize for cutting you short. I’ve been going over time.

J. Okpaku: It’s quite all right.

B. Ma (Chair): Our next presenter is Dr. Garland Chow.

[4:25 p.m.]

Dr. Chow, thank you so much for coming back to present to us. I’m going to dive right into it. You’ve done this before — so 25 minutes uninterrupted and then 20 minutes of questions. Are you ready?

G. Chow: I’m ready.

B. Ma (Chair): Fantastic.

GARLAND CHOW

G. Chow: I’m going to skip all the intros and all that. The only thing I’ll say is that I do like data, so let’s just get going.

I apologize. I miscommunicated. I did have something for the screen, but unfortunately, we can’t put it on now. I know a few of you now will have the physical copy, so I apologize to you back there.

I’m going to deal with the four questions, but I changed the order, because I think there’s some logic to it. The first thing I’m going to deal with is the appropriate class of drivers’ licences, including but not limited to ensuring a robust safety regime without creating an undue barrier for drivers.

I’m going to say it right off the bat. I do recommend that ride-hailing drivers be required to obtain a restricted class 4 licence instead of a class 5 licence as well as undergo trusted criminal record checks.

Now, there are some alternatives, such as — whoa — why don’t we have one higher standard for taxis and a lower standard for TNC drivers? Unfortunately, that would create an even greater unfair playing field for competitors who basically compete for the same customer in the same type of vehicle. Another alternative is to go to the lowest common denominator for both competitors, but I think that will reduce safety on B.C.’s roadways, because I feel that what arose from the national safety code does in fact improve safety on the streets.

I’m sure you’re aware that the national safety code, or NSC, is a set of national standards. It’s supported by the provincial regulations. The program establishes management performance requirements for commercial carriers, including taxis. These standards establish minimum safety standards for commercial vehicles and the drivers. In British Columbia, the program objective is to ensure that the carriers maintain these minimum standards for drivers and vehicles — in other words, to preserve road safety.

The rationale…. It’s more than just certifying the vehicles and the drivers. It’s more than that. It’s also that the carriers — the carriers that actually control the drivers, that manage the fleet — are responsible for the mechanical maintenance of their commercial vehicles and the actions of drivers over which they exercise control. I emphasize “exercise control.”

Now, we have to remember, just as a quick aside, that these class 4 commercial driver requirements weren’t developed just a couple of years ago. They weren’t put up in response to new competition. In fact, in British Columbia, it was in 2003 that RoadSafetyBC implemented much of this program. I’ll just move quickly from that.

I would say that I’ve been keeping up with the news, and I think one of the TNCs indicated that sometimes these requirements, especially the medical requirements, might prevent, for example, a person who’s deaf or hard of hearing from driving. I think that’s very similar to glasses. I mean, I’m supposed to drive wearing glasses. So if there’s a way to remedy those problems that makes it safe…. I can’t tell you how to do that. We leave that to the medical community.

Now, I’m often asked: “Is there empirical evidence showing that higher standards result in higher safety?” True, I don’t know of any with respect to the effectiveness of requiring commercial and class 4 licences in preventing accidents in the taxi industry. There’s a good reason for that, because the federal government had…. It’s a municipal area, so they never thought it was important to prove it, although when it was put together, the experts in the field said: “Yes, it should apply to taxis.”

I do know, however, that there is no question that the higher standards do have an impact on safety and crashes in the commercial trucking field. In the interests of time, if during the Q and A you want to know more about that, I’ll mention that.

[4:30 p.m.]

I’ll simply say that that type of model shows crashes are reduced when they catch a carrier or a driver without a medical certificate, without the qualified licence, and so on. They have, from statistical analysis, actually determined that there’s a probability that there’ll be an accident because of that.

I’m going to now move into the economics. I think this is very important. I don’t think anyone here doesn’t understand this now, because it’s been said so many times. The basic business model of the TNCs is to have many, many, many drivers. It’s necessary, yes, to provide service. And there’s nothing wrong with that from the private entrepreneur’s point of view. Provide better service, sell it at a lower cost, and grab the business. That’s great.

What I’m concerned about is this attitude: “Hey, wait a minute. You have these safety requirements — a need to have a licence, a need to have a medical check, to do this and do that.” Now, by the way, I would agree with our friends from the TNCs that if there’s a way to streamline it, if there’s a way that the government can have it done right, at the lowest cost, they should do that. It’s no different than…. I know people will take a program, and they’ll say: “Hey, I took this program at this other university. Are they equivalent?” That’s what we need to know, and that’s not for me to judge at this point.

What I’m concerned about is that…. The argument is often made that: “Yes, our model depends on part-time drivers, and because they’re part-time drivers, there’s the economic dis-benefit because the threshold cost of getting into business is too high. It’s not worth me getting this and taking the effort to do it just to drive for a couple of hours a week or once a week and so on.”

Well, the first thing, which I’ve said before…. I apologize that I’m repeating some things that I said last January. But if there’s a restaurant and they have to meet the requirements to be clean and no pests and this and that…. I don’t care if they’re open seven days a week, six days a week or one hour a week. They have to have the same level of cleanliness and safety and so on. There’s just no question about that. Similarly, I don’t care if the driver is driving the whole week or five days or just three hours. When they’re out there, they’re exposing their customers to potential accidents. So that’s the last of that.

My phrase to describe this is that we shouldn’t be designing safety regulations to ensure competition. We need to design them to protect the public. Then companies that can meet those requirements can enter the industry. In essence, what I’m hearing is: “Oh, we have a basic business model, and we want you to change the rules and regulations so that our business model works.” Well, if that’s what the public feels is fair enough, then so be it.

There is another aspect, and this is very important. I said earlier that the national safety code’s thesis is: “Wait a minute. It’s not just the requirements. It’s also how you proactively manage your drivers and the equipment.” That is, even though, yes, we heard there are many incentives and checks and so on within the model for TNCs to improve safety, the one area that I’m very concerned about is: is there actually a program that…?

Commercial carriers — the taxicab companies and trucking companies — actually have a program in which they will regularly make sure the driver abstract has been examined. They’ll regularly ensure that there are checks made. They’ll have remediation programs and things like that. These are the types of things that when a taxi company…. They have a program for that and the national safety code, and auditors from CVSA will come in and audit that. They make sure that there is an oversight process over the drivers and the equipment.

Who’s going to do that with the TNCs? “Well, wait a minute. If they’re not my employee….” The TNC doesn’t have to do it. So I would ask and recommend that that’s another function that you folks should consider. If a TNC comes, should that be done as well? I think that’s something you should not take lightly.

[4:35 p.m.]

Why do I say you shouldn’t take it lightly? Because there’s a problem of moral hazard. You know, moral hazard is where…. You know, there are conflicting interests here. I have no qualms. I don’t blame any TNC or any company which says: “I want to maximize my profit.” Their shareholders demand that. When they do that, they have this tug-of-war. Their tug-of-war is: “Am I going to maximize my profit, or may I kind of not be as safe as I’m required to be?”

Now, unfortunately, I don’t have the…. Oh no, I do have the slides here. I just want to tell you the two adages that I learned: one in college and one that I read here in a newspaper the other day. One of those adages is this: “You can always defer safety, but you can’t keep the customer waiting.”

My expertise is in the trucking industry. We talk about these truck drivers who say…. They can see their tire is bald. They can see that they shouldn’t be driving, but they got to make money. They need to get that load out, so they say: “I’ll just do this one now.” Or someone says: “Jeepers, I’ve already gone 50,000 kilometres. I should get my brakes checked or maybe the brake lining replaced. But no, I’ll make this next trip.” The same thing is true for hours of service, and so on and so on. That’s one adage.

The other one is this. It’s kind of like asking your dog to only take one treat from the treat bag, and then as you walk out the room, you know exactly what will happen.

There’s a moral hazard here. Look, every company is torn between these forces. The federal government, through the national safety code, has determined that: “No, we need oversight over this.” We want the carriers to have a program that has oversight over it, and we audit that periodically to ensure that there are active, proactive things for safety.

I’d like to make the following recommendation. In my slide, it’s called “Let’s play it safe.” I think that those arguing for lower safety standards and self-regulation of safety seek to change the safety environment, in part, to make the business model work. Look, I would do that too, if I had lots of stock in those companies.

There are jurisdictions in Canada which only require the equivalent of a class 5 licence, and there are jurisdictions where the class 4 is required. We’ve heard that now.

The standing committee has already recommended that the legislation be reviewed starting in two years. The evidence, then, by the end of two years, I think that there’ll be some…. I’m not saying it’s got to be complete. I don’t know how good it will be. Look, in two years, there will be evidence available to test the competing views on the efficiency of more efficient safety licensing for taxicabs.

For now, philosophically, if TNCs don’t want to be subject to these requirements, this implies that they have the wrong business model for a province like B.C. where public safety is not to be sacrificed. That’s that document.

Now I’d like to move on to what criterion should be considered when establishing price and…

How many minutes do I have left?

B. Ma (Chair): Eleven.

G. Chow: …fare regimes that balance affordability with reasonable business rates of return for service providers. Well, I’m just going to spit it out real quick. I would recommend that there is minimum and maximum rate regulation.

The minimum rate regulation is the one that sets a floor on what can be charged, whether it’s taxis or TNCs. The floor. By the way, the only fair thing is that that floor, if it’s lower for TNCs, then so be it. That’s what the floor is going to be. However, that floor has to cover the long-run marginal costs, or what I call the fully allocated costs, of driving a customer.

[4:40 p.m.]

It cannot be just…. It has to include the operating costs of the vehicle; it has to include the cost of maintenance; it has to include the long-term replacement of the vehicle, and it has to include, to the degree that there’s mobility pricing or congestion pricing, all these externalities that can be put back and internalized into the cost of providing a service. But most importantly, it has to include some component that recognizes the minimum wage that a province looks for, if not a living wage.

Now, these are ideas. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy to project that. But if it does that, that’s…. You ought to have that as a minimum. Then you can have a maximum which will be some two times, three times — whatever — what that minimum is. I think there are some extremes that are gone to sometimes with respect to surge pricing.

That’s what I mean by minimum and maximum rate regulation. But have rate flexibility for all competitors. That is what I recommend. I have some rationale for that, but I’m going to move onwards to the next topic, which I think is quite important.

Okay. One principle here is that rates should at least cover costs. Oh, by the way, there is a lot of question about the sustainability of the price that is being charged now. The first one, of course, is that it is a function of having the drivers as subcontractors whose actual earnings are the residual of what’s left after all the actual, variable out-of-pocket expenses. There’s plenty of evidence that that doesn’t cover their costs or return on their time.

After all, the churn or turnover rate in TNCs is very, very large. We know there are drivers who have sought to get themselves defined as employees or have sought to organize the drivers either in a union or some association. We know there are court cases and tribunals examining and, in some cases, getting closer to defining the TNC as the employer because of the control that they exert not only over the drivers but over pricing and many other things.

Excuse me for a second so I can catch up with what I want to say.

How do you balance supply and demand within the context for TNCs as well as for taxis? As all of you know from the people that you heard last year and, apparently, many of the people that you’ve heard here, congestion is an issue.

There’s no need to go over the evidence other than to say that I’ve got firsthand evidence. I dragon boat race, and I have a lady who dragon boats with me. She spends half her time here and half her time in San Francisco. The first remark she made…. I didn’t even prompt her. She said: “Well, yeah. You know, we can get a TNC within five or….” She used ten minutes. “But doggone it, our trip takes 30 minutes now.”

Of course, that’s exactly what that reporter from San Francisco who reported last year indicated. Due to the congestion…. Luckily, I got here when the gentleman from San Francisco got here. Some of that is due to the TNCs. It’s not just growth and things like that.

I’d like to now say something that I had hinted at in my last testimony. One of the core reasons why this congestion occurs is because we have so many vehicles on the road running around generating kilometres of travel. Why is that the case? The core reason is that we want to provide — and this is called the Amazon effect — such a high level of service. That’s a trade-off. It’s a trade-off in which…. When you provide such a high level of service, the basic fact is that you need more capacity. You need more vehicles on the road.

Now, I don’t know how many of you saw Nightcrawler. Can you raise your hand? At least one. You can tell them what I mean by this later. In Nightcrawler, you’ve got these guys that run around trying to get to an accident, a disaster, as fast as they can, take the pictures and sell them to news stations.

[4:45 p.m.]

At the end of this film, Jake Gyllenhaal talks to his team. At the end of that, his team goes into two vehicles. One vehicle goes over there. One vehicle goes over there. That means that he has now halved, reduced by 50 percent, the time it takes to get to an accident in this geographic area. That’s the same thing for taxi companies — excuse me, any passenger-directed vehicle.

You have to have density. You have to have plenty of vehicles, and that’s exactly the model. But that model says that, yes, we’re going to offer the customers great service, usually a five-minute waiting time and things like that. Well, that’s great. What is the impact of that?

I’m pleased to say that I’ve done a study. I’ve quantified that, estimating that for the taxi sector only. So it’s not TNCs. I suspect that TNCs know exactly how many they need, and it’s usually infinite. But what I have found, quantitatively determined, is that….

I’m just going to use these numbers really quickly. If you want to have 80 percent of your customers get a vehicle within ten minutes of your call, you need 1,304 vehicles out on the street in this high-demand period, which is one of the weekend nights — during that hour. If you want 85 percent, you need 2,056 vehicles. If you would like 90 percent, you need 3,160 vehicles. If you want 95 percent of your customers to be picked up within ten minutes, you need 4,745.

Now, we can quibble about: “Oh, that’s a little high, a little low.” But the point…. In fact, this is actually kind of consistent with what I read from that testimony last year. Even though the TNCs have 45,000 drivers on any given night — time — they have 9,000 vehicles. The taxicabs — there are 1,800 there. So if they want to get up to that higher level of service, in this case, the taxi companies will have to not double, not quadruple but multiply their fleet by six times, and that’s going to increase congestion as well.

The point here is that the commission can actually…. Excuse me. Regulators, if they want, can model and determine what level of service is going to require what number of vehicles.

Now, I have to admit, in this research, I have not shown what the congestion will be. I haven’t gotten to that point. But the point here is that that’s a lot of vehicles.

I found out something else. This one doesn’t require any rocket science, and it doesn’t require any statistical estimation. When you have that number of vehicles, you’re sharing the business. If every vehicle had an equal chance of getting business….

When you get to that high level, what is the productivity of that driver to earn revenue? I measured that by the number of minutes in an hour that they actually have a customer in their car, earning cash, earning money. The answer is: on average, for these high levels, it might be ten minutes. It might be 15 minutes — not an hour but 15 minutes. So you have this trade-off that’s not only between service and congestion but service and productivity. That productivity is not going to allow that driver to actually earn a living, a minimum wage, in that hour.

Now, one way to change that equation is to raise the price, raise it through surge pricing, so that even if they only get one trip in that hour, boy, they made a lot of money in that trip. That’s one possibility. The other one is let’s put a cap on it. Excuse me. The other one is let’s control what capacity is there.

I want to emphasize that because TNCs have a lot of part-time drivers, it is not right to regulate the number of drivers that they have access to. What is necessary, for either the taxis or the TNCs, is to regulate or control — I want to say control — the number of vehicles that are on the street at a particular time and in various areas.

[4:50 p.m.]

To do that, you have basically two choices that have been talked about. One is to use pricing. As an economist, I’d love to do that. I’m not an expert in the area. I leave that as an alternative that you must investigate. There is nothing wrong with using that. That might be the way to go.

I just want to make sure that you know that it’s also feasible to do it through capping, because with today’s technology, with geofencing, with transponders…. In fact, you don’t even need a transponder. All you require is that the cell phone of the vehicle, since every TNC has a cell phone in a car getting their messages, can be pinged from a satellite or microwave tower or whatever.

You can actually control how many vehicles are going to be in a certain geographic area. With real-time information about the actual congestion or demand occurring in a certain area, you can then open up the window or reduce it. Of course, that assumes dynamic, right-at-that-minute decision-making. This could be in which you use historical data and identify the times and places where something is needed and make sure that the cap is wider at that time.

Okay. How many minutes?

B. Ma (Chair): We are over time for the presentation piece.

We have our first question here, though — Mr. Kahlon.

R. Kahlon: The last time you presented, Professor Chow, you mentioned getting access to live data. I think you mentioned live data or the…. Well, you talked about the ability and the need to get data from taxis and TNCs. I believe you said live. But I do remember you saying….

Interjection.

R. Kahlon: Okay. You can clarify it, but I think you said that decision-making could happen live as well. Do you want to just touch on your thoughts on it?

G. Chow: I think one of the complaints about regulations is that they’re slow, and they’re reactive and not proactive.

At one level, and forgetting about getting it in real time, you should require, as a condition of entry into the business here in B.C., the availability of and accessibility to that data. We’re not talking about stealing secrets and this and that. I don’t have any doubt that, given all of these concerns about Huawei and this and that, there’s a way to assure who’s providing the data that it is kept private and used only for the purpose that it’s necessary for. In that manner, instead of waiting for complaints, the regulators can proactively see that service is declining. If service is declining, we need to increase the supply. You have the ability.

I know that on a manual basis, they do this in Australia. There’s a city in Australia…. I forget which state they do it in, but every year they send out a message that says: “This year we’re going to increase the number of vehicles because our service level measurements indicate that service is declining right now or demand is going up.” Whatever combination. They’re proactively going at that. At the furthest extreme is to be proactive right now.

Again, I’m just suggesting that you look at the possibility of this. This information is being collected in almost real time. That is, when a taxi driver makes a trip, they put their meter on. It’s in the cloud already. They’re not downloading this at the end of the day. No, it’s in there. Okay? When they stop the vehicle and have the meter off, that information is recorded someplace. Where did they start? Where did they end? The GPS coordinates are in there.

I’m sure the TNCs have all that information even better. That can be taken…. You don’t have to say: “I want every­thing.” I mean, as a statistician, you have something called sampling — you know, sampling on a random basis, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. That will allow the regulators, if they want to, again, to have a picture of what’s happening right then and there.

Ideally, I think that someone like TransLink should get this. Then they could start measuring congestion along with how fast their buses move. Boom, boom, boom. They have a better picture of what’s happening dynamically, if they don’t have it now.

[4:55 p.m.]

That’s what I meant. Is it technologically feasible? I think it is, and that’s the reason I’m saying: “Think about it.”

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

A. Olsen: I’d like to ask about what I perceive to be somewhat of a contradiction in your testimony, with respect to the class 4 licensing. On one hand, you argued to keep class 4 restricted for people providing this commercial service because it’s safer and to get better outcomes. But then you used an analogy which suggested truck drivers who have that class 4, making decisions that…. I guess inherent in it, there’s an assumption that the taxi companies are making safer decisions about the safety of their vehicles and what­ever.

I want to be clear that it appeared that there was a contradiction in that testimony from you, because you used an analogy which suggested that a truck driver would drive with bald tires or whatever.

G. Chow: I hope it’s not a contradiction. There are two parts to the national safety code. One is that your drivers and your vehicles meet certain standards. The other one is: do your drivers and your maintenance group and so on actively ensure that the vehicle is well and the driver himself is doing a good job? That’s where, yes, there can be drivers who, despite having the proper licence, might do something like not do the precheck because they want to get off as fast as they can.

There can be a driver who will drive extra hours when they shouldn’t be. How are we going to monitor that? Who’s going to…? That part of it is where the practice is that the carriers have a responsibility to monitor their drivers in achieving these regulations on safety.

I must have blown that.

A. Olsen: I don’t know. I mean, I just feel that it’s easy to suggest that we maintain the status quo on this. There’s no real way for us to actually test.

Another question that I have is that….

G. Chow: Can I just follow that and say this is like a type 1 and type 2 error. If I believe that this does have an impact on safety, then I want to keep it as it is and then find out if I’m wrong.

What I had specifically suggested at the end of that section was: “Look, you’re going to do a review in two years. We know that you have jurisdictions across the country — some with more stringent and less stringent. There’s no study done on taxi drivers that’s been done on commercial truck drivers. Let’s see if there’s some evidence there.” If the TNCs, when legislation is passed, do enter here, we also have our economic laboratory here as well, to see: did it make any difference?

I can’t say: “Is it approved 100 percent?” I’m just using logic. But I can say that the parallel commercial trucks have proven it statistically. So I’ve got that evidence. I have my logic. I say just hang on for two years. See if you can collect more information. The philosophy here is that if you put down a regulation, it’s not in stone forever. And if there is no value to it, chuck it out.

[5:00 p.m.]

A. Olsen: In the meantime, the status quo, which has proven to not be working…. Or at least from a business model perspective and from a demand, we’re not providing the level of services that we need. In the meantime, we are still failing to deliver as an entity because we’re maintaining the status quo, which, arguably, is what the ultimate goal of that is, is it not?

G. Chow: That’s where my position on entry is very important, because the status quo…. This is what I said last time. Actually, from the statistics I’ve seen, the industry, in many ways, produced exactly what the regulatory authorities signalled that they wanted.

I know that the PTB leaders said: “Oh, Dr. Chow got that from a specific situation. Our criterion isn’t exactly that.” But over the years, the PTB has never demanded: “You shall have a waiting time of only five minutes 100 percent of the time.” They’ve never said that. What I saw in a particular case was that they accepted that service is good if, within 15 minutes, 92 percent of the customers got…. A taxi got there. Based on that, the taxi industry exceeded that, on average, all the time.

When you say that we have failed, we have failed to provide a new level of service that now people are saying: “This is exactly what the people want.” Well, it may well be that they want it. It may well be that people might be satisfied with having it in 15 minutes, in which case, the service levels that I had put down in this example here will require an even smaller number of vehicles.

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

All right. Can I try to summarize what I think the dialogue was there? My understanding is that your recommendation is that, given there is no set data right now to prove whether or not a class 4 or a class 5 is the right way to go, you’re recommending that we err on the side of caution. Rather than moving to a class 5 and then finding out in two years that we should have kept it at class 4, the way forward should be to keep it at the class 4 and then, in two years, decide whether or not we want to loosen it to a class 5.

G. Chow: You said it better than I could.

B. Ma (Chair): I think that is it. Thank you so much for coming down again, Dr. Chow. I really appreciate it.

Other Business

B. Ma (Chair): Now, that concludes our witness testimonies for today. I believe we were going to discuss very briefly any questions that we were going to send to ICBC for response. I’m told that we did get a submission from ICBC as part of our request, and they did provide further clarification on the differences between a class 4 and a class 5 — the tests, and so forth.

Are there other questions that the committee would like to pose to ICBC at this time, or should we review that and move forward?

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I don’t see anything in the ICBC letter that talks about any data. My concern was about data around class 4 and class 5 and about at-fault accident rates related to both of those classes of drivers. I’d still like to see what they come back with in regards to that.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. According to some of our witnesses, that information might not exist, but I think it’s worthwhile to actually ask ICBC directly. I agree. Would committee members be opposed to asking ICBC for any study or database evidence they can provide in regards to the at-fault collisions caused by drivers of class 4 versus drivers of class 5?

S. Chandra Herbert: I’m certainly not opposed. I just want it to actually be useful, because, of course, a class 4 driver might be a professional driver on the road all the time, whereas a class 5 driver…. If you’re doing the aggregate, you get people who use their car once a weekend or something like that. I just want to make sure it’s useful, that we’re not comparing apples and oranges.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I would argue that that is the point, though, because we’re deciding whether we should treat drivers as different. I think there’s a good argument to be made that class 5 drivers that decide to drive for a ride-share company a couple of hours a week are not actually driving any more than the average class 5 driver.

[5:05 p.m.]

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. Perhaps we can change that question, then, to ICBC as: “Any information in relation to the difference in driving activity between class 4 versus class 5 and any differences in collision rates that might be useful for our deliberations.” Phrase it like that. If there’s any information that they feel might be useful in order to — or not just information but data and evidence….

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I’m not asking what they think is useful. I’m asking for what I would find useful and whether they have that. If they don’t have it, they’ll come back with: “We don’t have that.”

B. Ma (Chair): All right. Very well. So collision rate information, information in regards to how many hours those with class 4 versus class 5, or kilometres, whatever they might have — quantity information on that.

S. Chandra Herbert: To clarify, I think Ms. Cadieux suggested “at fault” because obviously, if you’re on the road a lot, and you get hit by someone else, well….

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Doesn’t count.

B. Ma (Chair): Absolutely.

J. Sturdy: Yeah, vehicle kilometres driven as a comparable.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. And to see if there’s any comparable vehicle-kilometres-driven information that we can use.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): That’d be great.

B. Ma (Chair): Let’s see what they come back with.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): And then the Passenger Trans­portation Board.

B. Ma (Chair): Go ahead, Stephanie. What did you want to ask from the Passenger Transportation Board?

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I’d like to actually see the class 4…. Maybe committee staff can find this quicker than asking the PTB, but at a minimum, I’d like to know what the class 4 medical checklist, etc., is, because in the ICBC letter, it does suggest that right now, for a class 4 licence, getting a medical assessment or whatever and then having it processed can take up to two years. They’re backlogged by 10,000 pages of information. I would like to know what exactly it is we’re getting out of this medical information that is so relevant to driver safety for part-time drivers.

B. Ma (Chair): Does that information live with PTB or ICBC?

A Voice: RoadSafetyBC.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): RoadSafetyBC. Thank you.

B. Ma (Chair): With RoadSafetyBC. Thank you so much.

S. Chandra Herbert: The wait times would be interesting, just because I read a submission that suggested they would accept class 4 if it was done in a timely way, suggesting there’s a problem there.

B. Ma (Chair): Understood.

A. Olsen: I’d just like to ask the question of the Passenger Transportation Board around the public convenience and necessity, with respect to how they see the new definition in the application. I think Peter talked about it, asked several of the questions, several times. We finally did get a pretty clear answer, I think, with respect to what that language is. But I’d like to hear from the Passenger Transportation Board — how they feel their application is.

R. Kahlon: Yeah, I think that’s fine. But it’s not within the mandate of what this committee’s work is. I mean, we can ask for that information if you think it’s helpful for the committee’s sake. But it’s not part of the work. I’m not against it. I’m just wanting to make sure that people know that.

A. Olsen: I think, to be clear, it is. As part of, I think, the first point, we were actually here to talk about the public convenience and necessity.

R. Kahlon: Oh, sorry. That’s the supply piece?

Some Voices: Yeah.

R. Kahlon: Okay, sorry. I apologize. I misunderstood.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. We’ll add that to the list.

J. Sturdy: There’s a cost associated with licensing as well. I read on line there were some different perspectives on whether it was the responsibility of the driver to pay for it or whether it was covered by the medical system, to get that assessment.

My recollection was it was around $100, and it was paid for by the applicant. But on line, it suggested that it was the system that pays for it.

B. Ma (Chair): Some clarity on that.

J. Sturdy: It’d be nice to understand who’s paying for that and what kind of numbers we’re talking about at the end of the day as a burden to the system.

[5:10 p.m.]

P. Milobar: Also, further to what Adam was saying around the PTB and the supply issues, I would be curious if they could provide us with a little more insight into: do they have a current target timeline to approve a taxi licence under the current format — approve or disapprove — and what is that? Are they currently making those timeline targets? What is their anticipated timeline if there are, indeed, caps put in place and everything has to go through them for approving a TNS licence? What is their timeline that they are anticipating to approve or disapprove an application on all of these one-off bases? That will be a big question mark around supply and capacity within the PTB.

B. Ma (Chair): We can add that, certainly, as well. I might caution the committee about the responses we might get. Given that a lot of this is hypothetical, we may find they are unable to provide the exact responses that we’re hoping for.

P. Milobar: Well, I’m hoping they could at least provide what their current workload is…

B. Ma (Chair): I think that that’s much more…. Yes.

P. Milobar: …and how long it’s taking them to currently approve a licence. If it’s currently taking months, by the sounds of it, if not years, why should there be any reasonable expectation that if we’re going to control supply and every­thing has to go through that exact same board with the exact same three criteria to be considered, other than slight wording that they may or may not consider some of that criteria…? I think that’s a valuable piece to the public conversation as to public expectation for the rollout of actually seeing a car in operation of any substance, of any numbers, under this new Bill 55 framework that we’re saddled with.

B. Ma (Chair): Yes, historical information should be within their ability to provide, so I would expect that.

Any other comments from committee members? Questions?

Can I get a motion to adjourn?

S. Chandra Herbert: So moved.

Motion approved.

B. Ma (Chair): The meeting is adjourned until Monday, February 11.

The committee adjourned at 5:12 p.m.