Recently, I visited a friend of mine in Montreal. After a night out, we decided to try to catch a ride home using Uber, an innovative new ride-sharing app. But it was a busy night and we were getting impatient, so we decided to just hail a cab instead.
We only needed to travel around 10 blocks down a straight street to our destination, and we even had the best route pulled up on Google Maps. However, upon entering his car, our cabbie immediately started insisting that he knew a shortcut and took us off the main route, clearly winding through residential streets to make the meter run up.
He even came to a complete stop outside of some restaurant that wasn’t even open and went on to tell us all about how we should come back and visit this restaurant, all while the meter ticked on. It cost us three dollars to hear about a restaurant that wasn’t our destination in what should have been a simple couple-minute zip down the street.
If this man had been an Uber driver, we would have written a terrible review about him and might have never used his service in the first place, had we known this is how he would behave.
That’s what separates Uber and similar apps to the typical cab experience. In theory, with Uber, the user is given a voice and thus power over their purchasing decisions. In turn, riders are more likely to get friendly and efficient drivers who receive their business based on the merit of their reviews, and not by aggressively picking up desperate pedestrians.
If we had waited for an Uber in Montreal, we might have avoided this experience. But in Vancouver, anything other than a taxi isn’t even an option — at least for now.
NEW APP IN TOWN
The classic tale of the bad taxi experience may soon become a thing of the past if apps like Uber have anything to say about it. Uber is an established international ride-for-hire app that allows users to connect with ‘crowdsourced’ drivers to hail rides rather than using a typical taxi.
These Uber drivers are not certified taxi drivers, but rather average people who own a driver’s license and are willing to drive app users around for extra cash. If the app makes its return to BC, it could be a great way for SFU students who own cars to help pay for classes without having to commit to a 9–5 desk job.
Uber’s popularity stems not only from its recruitment of drivers, but also in its user-friendly review feature, which puts more control into the rider’s hands when choosing who is picking them up.
The app is only available in participating cities, is completely cash-free with pre-set fares, and gives users the ability to view driver’s ratings and reviews before deciding to ride with them. Vancouver is not currently among the participating cities.
Uber is not the first app to try to challenge standard and somewhat outdated taxi services, and it will probably not be the last — development of these apps has become a popular topic of debate all around the world, for politicians and taxi companies alike.
In Vancouver, the app has recently gained media attention for trying to reenter the BC market after withdrawing in 2012. The California-based app was forced out of BC after six months, when the provincial transportation regulator forced the service to classify itself as a “private car service,” requiring a minimum 75 dollar fare.
The reason Uber succeeds in so many other cities and avoids regulations imposed on car rentals and taxis is by classifying itself in courts as first and foremost an app for connecting drivers and riders, rather than a car-for-hire service company.
This past November, Uber announced that it had plans to return to Vancouver and began running ads to hire Vancouver drivers. Almost immediately following this news, the Vancouver Taxi Association filed an injunction against Uber, stating that it does not properly adhere to provincial licensing requirements for taxi drivers. According to the association, this would not only put Uber at an unfair advantage over taxi companies, but would also put riders at risk.
UBER PROBLEMS
Like any company that tries to skirt around big players, Uber is almost constantly under attack by various lawsuits trying to stunt its growth. But given that consumers have so much power in today’s markets, with apps giving them direct access to the services they want, it’s hard to keep something so in-demand at bay.
Uber was established in 2009, and only really began expanding internationally in recent years. This opened the gates for a lot of backlash all over the world concerning how the company is run.
It’s easy to see why taxi companies would have a problem with Uber. They allow anyone to become a driver for the service, thus making a taxi driver’s licenses and company’s permits virtually useless.
This has caused ongoing criticism of the big player taxi company’s motives in cases where they claim to be protecting consumers — The Province recently reported that “the latest research from New York City shows that since Uber and other “ride-hailing” apps flooded into that market in 2013, the value of cab licenses plummeted from $1.05-million to $805,000.”
Reports such as this feed speculations that the main reason taxi companies want to keep smaller businesses and apps out is to keep the value of taxi permits high. To be fair, there is merit in some of the legal action against Uber, as car transportation service apps are only just beginning to set regulations to protect themselves, drivers, and passengers alike. This means that there are bound to be kinks in the system that must be worked out over time.
A big topic of debate is whether it is safe to take a ride with an Uber driver based on the company’s current hiring processes. There have been some recent allegations of sexual assault of riders by Uber drivers. Just this past January, The LA Times reported on two alleged assaults taking place in Uber cars within a three week period.
Uber has even had to shut down operations in Delhi following allegations of the rape of a female passenger by a male driver just this past December. According from an article published on February 15 in Reuters, “[Uber] applied for a radio taxi licence and resumed operations, but its application has yet to be officially approved.”
There are cases like these popping up all over the world which has caused concern in areas where Uber is trying to expand, such as Vancouver. This in turn brings into question the company’s background checks, which are no minor matter when riders are alone and getting into cars with these drivers.
RIDE SCARES
When taxi companies seek legal action against Uber and similar services, they tend to argue that the company does not require the same amount of licensing and permits that taxi companies do, and this allows potentially dangerous drivers into their system.
However, even though taxi companies claim to have a more rigorous background check system in place, there is still a staggering amount of reported rapes and assaults by taxi drivers all over the world. A simple search of the term “taxi driver sexual assault” returns thousands of hits and stories from all over the world.
CTV News reported that, in Montreal alone, 17 cases of reported sexual assault by taxi drivers were reported in 2014; in 2013, there were 29 such cases. The Montreal police department has even gone so far as to warn intoxicated women to avoid using taxis alone, as the cases of drivers taking advantage of vulnerable passengers has become increasingly prevalent in recent years.
By no means is one company any better than the next in this respect, but at the very least it doesn’t make a strong argument against Uber’s services when passengers could be just as unsafe in a regular taxi.
Since I cannot currently test Uber’s services in Vancouver, I polled my community of Facebook friends about their impressions of the app’s service. Out of the 30 or so separate replies that I received, I found that a lot of female Uber users all over the world (from Australia, the US and Toronto) felt that using the app is actually a safer option than taking a cab.
These women expressed a unanimous feeling of comfort when they can review a driver ahead of time and know the name of whomever picks them up. One responder in Australia stated, “I feel way safer knowing someone knows where I am at all times, especially when travelling alone. I love that you have a record of the driver and they know where they are. I also like it going through google maps because you can see whether it’s a direct route and you’re not getting ripped off. Also, it’s way cheaper and I find Uber drivers have way better attitudes.”
In comparison, when you hail a taxi, your driver is all but anonymous to you during the transaction, making some women feel very uncomfortable with the whole process, and with good reason.
Just last month, Global News reported that a Calgarian woman was sexually assaulted by her taxi driver, but there was no clear evidence as to who the driver was when she went to report him to the police, as she didn’t know his name. The man was eventually caught and is now facing trial, but the fact that she could not go the authorities with any concrete information is a scary reality that can sometime leave cases like this unresolved.
TAXI AND SPEND
Likely a big reason that user friendly companies like Uber and Airbnb (a similarly ‘crowdfunded’ website for people to rent out their homes) are fast-growing despite political and legal action against them is because people are fed up with the typical ways in which they can get ripped off by standard companies.
Why would you pay to stay in a sketchy hotel with unfriendly staff when you can pay less to stay in someone’s home, and you’ve read reviews about this someone ahead of time to make sure that they are nice, fair, and hospitable before making any commitments to staying with them?
The same concept applies to Uber. Overall, this seems to be the allure of these new app services over standard taxis — and what the people want, they will inevitably get.
Whether or not Uber will be able to make a return to BC still remains unclear, although the company seems optimistic as it is already pouring resources into currently recruiting drivers in Vancouver. Uber held a hiring fair just this past October, and CBC reported that it even offered a 40 dollar incentive to applicants.
There is an Uber Vancouver Twitter account that was created the first time Uber was in Vancouver, and as of last summer, they have started posting again.
The company has made it clear they are intending to return to Vancouver and are looking to gain the attention and support of Vancouverites wanting the service back.
Uber’s marketing team kicked off the company’s comeback a one-day Uber Vancouver ice cream truck service, where users could request an ice cream truck to come to them via the app. On July 18, 2014, they tweeted “I scream, you scream, WE’RE BACK VANCOUVER with #UberIceCream!”
The account also flaunts the success of the company in other Canadian cities, and urges followers to sign a petition to get Uber back into Vancouver.
Regardless of Uber’s future performance in BC, it is clear that this app has stirred up a need for change at the hands of consumers in regards to car transportation in the city.
Vancouver taxis have been found by SFU master’s graduate Benn Proctor to have some of the highest fares in the country, as well as the lowest number of taxis in Canada and possibly in North America as well. Proctor told CTV that “to get the same number of cabs per capita as Calgary, Metro Vancouver would need some 1,900 new cabs,” according to his research for his thesis which studies the taxi industry in Vancouver.
Just last year, BC Business reported that the Conference Board of Canada found that there were only .24 taxis per 1,000 residents in Vancouver. Anyone who has tried to hail one on a busy night downtown will not be surprised by this.
Clearly, the need for some sort of change is in the air, and Uber might just be the answer. If not Uber, something else will follow, and likely find a way to work within BC’s tight regulations. The demand for a better car transportation service is here and eventually something will step in and provide the supply.
