Regulators Demanding Uber Price Increase to $75 Minimum in Vancouver | Hacker News Reader

Regulators Demanding Uber Price Increase to $75 Minimum in Vancouver

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52 pointsimack56 comments

How about Uber set aside $20 per ride in a fund and issue customers with claim card, a bit like a store rewards card. If the law ever gets changed so that Uber can refund the money then they commit themselves to do so, perhaps up to a limit of 5 or 10 years.

Soon the city will be full of people owed hundreds or thousands of dollars in refunds, a pretty solid reason to push for changes to the law, and demonstrate to the public just how much they're getting ripped off.

That's a clever concept.

Perhaps, but I'm not sure how practical it is. The high charges will reduce the number of people choosing Uber over their competitors, so they'd be giving up a competitive advantage and the higher margins that might offset it. On the other hand, if the legislation never gets changed they get to keep the money, hence the cut-off period.

I've not idea what the financial reporting implications of this might be.

Great idea. Puts the incentives in the right places.

This is unfortunately turning into an example of "you can't fight City Hall".

In a city like SF, where the taxi cab service is the worst I've ever experienced (empty taxis just driving past you, or never honoring a commitment to pick you up even if you call in), Uber is something that is necessary. But the status quo's long term experience with enforcing a monopoly through laws/regulations, etc, will make it really hard for Uber. Uber will need to spend a great deal of time and energy trying to get those laws to change, which will likely be at a glacial pace, if ever.

I'm sure there's a huge amount of interest for this in SF, and taxi service is so bad, you might even be able to make this an election issue. But other cities like Vancouver I'm sure don't have as bad of an issue, so it might be harder to make it an issue that politicians will take notice of.

I've lived for years in both Vancouver and in SF. I can't say I prefer one's taxi service over the other. At least in SF, I have the option of Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar.

I would love to have Uber back home, but not for $75 a ride.

"I'm sure there's a huge amount of interest for this in SF, and taxi service is so bad, you might even be able to make this an election issue. But other cities like Vancouver I'm sure don't have as bad of an issue, so it might be harder to make it an issue that politicians will take notice of."&

I've lived in Orlando, DC, SF (Santa Clara, but went to SF regularly) and Boston. All of those cities have major issues with cabs. My experience in NYC is better, but I have never lived there. At any rate, Uber is doing well, in part because cabs are terrible.

This is Uber's issue in a lot of places, I think. They're trying to apply the SF model to cities that doesn't care about it anywhere near as much. I rarely have issues getting a cab in NYC- at peak times you do have to wait, but 5-10 minutes- I doubt an Uber car would get there much quicker and would cost a ton more. I also had no issues getting cabs in Vancouver.

As Uber's similar difficulties in New York show, the governments both North and South of the 49th parallel consider city transportation to be their exclusive domain and are not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers.

In Vancouver, Canada the quasi-government regional transportation authority is heavily subsidized by taxpayers and is still running in deficit. They are not exactly happy about competition from the companies like Uber.

I don't think translink and Uber are serving the same market.

You should know that Translink (aka the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority) has nothing whatsoever to do with Taxi's. That's regulated at the provincial level.

> quasi-government (sic)

aka, the corporate structure used by participating municipalities to operate a unified public transportation system in a metropolitan area

> heavily subsidized by taxpayers

That's literally what the "public" part in "public transportation" means (gasp! that's socialism!)

> and is still running in deficit

Like every public transportation project everywhere? A valid and important criticism of Translink but at least a robot drives me to work on a monorail every day faster than I could drive there on empty roads, never mind in traffic.

All of this is completely irrelevant to the actual story unless you think that Uber is in competition with public buses, but you don't seem that confused.

> not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers

You've clearly never lived somewhere with a booming unregulated taxi market. Do you take things like not getting extorted, scammed, robbed or raped when jumping into a strangers car in the middle of the night for granted? You can thank the people regulating the taxi industry.

Regulatory bodies, like any group of people given some power, public or private, will try to expand it's power base and will abuse that power but taxi regulation was brought about by people looking out for consumers.

I think this decision in particular is outrageous protectionism but your take on things made me think an adult opinion was warranted.

The domain of solutions to the problem of rape and extortion by vehicle operators for hire expands beyond the purview of governments. Do not confuse first world economies (and the regulations that people feel necessary to enact) with solution sets. Just as militaries in third world counties are unorganized and corrupt, so can their private taxi operators. Yet since the distinction between operators of taxis is one of regulated vs nonregulated one tends to view this fact as the defining difference, which may not be the case.

That is a very good point. Social norms are much more important here than the regulatory punishments.

As to the I would argue, however, that it is exactly the enshrining of human rights into law and the regulation of necessary but historically predatory industries that is the distinction you are drawing between civilized and uncivilized societies.

Those social norms do not just appear in a vacuum.

> That's literally what the "public" part in "public transportation" means

That's not really true. There are counter-examples of privately-owned public transportation systems. Tokyo's subways for one. Greyhound bus lines for another.

The "public" in "public transportation" really just means that it serves the general public. In the same way that you're "in public" even when you're in a privately-owned shopping mall.

> but you don't seem that confused.

> your take on things made me think an adult opinion was warranted.

This is one of the most arrogant and patronizing comment I've read on HN, you should have read your comment before posting it, you really sounded prickish on this one.

Sometimes you need a slap to make you listen. I think his comment was spot on.

If you click on the permalink you can flag individual comments.

I figured it would come across as at least slightly prickish because it was very very patronizing. I wouldn't say arrogant though, considering the majority of the comment was correcting the easily google-able falsehoods in the parent comment. Arrogant would be preaching your subjective political view while getting all the facts wrong.

I defend the use of patronizing mockery as a proper tool to discourage comments that smugly dismiss facts to push a political ideology.

Translink is completely and totally irrelevant to this story. You'd as accurately blame the New York Yankees for Uber's problems in Vancouver.

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

Almost certainly no. Canada is less tolerant of loophole-exploitation than the USA, and more likely to invoke the clear intention behind rules rather than their literal meaning.

Likely not.

  "Certificates must not replace or interfere with the requirement
   that licensees charge Board-approved rates ..."

Source: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/operational_policies.htm#V_5

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

Price floors are dumb, but I don't see where Canada's constitution would prohibit one.

(I don't see what would prohibit a US city or state from enacting one either.)

It's because you need to be regulated to be allowed to operate a taxi or limousine service. That's because of the history of horrific things people do to each other when taxi's aren't regulated.

As to what logic is behind this other than protecting their members against the new guy I have no idea.

What do people do to each other?

Or was that a joke?

Most common is fare scams (driving in circles, pricing scams and various types of extortion), assault and sexual assault.

Then you have things like all the types of discrimination you can think of as well as safety issues (having seatbelts, having tires with tread on them) and so on.

Ugh, I see. Thanks.

Fare scams still occur on metered taxis, and these scams are any more widespread in taxis than any other industry.

Nothing distinguishes transportation, from say, overpriced crappy old model cameras on Fisherman's Warf, Dead Sea cosmetics, or any other scam - other than that it's easy for the city to claim it needs to regulate.

A simple licensing and complaint system is all that is necessary.

A simple licensing and complaint system is all that is necessary.

That doesn't work very well for tourists, who are the most likely to be scammed, and whose money is highly desirable as it represents an input to the local economy.

It works just fine for tourists.

And regardless, creating a communist style fixed price centrally managed system is not the solution to tourists being scammed. It doesn't solve the problem, raises prices, and limits supply - it's a lose lose for everyone (except monopolists and city hall).

The regulatory framework is outdated and unnecessary.

New Yorkers disagree. New York's medallion system has resulted in a world class taxi ecosystem. There are other examples as well. Are there examples of equally good taxi ecosystems in cities without regulation? Or examples of negative consequences which outweigh the good but are not generally accounted for?

Evidence based arguments trump ideological arguments. You saying "it's a lose lose" or throwing the word "communist" in there doesn't tell me anything other than that I might be entering a religious argument instead of a reality based discussion.

The problem with heavy government involvement in any industry is not that it's inherently bad, but that if it is bad, it is very, very hard to change. With minimal good regulation on transparency and accountability (I did not say no regulation,) consumers can quickly vet good providers.

New York is lucky in that it has reasonably good regulation on taxis, though far from perfect - there are many underserved areas for which there is no incentive for taxis to service, and where it is illegal for other parties to service. Along with service at peak times, New York would benefit from eliminating the medallion system and instituting a simple regulatory framework where anyone with appropriate training and licensing can provide taxi service.

Uber is an example of good quality taxi service without (or circumventing) regulation, as is Lyft and the other startups. The negative consequences are obvious simply by looking at the market opportunity and demand for fixes to the broken taxi system. San Francisco suffers from insufficient taxis and an inability to adapt to demand.

The purpose of the regulations has become primarily to protect taxi unions and companies by limiting supply, not to promote safety or prevent fraud.

It works just fine for tourists.

Perhaps you should offer some evidence to support that assertion. By definition, a tourist is only around temporarily, whereas a complaint can take a long time to process. If a tourist has a bad experience, they're unlikely to return.

You don't really have enough insight into this (apart from "regulation bad") to continue the argument. Taxis work fine in a lot of places, there's a reason for their regulation, and that's fine.

Uber is a private car service. That's what they should stick to. Taking on taxis on multiple fronts (different cities, states, countries) is a losing (and, quite frankly, boring) proposition.

The problem, in this case, is attempting to apply SF-sourced corporatism-as-libertarianism to places other than SF. Good luck with that (and I say this as a person who uses Uber as my sole method of transportation, several times a week).

These things don't occur in a vacuum. Taxi's are more highly regulated because people demanded that "somebody do something" because things were pretty bad.

I definitely agree a better regulatory system is possible but pretending it would be easy or simple is silly.

Have you ever been in a taxi in Mexico City at night? Terrifying. I'll take my Canadian regulations, thanks.

Shafting Uber is not a problem of excessive regulation, but of purposely protecting incumbants.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Mexico City is not in Canada.

His point is that unregulated taxis are scary.

Right. And the attitude that results in a taxi passenger bill of rights (http://www.taxirights.gov.bc.ca/) is what makes Canada so clearly not Mexico City.

People who have read the Reglamento de Transporte del Distrito Federal would be astonished to learn that a taxi passenger bill of rights makes the difference between Mexico City and Canada.

Especially astonished would be those who've read Chapter 5 Articles 33 and 34.

"the attitude that results in a taxi passenger bill of rights"

Those extra words do actually make quite a difference in what was meant. I was unclear in another way though, it's the attitude that results in both the laws being written and the laws being effectively enforced. That is an important part of the equation.

Yes, I have been in taxis in Mexico City at night. Many times in many different parts of the city I have procured the services of taxis of all kinds for decades. All of my experiences have been fine and I've never been terrified, scared, concerned, attacked, robbed, worried, or kidnapped in any way.

I have been overcharged, though. It happens less now that I speak the language fluently but I can't change the fact that I'm an obvious foreigner. The city does not regulate nighttime fares.

If you are concerned, get a "sitio" taxi from one of the thousands of convenient taxi stands that check on and track their drivers and cars. It costs a little more but provides rock solid security.

You should never have any trouble with Mexico City transit of any kind except personal cars; driving yourself is insane in a city of 24 million. The transit system, from taxis to subways, is clean, cheap, innovative, reliable, and efficient with an excellent worldwide reputation.

That is accomplished with a network of private regulations (taxi sitios), fully public systems (subway, bus rapid transit), minimal public regulation (taxi licensing), cooperatives of private contractors (minibuses), privatized toll roads, and public streets. As an operators, you can choose the level of regulation you want to operate under and then operate the corresponding kind of transit you want your business or career to involve. Diversity works much better than monopoly of the type being mandated in Vancouver or NYC.

How does regulation make taxis safer? As cars, they need to have a license plate you can write down and give to the police. I can't imagine what aspect of regulation offers protections beyond that.

IMO taxi regulation in North America is generally designed for no other purpose than to purposely protect incumbents, so saying those are different things is a false dichotomy. Of course, since that might look bad to the voting public, sometimes they pretend there are other benefits.

I'm not a libertarian btw, I have no problem with the concept of regulations, I just call rent seeking when I see it.

Shafting Uber with pricing requirements is excessive regulation.

Surely this isn't constitutional?

The federal government could make it illegal to drive a taxi in Vancouver except while wearing a pink tutu and singing Christmas carols. The provincial government could make it illegal to charge taxi fares which are not a prime number of cents.

Yes, it's perfectly constitutional to set a minimum price for private hire cars. Whether a law is dumb is orthogonal to whether it is constitutional.

> The federal government could make it illegal to drive a taxi in Vancouver except while wearing a pink tutu and singing Christmas carols.

As a former frequent user of that particular mode of transportation, that would be 'business as usual', which makes me wonder if such a law (or at least one like it) is already in effect.

Many cities regulate taxis as public utilities, in a similar fashion and logic to the regulation of telephone, power, water and public transit companies. We don't see much discussion of it anymore, but if you look to the early-20th century, you'll find many examples of granting monopoly licenses in exchange for universal service and non-discrimination.

To the extent that you think this is unconstitutional, unprecedented or inherently destructive, I encourage you to look at US economic history before 1970. AT&T's monopoly and rate regulation included transfer pricing which allowed them to subsidize rural services and connect the last mile to (almost) every home and business across North America. (Most of Europe accomplished the same with state-owned telephone companies.) The AT&T monopoly came with the mandate to provide services even where they were unprofitable (and sometimes for free), with the guarantee of profits elsewhere. That regime ultimately extended Bell Labs' $0 transistor licensing, which made the semiconductor industry possible. Similar requirements were made of power utilities, and that's also the logic behind taxi regulations.

Vancouver's taxi laws require at least 6-days/week service, for a minimum of 10hours/24hours. Taxis are (basically) required to accept all fares and serve all areas at all hours, without discrimination. In return for providing universal service (and to keep monitoring practical), the licensed providers were guaranteed a monopoly (and kept small in number). Of course, as soon as you grant a monopoly, you set the stage for price gouging, which is (as with AT&T) where the government-fixed rates come from.

In short: the prices aren't fixed arbitrarily, technocrats use them to advance designated public policy objectives.

""" Mary Polak ‏@MaryPolakMLA Passenger Transportation Board is an independent decision maker so gov’t does not influence decision. #bcpoli #UberVanLove """

This makes sense, actually. At first I was angry because there was no system in place for the public to complain/appeal this, but this has nothing to do with public services. If it had to do with buses or other forms of public transportation, then there would be a way to publicly appeal.

However, this is a matter dealing with private companies- as such it makes sense that the PTB is outside the public domain. Unfortunately, this makes it much harder for anyone outside an UBER rep to affect things one way or another.

A cursory glance at http://www.ptboard.bc.ca/ confirms this- the appeals appear to be for the user/company directly, and the only contact to the PTB appears to be snailmail, which nobody on HN is going to use for any reason.

As for the actual rates information itself: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/documents/rule_limo-min-rates.pd...

Best they could do is $75 * .15 discount, not enough to be viable.

UBER can appeal for the board to approve company specific rates, but I'm not sure exactly how they'd justify it or what's involved in the process. Worst case scenario is waiting until the rules end date comes (June 30, 2013) and see if a campaign to rewrite it is within the public domain.

For those still following, it turns out that Uber has nothing to appeal because they never submitted an application to the PTB. The PTB did not reject a request by Uber.

It now appears that the PTB barely knew that Uber existed until they started getting hate-mail from angry users.

(The same is true, incidentally of the City of Vancouver. Uber doesn't have the business licenses required to sell bicycle courier services in Vancouver, never mind limousine services.)

The limo drivers and companies who worked with Uber, however, are being hit with fines and other enforcement actions.

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

For those still following, "#ubervanlove" and "Uber" are trending on twitter in Vancouver right now.

Mayor Gregor Robertson (@MayorGregor) says: "Getting lots of @Uber_VAN tweets. City Hall not involved, BC govt appoints Passenger Transportation Board. #UberVanLove"

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

And this will go on until somebody starts to do violence in defence of these kinds of businesses.

When enough taxi drivers gets shot, they will change their tone.

//Legal disclaimer: the above is a disclaimer of fact and should not be read as inciting violence.

Violence begets violence. Violence doesn't solve anything unless you're an entity which can totally dominate another entity. And in this case, the entities we're talking about are (rather large) businesses. So applying violence in this domain is the surest way to undermine your own goals.

Vancouver taxi drivers have as little power to change BC's vehicle hire laws as Walmart greeters have to change the company's sourcing policies.

The taxi drivers are victims of the taxi license cartels: the only power they have is to stop driving and find another livelihood. If you asked the drivers (or did the most cursory google search) you'd find out that they want reform too. #1 on their list: issue more taxi licenses & smash the cartels.

So, no, if "enough taxi drivers get shot" and "change their tone", it still will NOT change the legal or regulatory environment for Uber.

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