No-shows prove need for more cabs, stranded riders say
With too few taxis and the industry in its busy season, Vancouverites are left at the curb
Two Vancouver women say their recent experiences with no-show taxis, which left them stranded late at night, highlight the need for more cabs and alternatives such as Uber and Lyft.
Rebecca Bollwitt left a concert at the University of B.C.’s Point Grey campus at 11 p.m. last Wednesday. She used the Black Top app to book a cab downtown, her booking was accepted, and a cab — she could track its real-time location on the app — was on its way.
When the cab was a few blocks away, she got a call from the driver
“He said, ‘Are you alone? I’m picking you up. Are you alone?’ ” Bollwitt said. She replied she was with her husband. The driver told her he had friends nearby and asked if he could pick them up too.
Confused, Bollwitt asked: “Share our ride?” The driver said yes, and offered to take $5 off her bill. “So basically you want me to pay to drive your friends downtown,” she asked.
The driver appeared to give in, saying he’d come to get her. She tracked his location on the app and saw him pull up across the street to instead pick up a group of people.
Bollwitt and her husband took a bus back to the West End. The trip, including waiting time and connections, was about an hour.
“It was very uncomfortable to have that question and discussion with that cab driver,” said Bollwitt, founder of local blog Miss604. “A man asking, ‘Are you alone?’ It’s 11 p.m., foggy, dark and I’m out at UBC. … This guy really overstepped.”
She filed an incident report with Black Top through their website.
Black Top general manager Saif Ullah said he learned about the incident Thursday and interviewed the driver, who admitted he asked if a friend could share the cab.
Ullah said the part-time driver had been on the job for about a month. He has been suspended.
“This should not have happened,” Ullah said. “It is not what we teach our drivers.”
He said the company would apologize to the customer.
A frequent cab user, Bollwitt said bad experiences with cabbies are becoming more common.
“It’s unfortunate because there are good cab drivers out there, but this brings to the forefront the need for more accountability and change in the cab landscape in the city,” she said.
There’s also been countless times that she couldn’t get a cab — another reason why she wants companies like Uber and Lyft to enter the B.C. marketplace.
“It gives you more choice,” she said.
The NDP government promised to legalize ride-sharing services by the end of the year, but has pushed the deadline into next year. It has hired a consultant and set up an all-party committee to study the issue.
The committee is expected to released its findings in February.
Carolyn Bauer, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver Taxi Association, said the driver’s behaviour in Bollwitt’s case was inappropriate.
“No, they’re not allowed to be doing that,” said Bauer, who is also the general manager at Yellow Cab. “If one of our guys had phoned a customer and said I’m going to pick up my friends on the way downtown, we would not allow it to happen.”
After getting stood up by a prebooked taxi, Cathy Browne wondered why there aren’t more cabs on the road to meet demand.
Browne, 63, had watched a latenight improv show on Granville Island on Saturday night. Knowing it would be a busy night, Browne planned ahead, booking a Yellow Cab taxi for 12:30 a.m. She received a confirmation of her booking.
“I thought I was covered,” she said.
But the cab never came. Browne was out on the street for about 45 minutes until she was able to flag down a cab.
“There needs to be more taxi licences in the city because more people are using cabs and less people want to drive,” she said.
Nearly 100 licences have been issued to Vancouver taxi companies for the seasonal rush, in addition to 175 new full-time licences granted in the spring. But they’re not enough, Browne said.
“Obviously we need more, including (wheelchair) accessible cabs,” she said.
She doesn’t think ride-for-hire companies will be an instant solution to the taxi shortage, either.
“It’s an alternative, but I have questions about safety and training and accessibility for disabled people or frail seniors,” she said.
Bauer confirmed Browne booked a cab pickup that evening, but even though the booking was confirmed, the sheer volume faced by cabbies that night meant Yellow could not fulfil the booking.
“There were no cabs available. Everybody was flagging (down cabs). Even though there was a confirmation on that alert, it was so, so many people, there was no possible way for us to control that,” Bauer said.
Taxi companies get slammed during the first three weeks of December and on New Year’s Eve, she said. During peak hours on the past two weekends, the Yellow Cab call system, which has 70 telephone lines, was maxed out.
“We do our very best to please people,” said Bauer, who asked cab-takers to be more patient, especially this weekend with Christmas parties and gatherings in full swing.
“Out of the 10,000 trips we are doing a day, the complaints we receive is probably less than one per cent.”
She said she will change the wording on the pre-booking system to inform customers there is no guarantee of service during peak times.
It was very uncomfortable to have that question and discussion with that cab driver … A man asking, ‘Are you alone?’