Taxi triumph

Cab-hailing app is worth considering if it will improve service

City council is smart to leave the door open to the taxi-hailing app Uber. The mobile app allows users to set up an account, plug in a credit card number, then view a map with your location showing available cars and their estimated time of arrival.

A couple of clicks and your ride is on its way.

The company typically partners with sedan services to offer a more upscale ride and will quote the price in advance. The trip can even be charged to a preregistered account.

While that might sound like a dream to Calgarians who’ve been frustrated in their attempts to get a taxi at one time or another, it’s apparently a nightmare for the city’s taxi industry and a perplexing puzzle for the bureaucrats who regulate it.

The response of the city’s licensing office to Uber’s overtures has been to toughen up regulations to stymie the San Francisco technology company’s attempts to bring the app to Calgarians.

This week, the city’s licensing department asked council for yet another restriction purportedly intended to ensure there will be no “direct competition” with taxis.

To his credit, Mayor Naheed Nenshi voted against the move and convinced council to instead request a special report into Uber’s viability in Calgary.

The mayor said that while it is important to protect people now working in the industry, he wants to “make sure we don’t have a bu- reaucracy and a regulatory system that is restricting competition.”

It’s an issue with which politicians around the globe are grappling. Uber is now operating in Toronto and Montreal and in cities in 41 other countries. In June, taxi protests against the app clogged streets in London, Berlin, Paris and Madrid.

It’s hard not to feel for those currently employed in the cab business who fear Uber will cut into their livelihood. On the other hand, finding a solution to the problems surrounding consistent taxi availability in this city has proven elusive. More competition may be just what’s needed to improve service for Calgarians in need of a ride.

Nenshi, whose use of new technology provided the impetus for his initial election victory, obviously sees some potential in this innovation for a city with a tech-savvy population.

Countless industries have already been transformed by technology. The taxi business must come to terms with change if it wants to prosper into the future. Protecting an industry monopoly at the expense of consumers is not a solution.

There are undoubtedly wrinkles that must be ironed out to ensure Uber doesn’t have an unfair advantage over the heavily regulated taxi industry and that passenger safety remains paramount. But it makes far more sense to determine if these new innovations can make life better for Calgarians than to simply try to strangle them out of existence with red tape.

The taxi business

must come to terms with change if it wants to prosper into the future.