WELCOME UBER AS LEGIT PLAYER

Since mid-February, Montreal’s taxi bureau has led a crackdown on market disrupter UberX, seizing nearly 40 cars and handing out stiff fines to drivers. This is the latest salvo against the popular cab-hailing app, which both Quebec Transport Minister Robert Poëti and Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre have declared illegal.

Uber allows passengers to call a taxi to their location and pay their fare with a swipe of their smartphone. Since it was founded in 2009, the company has set up shop in 57 countries, where it has been eagerly adopted by the public but treated as an unwelcome intruder by many governments and the existing taxi industry.

Indeed, Uber upsets the traditional livery market. It offers advantages in terms of convenience and safety, most notably automatic payments (including tip) collected by users setting up accounts linked to their credit cards ahead of time. It also has disadvantages. While some of its drivers are licensed cabbies picking up extra fares on the side, others are individuals ferrying around passengers in their private vehicles.

Although Uber is a hit with the public, the response of the province and the city has been to outlaw it — in part due to the fears of traditional taxi purveyors who say the newcomer is undercutting their business.

As things stand, these concerns are justified: Traditional taxi licences are costly and Uber drivers operating without one have an unfair competitive edge. But this isn’t Uber’s fault. This is a result of authorities refusing to allow the company to join the market as a legitimate operator. Uber has been asking for months to be

Traditional taxi licences are costly and Uber drivers operating without one have an unfair competitive edge. But this isn’t Uber’s fault.

regulated and brought into the permit system. Talks are taking place, but so far nothing has been resolved.

Governments, regulatory bodies and the established taxi industry ignore Uber at their own peril. Authorities have a duty to ensure that new services being embraced by the public are safe. They should extract concessions out of Uber that address questions about safety and level the competitive playing field.

And Montreal’s taxi industry needs to take a hard look in the mirror as to why so many would-be passengers are opting for Uber. Nicer cars, more prompt service and ease of payment are just a few reasons. Montrealers too often find themselves wedged into small vehicles that stink of cigarette smoke piloted by kamikazes. There are many conscientious cabbies, but customers are at the mercy of whichever taxi is first in line at the stand or whomever dispatch deploys.

The sharing economy is here to stay, as the rise of online sharing services like Airbnb and YouTube demonstrates. The revolution in how people listen to music and watch television or films also attest to the inevitability of digital market transformation. A recent New Yorker article, The Man Who Broke the Music Business, serves as a cautionary tale about how the entertainment industry’s slowness to adapt — even in the name of thwarting a black market in pirated material — failed to stop the shift in their customers’ habits. Today Netflix, iTunes and their ilk are firmly established.

Uber is not the magic solution to all that ails the Montreal taxi industry. But it is a gamechanger and it is not going away. The city and the province should find a way to integrate Uber so that it can operate with the oversight the public deserves.