
Regulators Demanding Uber Price Increase to $75 Minimum in Vancouver - imack
http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8d2fd6968b2b5c64d0d22dba2&id=716a9504de&e=60b1c5b342
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simonh
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.

~~~
anigbrowl
That's a clever concept.

~~~
simonh
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.

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steve8918
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.

~~~
mkenyon
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.

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makhanko
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.

~~~
freshhawk
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.

~~~
patrickaljord
> 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.

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

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nekojima
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?

~~~
biot
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>

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

~~~
elchief
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.

~~~
ihsw
Correct me if I'm wrong but _Mexico City_ is not in _Canada_.

~~~
freshhawk
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.

~~~
WildUtah
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.

~~~
freshhawk
"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.

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Vancity-
""" 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...](http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/ptb/documents/rule_limo-min-rates.pdf)

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.

~~~
opendna
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.

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Steve79
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.

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graeham
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"

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

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tomjen3
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.

~~~
sillysaurus
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.

