The Vancouver Taxi Association is moving ahead with its own ride-hailing system, using a B.C.-based smartphone app that will allow taxi companies to co-operate to deliver the nearest licensed cab to customers.
Kater, a Surrey-based company, has plans to launch its own fleet of vehicles to compete with established ride-hailing services such as Lyft and Uber. But for now it wants to set up taxis to use its app, starting in the Lower Mainland, the only large metropolitan area in North America that doesn’t have legal ride-hailing.
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The association has informed the B.C. Passenger Transportation Branch that it has formalized an agreement with Kater to begin using the service in some of its member taxis, the B.C. transportation ministry confirmed in a statement. The taxi group wants to get a jump on ride-hailing, which the province intends to legalize by the end of this year.
“The ministry, through the Passenger Transportation Branch, is taking steps to ensure that all current provincial and licensing requirements are met including a regular, government approved safety inspection of the vehicles, insurance that will cover the carrying of paying passengers and compliance with licence boundaries and other requirements until the fall of 2019 when new regulations will come into force that will allow ride-hailing companies to enter the market,” the ministry statement said.
more to come…
