What happened: Passenger Transportation Board grants ride-hailing licences to a pair of B.C. companies
Why it matters: B.C. firms, facing competition from ride-hailing giants, are taking diverging strategies
Provincial regulators have given the go-head to two more B.C.-based companies looking to offer ride-hailing services on the West Coast.
Among those approved by the Passenger Transportation Board (PTB) is Yellow Cab Company Ltd., which has been operating as a taxi service in Vancouver since 1921.
The local taxi industry has long opposed the arrival of ride-hailing services in B.C., but in Yellow Cab’s application it stated it wants a ride-hailing licence to comply with regulations pertaining to when trips are hailed and paid for by an app.
Yellow Cab deployed an app allowing passengers to both hail and pay for rides in December 2019.
It also wants to use the ride-hailing licences to change or discount rates for pre-paid app trips.
“Yellow Cab believes the ability to discount rates for app paid trips will provide it with a competitive advantage. It states that it is unlikely that it will operate outside of Vancouver as it does not have sufficient vehicles to guarantee service time, and its business and client base is in Vancouver,” the PTB said in a decision released Wednesday (August 12).
“It notes that since the launch of its pre-payment feature, customers have been moving to this method of payment as it provides a seamless and safe method of payment for their trip.”
The PTB also approved an application from ReRyde Technologies Inc., which had been previously declined by the regulator.
The Richmond-based company has been offering services in Manitoba and Ontario since launching in the prairie province in June 2018, where it now has 45,000 customer accounts.
But the approval from B.C. regulators marks the first time it will be able to operate in its home province.
Unlike Yellow Cab, it will not be focused on offering services in Metro Vancouver.
Instead, it was granted a licence to operate in the Capital Regional District, Vancouver Island, the Okanagan and northern B.C.
“ReRyde’s service will be rolled out initially in Victoria and Kelowna with approximately 30 drivers in each city. It will then concentrate on Nanaimo, Kamloops, Campbell River, Vernon, Prince George and Penticton with the goal of moving into other cities and towns as demand increases,” the PTB stated in its approval.
It joins other B.C.-based ride-hailing services that are focusing on regions outside Metro Vancouver, where multinational giants Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER) and Lyft Inc. (Nasdaq:LYFT) are concentrating.
“That was our game plan to begin with. Why not capture the market where there is no competition in the beginning? That’s why we want to make sure we develop enough business in the surrounding area, then go into the competitive regions,” Mandeep Rana, founder of Victoria-based LTG Technologies Ltd. (Lucky to Go), told BIV last month.
His company launched its services first in Kelowna last month.
“We will definitely be launching in Vancouver, because if there is enough demand for our passengers who are travelling from all these places to Vancouver, they would like to use our services there, too.”
