JasonParis
Moderator
They do? I don't believe that's allowed.
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^there's no possibility that a metered taxi fare in Toronto could (legally) vary based on cab company. There is a mandatory tariff, and the meters are set in accordance with the tariff. The only pricing differences that are possible arise from service charges for credit cards or interac, but that's a function of the individual cabs' payment processor, rather than the actual cab company. Anecdotally, I take 500+ taxi trips per year, mostly to and from the same places, and I use all cab companies. My fare doesn't change based on the company.
Screw that. Like my annual performance bonus, I can't earn it by doing my minimal job. Bonus and tips are paid out for extraordinary performance...a minimum mandatory gratuity (20% IIRC) which really makes it part of the cab fare.
Kinda. Some cab companies, like Uber, use standard cab rates and have a minimum mandatory gratuity (20% IIRC) which really makes it part of the cab fare.
Screw that. Like my annual performance bonus, I can't earn it by doing my minimal job. Bonus and tips are paid out for extraordinary performance.
The vote created a new kind of taxi licence, the Toronto Taxicab Licence (TTL), which all plate owners must obtain by 2024.
Everyone with a TTL will have to use a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. That means the city’s entire taxi fleet will be accessible within 10 years. Since accessible vehicles are expensive and since only a small percentage of riders require such vehicles, brokerage executives said the requirement imposes needless costs.
Anybody with a TTL has to be at least a part-time driver. That means the end of fleet garages and the absentee non-driver plate owners, who were called exploitative by several councillors on Wednesday. Shift drivers at the meeting said the owner-operator model would mean cleaner cars.
Said Beck Taxi operations manager Kristine Hubbard: “I haven’t fully absorbed what all this means, but it’s going to hurt a lot of people. And I don’t know how many people it really helps.
Many veteran owners, brokers and drivers have been pushed to the breaking point by the Review’s recommendations calling for the gradual conversion to a new Toronto Taxi License and 100 percent on-demand wheelchair accessible taxi service à measures they say would destroy the value of the Standard plate, diminish customer service, and quite possibly spell the end of the business (with the heightened expenses and burden of additional competition for already scarce earnings).
“We haven’t much choice,” Independent Toronto Taxi Inc. president Mike Tranquada said prior to the L&S meeting. “The taxi owner’s plate is worth $350,000 in Toronto, and the City wants to take them back from us. The City has painted us into a corner.”
Many industry leaders view the By-Law changes pertaining to ownership as the latest attack on plate equity (dating back many years to when Howard Moscoe deemed himself the “taxi expert” on Council). What’s more, they claim this reneges on the promise of a Standard plate (known as the “driver’s pension), made to every driver who passed through the MLS driver training school prior to 1998.
“I’ve been in the business over 40 years, do you not think I’m entitled,” Manley asks. “I should be eligible for two plates and I haven’t got one.”
“I predicated my business model and my future on that promise. They broke every promise to me, and now they want to take away the value of the plate I do have. I think the plate-holders will take a dim view of this.”
Everyone with a TTL will have to use a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. That means the city’s entire taxi fleet will be accessible within 10 years. Since accessible vehicles are expensive and since only a small percentage of riders require such vehicles, brokerage executives said the requirement imposes needless costs.
And here's the entitlement of plate owners...
Could you imagine any other service requiring a city permit that could be sold? Can you inherit or sell food truck permits?
It also depends on the legal status of the taxi plates. Are they considered property and owned by the holder, or are they considered a license owned by the city, and permitted to be used by the plate holder.I think the way that the city has proposed this may be subject to legal challange (phasing out the absent owner). Expropriation of property issues.
Either way, this may not even get to the Supreme Court, as they can decided without stated reason to hear a case. If it does go to the top court, it will be by 2018 or thereabouts.