Uber drivers in Ottawa aren't being penalized enough, report suggests

A report commissioned by the City of Ottawa as part of its ongoing review of its taxi industry suggests penalties for Uber drivers may be too low to enforce the bylaw effectively.

The city asked for a review of its taxi regulations in May to account for ride-hailing services such as Uber, which launched in Ottawa in October 2014.

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KPMG, which is workingon the review alongside the Mowat Centre think tank, economist firm Hara Associates and Core Strategies Inc, has prepared six "discussion papers" on potential changes to regulations that willbe released over the next two weeks.

The first two papers on Ottawa's current taxi regulations and how they compare to six other cities across Canada and the United States were released Thursday.

The 21-page paper titled "Current Regulatory Regime" lays out the provincial and municipal taxi laws, how many licenses have been issued and how the finances work.

• Read the overview of the taxi industry in Ottawa (PDF)

In its "Bandit & Uber Enforcement" section, it says 142 charges were laid against drivers believed to be working with Uber between October 2014 and August 2015, compared to 111 "bandit" cab charges issued for all of 2013.

It goes on to say that the fines laid against alleged Uber drivers may not be high enough.

"The low level of penalties hinders effective enforcement," it says.

"The majority of charges are under the Taxi By-law for offences related to unlicensed taxi drivers ($615 fine) and the operation of unlicensed taxicabs ($260). In contrast, up until recently, Quebec police have been impounding vehicles of Uber drivers."

"That continues to be a challenge for us," said acting deputy city manager Susan Jones.

Jones said she'd like to see the province make changes under the Highway Traffic Act to bring penalties for operating an unlicensed taxi in line with penalties for impaired driving.

"We need additional tools that will actually link in with an individual's driver's license, as well as their insurance," Jones said.

"If we can get some additional help, I think we can probably come out of this review with complementary regulations that hopefully will be able to address and meet the needs of our transportation service in Ottawa."

The report also says there so much Uber activity in Ottawa that it's time consuming and expensive to dedicate staff to enforcing that part of the bylaw.

"Ideally I wouldn't like to be using bylaw officer time to have to deal with enforcement," Jones said. "If we could come up with regulations where we'll get proactive compliance, I think that is ideally where we want to go."

The case studies compare Ottawa to Toronto, Waterloo, Vancouver, New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., looking at how they're handing Uber and similar services from public safety, accessibility and consumer protection without making suggestions on how they may affect Ottawa's policies.

• Read the six taxi industry case studies here (PDF)

Discussion papers on emerging issues and accessibility issues are expected to be released Thursday, Oct. 22 and papers on customer experience and taxi economics are expected Thursday, Oct. 29.

The city also launched a public consultation campaign on Thursday, asking residents to let them know what they think about the industry and discussion papers by emailingtaxi@ottawa.ca, tweeting using the hashtag #otttaxi, calling613-580-TAXI (8294) or on the City of Ottawa's Facebook page.

"We want to hear from the public what they think a new taxi and limousine bylaw should look like, what their priorities are, and what they'd like to see reflected in that," said councillor Diane Deans, chair of the city's community and protective services committee. "We expect to get this right."

The draft report was originally going to be released in March 2016 but is being accelerated to be ready inDecember.