Too much supply for the demand in Toronto, Way tells consultation
It’s all about supply and demand.
“The basic problem is, you have way too many vehicles on the road for any driver to earn a living,” said Marc Andre Way, president of the Canadian Taxi Association. He was addressing Licensing and Standards staff and facilitators from Gladki Planning at the stakeholder consultation for the Taxi industry.
Until Toronto fixes supply and demand in the Vehicle for Hire (VFH) industry, conversations about subsidies for Accessible Taxis or per-trip fees for drivers are pointless, he says.
Way, who runs a large Taxi fleet in Ottawa including its main fleet of Accessible vehicles, told staff that while their ideas are sound, a new system will not work if the supply question is not addressed first and foremost.
“I think your idea of central dispatch is a good one; compensating drivers ‘X’ amount of per trip is good; subsidizing the van is certainly necessary, but you have to look further than that in order for that to work. Otherwise, you’ll be back here in a year trying to establish ‘What went wrong?’
“Right now, the basic problem you have is way too many vehicles on the road for the number of people that need to be transported.”
Drivers who could previously earn enough money to keep an Accessible Taxi on the road now “cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, because they end up doing two to three fares a day, versus the eight to 10 that they could do before,” Way told staff, consultants, and an audience of about 60 people at the East York Civic Centre.
In 2013, Toronto retained Taxi Research Partners to conduct a major assessment of Toronto’s Taxi service. It found Toronto had an appropriate number of licensed Taxis at approximately 5,500. After the arrival of rideshare in 2014, the number of Vehicles for Hire exploded. There are currently about 65,000 rideshares and about 2,800 working taxis.
According to statistics released on January 6, 2024, virtually 100 per cent of Toronto’s Accessible fleet will age out of the system and require replacement in early 2025. Industry members including Accessible drivers and Taxi brokerages tell Taxi News that operators who invested in the customized vans a decade ago are not planning to replace them. They cannot generate the revenues required to pay expenses and earn a living.
