The time for action is now: Khamseh
A letter to all Taxi owners and operators
by Behrouz Khamseh
It has been eight years since the City of Toronto legalized Private Transportation Companies (PTCs). As a result of that May 16, 2016, decision, which was voted unanimously supported by all the councillors, we are facing a disaster in taxi business.
Almost 80 per cent of taxi work has gone to the PTCs. The value of the plates plummeted from the former high of $350,000 to as low as $5000, and no one is interested to touch them. Half of the 5500 taxi plates issued are sitting on the shelf with no future.
Plate owners are the main ingredient of taxi business, without them there is no real legal taxi business.
We have faced a massive interruption of our business. Previous Mayor John Tory willfully destroyed the taxi business; our colleagues couldn’t stop him, and never put up a fight to protect taxi business. Previous industry associations collected funds but did not achieve the goal of stopping PTCs.
Most these companies could not operate as taxi company with out your plate, and they made a lot of money because of it but once the problem started they just return the plate back to you and now you are stuck with it, without any protection and any future except that you must pay renewal fees. I am wondering, how long are you willing to do that before you risk of losing your plate to the city?
Now it is time for you to decide what you want to do, keep on renewing it or find a solution repair the hole that has been created by this city.
You cannot rely on anyone except yourself; the time for waiting is over. Now is the time to act. You need to figure a way out of this disaster.
Back on January 15, 2023 a meeting was called and all the brokerages, fleet operators, insurance companies attended the meeting and discuss the problem in hand and try to find a solution. They started talking their “brands” and in the end, nothing was accomplished because of their total foolishness that their brand was more important than trying to find a solution.
I will be calling for a virtual meeting in coming weeks and all the information will be posted at www.taxiownersoperators.com site and hopefully you can attend. We will be talking about solution, strategy to reinvent taxi business with your help.
Thank you,
Behrouz
