Where did the 80,429 VFH number come from?
What could be more arbitrary than proposing the number that’s creating all the problems?
Update at 1:30pm January 13: The full TRP report has been added to the bottom of the post in an accordion box.
Like many other perfectly normal Canadians, I spent my 2024 Christmas holidays pondering what assumptions and mathematical calculations Toronto staff used to determine that the city needs 80,429 licensed Vehicles for Hire.
On January 7th, I sent the email below to Shane Gerard of Toronto’s Media Office. On the first pass, Shane replied with several questions for clarification; on the second pass, he provided the answers noted in the chart, below.
I am posting the exact text of everything I asked, and everything I received, so that interested parties can look at the math (such as it is) and determine for themselves whether the number makes sense. For the more readable summary presented with my opinions, visit my column “It’s beyond comprehension,” here.
To: Toronto Media Relations
“At the Dec. 10 Executive Committee meeting, Carlton Grant made a statement in response to a question from Jennifer McKelvie about the proposed 80,429 cap for Vehicles for Hire.
Grant said they chose the Dec. 1 figure of 80,429 number because it was based on a year’s research and any other number (“50,000, 40,000, 20,000”) would have been “arbitrary.”
I have received questions from numerous industry members who ask how Carlton Grant and his staff, in a year of research, could have remained unaware of the Taxi Research Partners report from 2013 (attached here). (Editor’s note: to read the TRP report that was attached to the email, click on the grey accordion box placed at the very bottom of this post). That report confirmed 5,500 licensed VFH as the correct number for Toronto, or about one VFH for every 500 residents.
(Ottawa’s current number, BTW, is one VFH per 800 residents).
Even if Toronto wanted one VFH per every 300 residents right now, that would be only 9,000 VFH. So the current recommendation is almost 10 times that amount.
Questions for the article I am currently researching are:
- Did L&S Staff refer to the Taxi Research Partners report which Toronto commissioned and paid for at all in writing the 2024 report?
- What was Grant’s reason for telling Councillors a number based on population extrapolation would be ‘arbitrary’? All governments use assumptions in calculations. Why did L&S not use ANY practical assumption in the 80,429 license recommendation?”
| Staff question for clarification: | Taxi News clarification: | Staff final response: |
| A lot has changed in the industry since 2013, is this study not out of date? | NO – the study is not out of date if the key element you are considering is number of VFH relative to the number of residents and the roads available for VFH to drive upon, two things which have not changed much. The 2011 population was 2,615,060 The 2021 population of Toronto is 2,794,356 – an increase of 7 per cent. In 2013, Toronto believed 5,500 VFH were enough to meet the City’s needs – this was one VFH for every 475 residents at the time. These figures were calculated to both provide reasonable service, and also avoid cannibalizing the TTC. If Toronto wanted double, or triple, or let’s say, quadruple the number of VFH for a population of 2,794,356 in 2021, that would mean 23,531 VFH licenses. Grant’s number of 80,429 is more than triple that number. If Toronto wanted to increase the number of VFH based only on a 7 per cent population increase from 2011 to 2021, that would have been an increase of 385 plates. Instead, Toronto increased the number of VFH licenses by 1462 per cent. If Grant had simply identified a number of licenses per number of residents – for example, Ottawa’s formula of one plate per 800 residents, Councillors could have decided whether they wanted (eg) a plate per 800/plate per 400/plate per 200/plate per 100 residents. At 80,429, Toronto has a plate per 35 residents. | “The City is aware of the 2013 report, which was presented to Council in 2014 as part of the Taxicab Industry Review Item 2014.LS26.1. This report did not consider Private Transportation Companies (PTCs), which were not regulated at the time and in their beginning as an industry. The introduction of Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 546 and the regulation of PTCs in Toronto fundamentally changed the industry and consumer preferences. Over a year’s worth of work and analysis on the report brought to City Council in December considers the City and the industry as it exists today, accounting for PTCs and is a more accurate reflection of industry conditions than a report drafted in 2012-2013. The work we completed for the report in December 2024 included insight and research from experts and academics in the field as well as thorough data analysis based on a significant amount of data about every PTC trip completed in Toronto. This allowed the City to understand the impact of PTCs on congestion, transit and emissions, while also considering impacts to drivers, consumers and feedback from members of the industry and consumers. The licensing cap proposed to Council was staff’s recommendation to address all the factors that Council asked staff to account for in proposing limitations to driver licensing and this recommendation included significant analysis, research, stakeholder feedback. Noting your comparisons of Toronto to Ottawa, City staff recommend comparisons based on a city with a similar population size as Toronto. Chicago has a 46.5 population per VFH vs Toronto’s 33 population per driver and is similar in size to Toronto. Ottawa has approximately one-third the population size of Toronto.” |
| – The number of drivers in 2013 would be vastly different than in 2024, which is also lower than the high of 96,000 + drivers in operation pre-pandemic. | FYI , for the purposes of this article, I am not looking at the COVID period which was an anomaly on all counts. I am looking only at Grant’s proposed number of 80,429, which he proposed was NOT arbitrary, compared to “50,000, 40,000 or 20,000” which he appeared to think WAS arbitrary. Those figures are not arbitrary, they are extrapolations based on past practices, including the 2013 report. (Taxi industry 2024 recommendation based on the 2013 study info was 16,650; Rideshare Drivers was 40,000. Everyone expected to meet somewhere in the middle). | |
| – The cap number recommended by staff is based on extensive current research, it’s data driven, and also involved engagement with more than 4,000 people through online and in person consultations. | Yes, this is true, the data is the most current. The question is whether the data is relevant. Toronto (especially downtown Toronto) has not built many more streets or roads since 2013, so physically the number of vehicles you can wedge in downtown Toronto has changed VERY little since 2013. 7 per cent more people can now summon a ride from 1462 per cent more licensed vehicles. | |
| – In 2013 Uber was just getting rolling and Lyft had just started its operations in 2012 | In 2013, Uber was pretending people were “sharing” vehicles, emissions would be reduced, and drivers would make $90,000/year. In fact, no one is “sharing” anything, emissions have not been reduced at all, and drivers are starving. The fact that Toronto is realizing NOW what is should have realized THEN is good on the City of Toronto. The facts of how many VFH the city can support, how much business rideshare takes from transit, and how many miles of road there are in downtown Toronto have not really changed since rideshare arrived. |
