Trip refusals, bad behaviour: Numbers show B.C. taxi complaints on the rise

METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Stranded passengers, bad behaviour, trip refusals, or payment issues: those are some of the complaints filed by riders against B.C. taxi companies.

As B.C. waits for more transportation options, numbers obtained by NEWS 1130 from the Passenger Transportation Board show complaints have been on the rise.

Bel-Air and White Rock South-Surrey Taxi saw a four-fold increase since 2015. In that same time complaints against B.C.’s largest company, Yellow Cab, doubled. The same happened with Bonny’s Taxi.

Vancouver Taxi, North Shore Taxi and Delta Sunshine Taxi all received nearly twice as many complaints in 2018 compared to 2015.

“The model is completely broken, and the concerns that we’ve got related to the taxi industry are largely based on the fact that we’ve created this monster,” says Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart, who took it to social media last July after an elderly woman in a wheelchair waited three hours for an accessible cab in Coquitlam.

He says competition is key.

“Do we go and try to fix the entire taxi industry or do we simply open it up to competition and then the industry will have to fix itself,” Stewart wonders.

“When we decide that we are going to restrict the number — the amount of supply of a product, we’re going to produce weird results,” he says. “And one of those results is that customers get more and more used to being thankful the cab arrived, let alone worry about the customer service.”

During 2018, taxi users filed more than 300 complaints with the board. Driver behaviour took the number one spot, followed by trip refusal and driving ability.

The total number of complaints may be higher, as reporting them to the board is only one of the option available to passengers; another option is turning to Consumer BC.

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But Mohan Kang with the BC Taxi Association says drivers always strive to provide great service.

“Our members don’t want any complaints, but the complaints are bound to come when you’re serving millions of passengers throughout B.C. every year,” Kang adds.

He says the answer is adding more cabs on the roads.

“Recently, the PT Board has granted 15 per cent increase of fleet throughout B.C. Once all those cabs are activated, I believe the service would improve drastically,” Kanh says.

Breakdown by numbers

Despite Black Top being one of the only companies to see a decrease in complaints in the last few years, the company still saw the second highest number of complaints at 136. Yellow Cab took spot number one with 254 complaints filed.

The two companies, along with North Shore Taxi, Vancouver Taxi, Maclure’s Cabs and Bonny’s Taxi, consistently made the top six with the most complaints every year.

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“We never said no to ride-hailing,” Kang says when asked if competition would help. “But we have also said the public safety and an even playing field has to be kept in sight.”

A report by the federal Competition Bureau released earlier this month urged the B.C. government to re-examine its taxi regulations to permit more competition in the industry and improve services for riders and businesses.