Mississauga taxi drivers seek $50,000 from city to cover losses from Uber and Lyft

Taxi drivers in Mississauga requesting $50,000 per licence from the city in compensation for income lost due to ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft.

As of July 2017, ride-sharing businesses have been formally permitted to operate in Mississauga under the Transportation Network Company (TNC) pilot project.

Since then, taxis say that ride-sharing companies have resulted in the loss of 70 percent of the taxi market share. The valuation of licences used to be $200,000 but now, they sell for around $10,000, according to taxi drivers.

“The city mandated endless regulations, set pricing, and a limited supply of taxicabs, and allowed licences to be transferable for compensation thus creating market value,” taxi licence plate owner Sami Khairallah wrote in a letter to the city’s Public Vehicle Advisory Committee.

Meanwhile, the regulation of licencing taxi drivers has not been applied to ride-sharing companies.

Source: The Toronto Star