The release of more licences onto the ACT market and the local boom in ridesharing services is marginalising the taxi industry in Canberra, local operators say.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Canberra Taxi Industry Association says the release of the extra licences is a play to further squeeze out those operators who own licences rather than lease them from the government, and force the value of private licences down even further.
Association chairman John McKeough says the "level playing field" in the public transport industry that the ACT government had promised back in late 2015 when it "rushed headlong into the embrace of foreign ride-share operators" has been proved a fallacy.
Canberra was the first city in the world to introduce safety regulations for ridesharing, effectively giving an operational kickstart to companies such as Uber.
As it ushered rideshare services into the national capital, the ACT government dropped ACT taxi licence fees to $5000 a year.
Owners of perpetual, private taxi licences then began to hand back or "park" their licences as the value of their plates, which back in 2014 were worth about $240,000 each, plummetted.
An analysis by the Centre for International Economics last year found that licence plate owners were still maintaining licence incomes at about $21,000 a year, but also showed rising costs meant returns on the licence plates were negative for any plate bought since 2006.
Mr McKeough said that where the government had previously capped the number of taxi licence plates in the ACT to 358, it had steadily released more plates and gradually forced the market value down.
Recent data indicated there are about 1800 rideshare operators in the ACT, up by about 800 in the past two years, which one taxi owner described as "ridiculous".
Ashok Talla Swamy, who has owned and driven a wheelchair accessible taxi for about five years, said that it was getting "tougher all the time" to make a reasonable living out of the industry given the high cost of necessities such as insurance.
"Four or five years ago, having a specialised taxi like mine was a good business; while it was expensive to buy and equip the vehicle, the returns were OK," he said.
"Now our operating costs go up, there's all these rideshare operators out there to compete with and our section is also being squeezed by private operators providing wheelchair transport under the NDIS [National Disability Insurance Scheme]."
Two years ago, government documents obtained under Freedom of Information revealed that it would "consider market conditions with each scheduled release [of taxi licences]".
Mr McKeough said that the approach now was to release plates and then review the decision.
On Friday and Saturday nights, dozens of Uber drivers kerb-crawl around the city and compete for business. It makes for a quick response time when there are many customers in the area, but the reverse during the day.
Surge pricing also cuts in for rideshare operators when customers are many and cars are fewer, whereas a taxi must by law abide by the regulated fare pricing structure.
"I doubt the current industry model will change but with good management and consultation, regulated ride-share and regulated taxis can hopefully co-exist," Mr McKeough said.
"What's needed is for the government to not unfairly favour one over the other."