City of Fredericton one step closer to ride-sharing apps

Ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft are getting ready to hit the pavement in New Brunswick's capital city.

Council ordered staff to draft a bylaw for the licensing and regulation of vehicles for hire at Monday night's council-in-committee meeting.

"We've been hearing about it for a long time, my whole time on council," said Coun. Kevin Darrah, chair of the city's transportation committee meeting.

"It's the way of the future. I don't want to say every city is doing it, but that's the way we're going."

• Business owner steps on the gas for new ride-sharing app in Fredericton

Ride-share services differ from taxis, as they often operate through a phone app.

Customers type in where they want to go. The app shows how far away the driver is from the passenger's location, who the driver is, their customer rating, and their estimated time of arrival.

At the end of a drive, customers and drivers can both give each other a rating. 

Ride-sharing not permitted by province

While the city is moving ahead with the new bylaw, there's still another step.

Right now, ride-sharing is not permitted under the province's Motor Vehicle Act. So the province still needs to make legislative changes to permit ride-sharing services. The city said earlier that it's aware of Easy but doesn't plan to do anything about it operating without permission.

Darrah said he's spoken with Public Safety Minister Carl Urquhart. 

"The province of New Brunswick has to change either the legislation or registration on how it's allowed," said Darrah. 

"They're working on their changes and we'll wait to see what happens but I'm pretty positive about it."

In November of last year, Shawn Berry, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety said in an email ride-sharing legislation "is one of several ideas brought forward to the Department of Public Safety which staff are working on." 

"We will have more to say on this in the months ahead," said Berry.

Darrah said officials from Moncton and Saint John were also at the meetings with the minister.

Even though the province hasn't changed any legislation, some businesses are already moving forward. Fredericton entrepreneur Tony Elzayat created the app Easy Services, modeled off of apps such as Uber.

The service had a soft launch in November and has already started serving customers. 

Residents want the app

The city put together a survey last summer to review taxi services in Fredericton. The city also wanted to see whether it's meeting people's needs. 

"There were some gaps in the service that the taxi industry can't handle," said Brad Cameron, assistant director of public safety for the city. 

About 66 per cent of people surveyed said they've used ride-share apps in other cities, and 83 per cent said they would use a ride-share service in Fredericton — particularly for social events.

City staff will bring a drafted bylaw back to council for approval in one month's time.