City council considers Uber regulations

By Emily Mills and Allie Johnson

Cities across the nation are unclear on how the ride-sharing service Uber should be regulated, but the city of Kent is working toward a determination.

Kent City Council authorized city law director James Silver to draft a preliminary code regulating Uber and other Transportation Network Services (TNS) providers.

The council is considering a separate code for Uber, which has been in Kent since 2014, because it believes there are differences between TNS providers and taxi companies, which in Kent includes Porter’s Taxi and 1 Fast Transport.

The central difference is taxi companies own their own vehicles and employ their workers while Uber does not own vehicles — they belong to Uber’s driver partners, who are not employed by the company, said Delon White, Uber’s general manager for Northeast Ohio.

“It really is a different mode of transportation,” he said. “Similarly to how you would regulate limos differently from taxis differently from school buses differently from trucks, vans, delivery trucks: Different modes of transportation typically will have different regulations.”

According to Kent City Ordinance 2010-86, a taxicab is defined as “any motor driven vehicle engaged in the business of carrying passengers for hire or fare or offered for hire or fare to the public for transportation, operating within the City, except motor buses on regular schedules, PARTA vehicles and other regularly established routes.”

Another difference comes with regulations. The Kent Police Department regulates taxi companies’ licensing and fares, said Mary Mural-Sizemore, a Kent resident whose son owns Porter’s Taxi, which has operated in Kent for about three and a half years.

In addition, Uber does not allow on-street hailing of vehicles like taxis do; everything is done through the app, including payment.

One of the biggest criticisms of Uber is surge pricing. When several people are requesting Uber rides and there are not enough drivers on the road, it can cause the price of an Uber ride to increase dramatically, or surge.

However, White said surge pricing is only in effect for less than five percent of Uber rides in Kent.

Police Chief Michelle Lee said she did not find any problems in the potential regulations.

“Our main concern is the safety and of the passengers as well because bad things can happen to good people, and good people can be drivers or passengers,” she said. “I think this adequately covers the safety aspect of it…We’ve had our problems with cab companies in the past. I’m sure we’ll probably have our share of problems with Uber drivers and passengers as well.”

Councilwoman Heidi Shaffer from Ward 5 said she does not believe taxi companies and Transportation Network Service providers, such as Uber, need two separate regulations, as they are both providing the same service.

“This is yet another cab company, in my opinion, trying to operate under a different label,” she said. “I would really like to see this treated as any of the other cab companies. They’re all the same. It’s just a different way to call them.”

However, Councilman Wayne Wilson from Ward 3 disagreed, saying he believes Uber is different from taxis.

“I think it’s very obvious that there’s a difference between the two of them,” he said. “You can’t put the same pair of shoes on everybody. Sometimes you need a size 10 instead of a 9 or whatever.”

Kent City Council authorized the city’s law director to draft a preliminary code regulating Uber at its meeting on Oct. 7. The company has seen backlash from taxi services since it’s arrival in August of last year.
Allie Johnson reports how the council is trying to determine how Kent laws apply to the company.

White said about 100 Uber drivers provide thousands of rides each week in Kent, and it is most popular at times before people go out and after the bars downtown close.

“We’re really excited to see (the) demand in Kent,” he said.

Tori Deming, a Kent State graduate, said she uses Uber and has had negative experiences with taxis in Kent.

She said she went out with a group of friends and called a taxi company several times to get a ride home before it closed at 4 a.m. The company did not answer for several hours, and when a dispatcher finally did pick up, Deming said he said the company closes when business is slow.

“It really sucks when the only taxi service in town is unreliable, so I was ecstatic when Uber came to Kent a few months later,” she said.

Deming said she used an Uber as a safe way to get home after drinking downtown.

“It was great. They were there before my estimated time, our driver was friendly, his car was cleaner than any taxi I’ve been in and the fare was fair and everything was sent to my email.”

Representatives from local taxicab companies voiced their concerns about both Uber and the potential regulations.

Mural-Sizemore said Uber is an “extreme safety threat.”

“Uber sounds wonderful, but they are looking at it as a technical point of view, and not a people service,” she said. “It’s an app. We get it…You’re letting somebody from outside come in and take over.”

Mural-Sizemore said Uber has negatively affected business for her family’s taxicab company.

“We did beautifully before they came,” she said. “We were serving people, we had plenty of vehicles and it wasn’t a problem.”

She said Uber should be regulated as a taxi company, not a separate regulation.

“You’re putting people in a vehicle and you are driving,” she said. “There’s no difference.”

Senior integrated language arts major Abbi Wright said her experiences with Uber have been negative.

“I was in some pick-up truck,” she said. “It was this guy and this girl who looked like she was on drugs or something. My friend and I didn’t even speak; we were pretty scared. It was more expensive than a taxi too, which was really stupid. I’ll only ever use them again if I’m desperate.”

Wright said she uses taxis instead.

“It’s like $3 each way, and that’s great when there’s a big group of you. We usually have a good experience,” she said. “I’ve always used Porter’s because they’re very reliable. I like them, and recommend them to anyone.”

Jason Hoops, owner of 1 Fast Transport, a limousine company in Kent, said because his company is not a taxi company but forced to get taxi licensing, Uber should also be regulated as a taxi company.

“This is a large corporation and a new start-up, (but) it’s actually nothing new at all,” he said. “It’s just a taxi company that’s trying to skirt around local laws by rebranding… Changing the way that you take an order or requiring that you pay with a credit card on file doesn’t change the fact that they are a taxi the way that the Kent city law is written.”

Go 2 Go Taxi, a company that operated five or six cars in Kent, went out of business last year, and Hoops said Uber has taken the spot of Go 2 Go.

Ryan McMann, a Kent resident and Uber driver with two other jobs, said he believes Uber has been a good thing for the city.

“The city of Kent is a much safer place because of Uber,” he said. “It keeps intoxicated people off the roads. It’s more accessible.”

White said although Uber and taxis are both providing the same service in the same market, it is possible for the two to coexist.

“It’s creating more choice,” he said. “It’s getting people to make smarter decisions, especially when it comes to drinking and driving.”