 The cast is now starting. All attendees are in listen-only mode. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on this for this webinar. Local governments are going to be able to expect from the nuclear. My name is Jessica Richie, and I'm part of the regional programs and engagement branch in the Ministry of Jobs, Trade and Technology. I'm calling in today from Victoria on the unceded Coast Salish territory of the Lekwangan people known today as the Squimalt and Songhees First Nation. I'm going to be passing over this presentation to the project leads from the four ride hailing from the province. But first, I'm going to walk you through a couple of housekeeping things that you should know so that you're able to ensure that you're engaged with the presentation and can ask all the questions that you want to. So if you're not familiar with GoToWebinar, right now you are muted and you won't have the option to unmute yourself to ask any questions, but you can use the question pane, ask a question anytime through the presentation and we will be having a question and answer period at the end of the session. So don't wait till the end, ask them anytime they come up and we'll be keeping a log of them to make sure that they're asked. If we're not able to get to all the questions, I'll be sending them off to the ride hailing team so that they can be answered after the session. If you're having any difficulty with audio, please try reconnecting or connecting or use the phone call option. Just click on the radio button for the phone call. It'll pop up with a phone number as well as a passcode and you can try connecting that way. And last but not least, this session is being recorded. So if you want to come back or share this information with anyone else, it'll be posted in about a week on our website, so gov.bc.ca fax slash economic development and you can look under the BC idea exchange section. So that's all that really is coming from me. So I'm going to pass it over to our panelists with the, so the ride hailing leads from the Ministry of Transportation. Great. Thank you, Jessica. And thank you for everybody that was, take some time for being in attendance today. My name is Steve Haywood. I'm with the Ministry of Transportation Infrastructure and I'm focused on the file of taxi modernization and ride hailing. Joining me today are Lynn Tang from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs on Community Policy and Legislation. As well, we have Michelle Yaggy-Smith, who is the Registrar and Executive Director of the Passenger Transportation Branch. And finally, we have Jeremy Wood, who's Senior Legislative Director with the Ministry of Transportation Infrastructure. We're offering up this web session today to speak to changes within the passenger directed vehicle industry in BC, specifically regarding taxis, limos, and soon to be ride hail operators and what those changes mean to local government. Next slide, please. So first off, I'd like to provide a bit of an agenda, what we're going to be looking at. First, we're going to provide some context on the work that was done. Then we're going to discuss the changes that were made, have a discussion on municipal working groups, and then look to some future work. And finally, we'll finish with some questions and comments at the end, as Jessica stated earlier. Next slide, please. Okay. So let's set the stage first a little with some context. The Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations is a committee that was appointed to look into the introduction of ride hailing services in BC and to make some recommendations. Parliamentary committees are appointed by the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia undertake business on behalf of the Assembly itself. Committees are comprised of small group of private members who have been appointed by the Legislative Assembly, and the committees derive their powers from the House and must report their findings back to the House within their allotted time. In regards to the ride hail file, the Crown Corporations Committee has examined it twice. Soliciting a wide array of consultation from government, industry, and experts releasing two reports, one in February of 2018 and another in March in 2019. The recent March 2019 report provided 13 recommendations for government to consider as it related to fleet supply, boundaries for operation, fares that are charged to customers, and aspects of safety in the industry. Next slide, please. I think Jessica, we have a poll question. Just a quick poll if I can ask the folks on the line if you wouldn't mind just filling in one of the boxes on who you're calling on behalf of today. It looks like we've had about 85% of people respond to the poll and share the results with you. That's very appropriate then our session here with the amount of local government that's on the line. Just furthering with the context, Dr. Dan Hara played a large role in setting the context for change with his report on modernizing taxi regulations. The intent of the report was to focus measures for modernizing the taxi service in BC in the context of challenges posed by alternative services, i.e. ride hailing. After extensive consultation, Dr. Hara made suggestions and considerations that could be applied to the passenger directed vehicle industry, much of which was used in the legislative and regulatory development we will discuss later on, as well as policies undertaken by the Independent Passenger Transportation Board. This included a one-time increase of taxi supply by up to 15%, that app hailed trips could reduce rates in off-peak hours and have the ability for separate day and night shift vehicles. Next slide please. When speaking of the acts and regulations, government held extensive consultation sessions leading up to the legislation and eventually the depositing of the regulations. There was a focus on local government working groups with staff at Union of BC Municipalities, the cities of Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Richmond, Kelowna, Prince George, and Fort St. John. We also consulted extensively with taxi associations and ride hailed companies to see how the proposed regime fit them. We held informative conversations with the BC Association of Chiefs of Police, BC's Information and Privacy Commissioner and the BC Civil Liberties Association, and we focused on accessibility in our work and met with representatives of disability groups, seniors groups, and injury groups. We also included conversations, as is up on the screen here with BC Transit, TransLink, and the Vancouver Airport. Next slide please. All of the discussions presented today had a foundation that kept government focused on the work at hand. Safety of passengers and drivers was very much at the forefront. We were looked at developed regulations that reduced risk and promoted passenger directed vehicles as safe transportation services. The protection of accessibility services with a focus on improving accessible needs transport in the future was a very large focus. Consistency and fairness, and how could we ensure that the rules were the same or similar for all passenger directed vehicles and their drivers regardless of where they operated in the province. We looked to reduce regulatory overlap and burden that occurred between provincial regulations and local government bylaws or requirements, and we focused the future work towards data driven decisions. Next slide please. Okay, so with some of that context now provided, we want to move into the work that was accomplished. Bill 55, the passenger transportation amendment act received royal assent on November 28 of 2018. Over the course of the six months after that, government worked on the consultation, setting policy, making treasury board submissions, and working with our legal drafters. And that got us to the depositing of the regulations on July 8 of this year, which took effect a few weeks ago on September 16. Perspective ride hail companies were able to begin applying to the independent passenger transportation board on September 3, and we'll talk about those applications later on in the presentation. But there is an expectation that pending any legal challenges, there is ride hailing operating in BC this year. Next slide please. So this slide, there's a lot of information on here, but this slide just provides an overview of the changes we'll be discussing in more detail on the coming slide. So working from the left to right, and green is where changes were made, but we'll also talk about the changes in the status quo. Looking at the provincial framework has changed to incorporate safety requirements related to driver licensing, criminal record checks and training. We also looked into vehicle inspections and other driver and vehicle requirements. Government has introduced a trip feed to support accessibility, as well as amending regulations to allow for variation in the design of accessible vehicles. And we were also incorporating data requirements to support enforcement. In the middle of the chart is the role of the independent passenger transportation board. The board's role was strengthened as the sole decision maker on passenger directed vehicles in the province, and will also benefit from specified data requirements, allowing for data-driven decisions to be made in the future. And the right portion of the chart addresses local government. Local government still retains the opportunities to issue business licenses and regulate streets and traffic through bylaws associated to curbside management and more. However, they no longer determine where passenger directed vehicles can operate, and will no longer be issuing municipal chauffeur permits to drivers of taxis, limos, and eventually ride-hail operators. And next slide, please. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Lynn Tang from Municipal Affairs and Housing. Thank you very much, Steve, for setting out the context for what's to come with the new ride-hail taxi modernization framework. Later on, Jeremy will speak more about the new ride-hail vehicles and what changes you can expect. But first, I'll walk you through what's not changing for local government. As Steve mentioned, local governments will retain their authority to issue business licenses, which includes the ability to issue, to set business license requirements in order to meet their community's needs. So as they continue to exercise their authority over passenger directed vehicles, passenger directed vehicles as a sideline I wanted to mention, refers to taxis, limousines, and ride-hail vehicles. So it's an all-encompassing term that covers those three types of vehicles, by the way. So municipalities can continue to require taxi services to have business licenses if they already do so. And while there is not a requirement to local governments to require ride-hailing companies to have business licenses as well, as it is optional for an enabling authority under Bill 55, they can do so if they wish to. You will recall that one of the key principles behind the legislation is to reduce the regulatory overlap between provincial and municipal authority over passenger directed vehicles. Therefore, the passenger transportation board under Bill 55 has exclusive authority to regulate with respect to operating area and the supply of vehicles. This means that municipalities can no longer in the exercise of their business license authority regulate the number of taxis or ride-hailing vehicles or prohibit otherwise authorized vehicles from operating. Through past and ongoing provincial consultations with various stakeholders, we've identified a few key considerations that many stakeholders are looking for with respect to the taxi and taxi modernization and new ride-hailing framework. First, many stakeholders are looking for a fair and level playing field between existing industry and new entrants. They're also looking at making efforts towards reducing administrative burdens where possible on both service providers and municipalities. And finally, they are interested in facilitating the entrance of ride-hailing services for their respective communities. To streamline and reduce duplication across the regions, we've been working with regional working groups to discuss the possibility of expanding existing inter-community business licenses to include passenger directed vehicles such as taxis and ride-hailing vehicles. For those who are not familiar with inter-community business licenses, they enable businesses located within one participating community to purchase an inter-community business license in addition to their basic business license from their municipality, which allows them to operate in other participating communities. In these working groups, we've also discussed other ways in which to reduce duplication and improve consistency, such as discussing the pros and cons of licensing ride-hailing companies rather than specific drivers. Another area which is not changing for municipal authority is with respect to business license requirements. So municipalities retain their authority to set business licenses. And what we mean by that are vehicle types and other standards to meet their local community needs. Eco-friendliness and vehicle age are two examples of which. Under provincial regulations, ten years and one month is the maximum age of vehicles allowed to operate under ride-hailing authorization. Additionally, the registrar has delegated authority under the passenger transportation act to establish vehicle identifiers, also known as trade dress, for the ride-hailing industry. Vehicle identifiers are known as stickers, decals, tags, certificates, or some other identifier that must be displayed on each ride-hailing vehicle while it is operating under the ride-hailing company's license. The passenger transportation board is in the process of consulting with stakeholders including local governments regarding some draft requirements. So long as municipal requirements are consistent with their authorities under local government legislation such as the community charter and do not conflict with the passenger transportation act, municipalities can establish additional requirements for ride-hailing services. Once established by regulation, passenger directed vehicles will be required to comply with the standards required to operate. If a passenger directed vehicle operates within multiple municipalities with differing standards, the passenger directed vehicle will be required to comply with the highest standards. So for instance, if one municipality requires vehicles to be eight years of age or less, and another requires vehicles to be 10 years of age, the vehicle will have to be less than eight years to operate in both municipalities. So it is important for our authorities to regulate traffic through street traffic bylaws, and can address traffic and parking concerns through this authority. They may use this authority to decide how their streets are used in matters such as where taxi and ride-hailing vehicles can pick up or drop off passengers, where taxi and ride-hailing vehicles can park when they are in use, and where they need to be parked when not in use. Municipalities will still be able to regulate in that way through municipal bylaws, as long as they comply with existing local government legislation and other provincial legislation, such as the Motor Vehicle Act and the Passenger Transportation Act. So next I'm going to introduce Jeremy, or ask Jeremy to walk us through what is changing. Great, thanks, Lynn, and good morning, everybody. I'm just actually, if you could go back to the last slide before we get to the content. Yeah, what's changing? Thank you. I'm going to be talking about some specific changes flowing out of Bill 55 and the regulations that apply to municipalities, municipal authority, as well as changes to strengthen the Board's authority. And before I do that, though, I just want to provide a little bit of context for everybody on two very different entities within the legislative framework, just so everybody has a clear understanding what the role of the Board, the Passenger Transportation Board is, and what the role of the Passenger Transportation Branch, specifically the Registrar under the Act who heads the Passenger Transportation Branch. So I'll start with the Board and the Board is an Independent Administrative Tribunal excuse me, Independent Administrative Tribunal, whose members are appointed by the Independent Governor and Council or by cabinet. And the role of the Board is essentially to make decisions on individual license applications from companies seeking to operate commercial passenger transportation services in the province. So that would be specifically taxi, limo, intercity bus, and now, of course, as of September 3rd commercial ride hailing companies that want to operate in more communities in BC. So that's the role of the Board, the role of the Passenger Transportation Branch specifically the Registrar under the Act the branch is a government entity within the Ministry of Transportation as I said is headed by the Registrar who is a public servant and the Registrar and the branch are responsible for enforcement of the Act and regulations and auditing companies to ensure compliance with the Act and regulations and it's important to note too that the Registrar also issues licenses under the Act for those companies or to those companies whose applications the Board has approved. Now, just to be clear though the Registrar and branch staff within the Ministry of Transportation are not the only enforcement entities that can enforce offenses under the Act. It's also worth noting that commercial vehicle safety and enforcement within the Ministry of Transportation otherwise known as CVSE can also enforce offenses as can police. So I just wanted to set out that set the table if you will in terms of the role of the Board and the branch because that's important for what I'm going to discuss here if we could just go to the next slide that would be great. So there's really two areas here that I think will be of interest to approximately three quarters of our listeners this morning from local governments that flow out of Bill 55 and the regulations and the first is the slew of new provincial requirements that are now have been established since September 16th many of which replace what previously fell under the municipal chauffeur permit regimes in those municipalities that had municipal chauffeur permit by laws in place and I'll be talking a little bit more about those but as well a set of very important responsibilities for companies and drivers is being set out here under the new provincial requirements and I'll be talking about those but just as an example to give you some context companies will need to make sure that their drivers comply with provincial record check requirements and I'll provide a little more detail about that in a future slide and as well important changes to provide the registrar with a new auditing power to audit companies for compliance and enforcement purposes as well as increased penalties and here the registrar prior to September 16th had the authority to issue an administrative fine to a maximum of $1,500 that as of September 16th increased to $50,000 so a substantial increase on the administrative fine but as well a set of new offenses as well and new penalties under the act and Michelle Yaggy-Smith who is the registrar at the passenger transportation bench will provide you a little more detail on those later after I'm finished speaking the second area of change is with respect to supply operating areas and strengthening the jurisdiction of the passenger transportation board and Lynn hinted at this during her slides and I'll talk a little bit more about these in some upcoming slides so onto the next one please so we'll talk about the provincial requirements and take a little bit of a deeper dive into municipal chauffeur permits as of September 16th municipalities that have municipal chauffeur permit bylaws in place could no longer issue those permits in respect of drivers of passenger directed vehicles so if they have a bylaw in place that apply to drivers of other types of vehicles outside of drivers of passenger directed vehicles so here we're talking about taxis, limos and in the not too distant future commercial ride hill drivers but if there are other types of drivers this change would not apply to those it's only for the drivers of passenger directed vehicles and provincial requirements are now established to cover matters such as driver licensing, criminal record checks driver record checks and driver training so key areas that had previously been dealt with by way of municipal chauffeur permits in those municipalities that have them established so in terms of those specific requirements that are replacing municipal chauffeur permits drivers must hold a commercial class of driver license so I'm sure everyone is there was a great deal of discussion around this leading up to the regulations that came into force on September 16th but drivers of taxis and limos of course have always had to hold a commercial class of driver license and that same rule is being extended to the commercial ride hill drivers and what that means is at a minimum they have to hold a class 4 driver license but you can also hold a class 1 or class 2 drivers must pass a criminal record check and the provincial requirements set out that a driver must submit to an annual police information check with vulnerable sector screen so that's the highest level of police record check in the province there are two levels that's the higher one higher standard and in terms of the criminal record check a driver is ineligible for in certain circumstances which are set out under the regulations but essentially they are if the driver has a pending charge for specific egregious offenses or any criminal any offense under the criminal code or the control drugs and substances act or if they have passed convictions for specific egregious offenses or a conviction within the last 10 years for an offense under the criminal code or control drugs and substances act and as well drivers must pass a driving record check and the look back period on that is 3 years and so one example in terms of the driving record check is that a driver cannot have four or more convictions for offenses under the motor vehicle act or they cannot have within the last 3 years they cannot have a driving prohibition on their driving record so something like an immediate roadside prohibition for example and in the requirements provincial requirements set out under regulation it's very black and white in terms of what renders a driver eligible or ineligible it may be and that is really there because the companies are now responsible for ensuring their drivers meet those requirements and those companies will be audited to ensure that they're undertaking this new responsibility and if a company determines that a driver is ineligible under these record check requirements they need to inform in writing the driver that they're ineligible and the driver will have within 30 days an opportunity if they so choose to appeal that decision to the registrar and in doing so the driver needs to make a the case that whatever matter is on their whether it be their driving history check or their police record check is unrelated to their duties of driving a vehicle for hire and the registrar then makes a determination and provides a determination of writing to both the company and to the driver and as well under the provincial requirements in the regulations the registrar also has authority to require driver training so the registrar could set driver training requirements for specific classes of drivers of passenger directed vehicles so they could be or limo drivers and or ride hails drivers within a specific geographic area and this is important because the availability of training of course varies across a province such as ours with such geographic diversity and size of communities and institutions available to deliver training okay next slide please now this is important to point out that in those municipalities where municipal chauffeur regimes were in place any driver effective September 16 when the new provincial requirements came into force that withholding a valid municipal chauffeur permit those drivers could continue to drive on their municipal chauffeur permits until they expire or September 16 2021 so two years after the new provincial requirements came into place whichever comes first but effective September 16 all companies had to issue what is called a record check certificate to their drivers so taxi drivers for example need to have a record check certificate issued and it needs to be displayed in a place in the motor vehicle so it's available by passengers and in the future ride hail vehicles but drivers of ride hail vehicles will need to the companies will need to issue the same type of record check certificate however that can be displayed and made available by way of the app and as well of course there are drivers as of September 16 that were driving in municipalities that did not have a municipal chauffeur permit regime in place and those drivers do not need to comply and the companies will don't need to ensure their drivers comply with the new provincial requirements until January 2nd 2020 and that's just there to provide some time for these drivers or companies and their drivers to prepare for the new provincial requirements okay next slide please okay and I've sort of hinted at this earlier but licensees or the companies have duties of course with respect to record checks as I've mentioned they need to ensure that their drivers meet those prescribed requirements they have to issue letters to those that they deem ineligible under the prescribed requirements and as I mentioned to those drivers would have 30 days then to apply to the registrar for a review if they're denied and deemed ineligible by the company they want to drive for and then if the companies deem a person eligible to drive they have to issue a record check certificate to that driver and those record check certificates must meet the standards specified by the registrar and so that could be things like the size of the record check certificate and or the quality of its size of the font placement of required information under the regulations that where those are placed on the certificate itself and then finally have to maintain records related to the record check process under the new provincial requirements for a total period of six years and that's there in place to support the auditing process that I mentioned earlier. Next slide please. Another important new provincial requirements in so far as the commercial ride hail sector is concerned is the application of the national safety code so taxis and limos currently and this was prior to September 16th had to comply with national safety code requirements and the same will apply here for the commercial ride hail sector going forward and so there's an obligation in terms of the companies to monitor their drivers and ensure that their drivers hold their requisite driver license they need to monitor the hours of service of drivers to ensure that those drivers are not driving more than they're allowed to under the regulations they also need to make sure that the vehicles are maintained and that vehicles have gone through the commercial vehicle inspection process and the drivers have evidence the vehicle safety or inspection certificate on those vehicles. Next slide please. And in terms of the inspection for these vehicles there was a change under the regulations effective September 16th previously taxis and limos were required to undergo an annual vehicle inspection and the changes effective September 16th actually were based on and now in place based on an interval of 40,000 kilometers so if a taxi limo or commercial ride vehicle in the previous year had or was operated for less than 40,000 kilometers then the requirement for that vehicle would be an annual inspection however if the vehicle was operated in the previous year more than 40,000 kilometers then there would be a requirement for that vehicle to be inspected every six months. Next slide please. And now we're just going to talk about a little more deeply about the changes with respect to strengthening the authority of the passenger transportation board in respect of setting the operating area and supply of vehicles and so as Lynn mentioned municipalities as a result of bill 55 and the changes there in that were brought into force until September 16th no longer have authority with respect to determining operating areas of passenger directed vehicle or supply of vehicles and so there were amendments in bill 55 to the community charter and the local government act which essentially set out that a council must not regulate in relation to the number of passenger directed vehicles that may be operated under passenger directed vehicle authorizations or transportation network services authorizations and a council must not also prohibit vehicles here would be passenger directed vehicles from operating in the municipality including without limitation prohibiting the issuance of a license to a person to operate a vehicle for the sole reason that the person holds a license issued by another municipality to operate the vehicle so those were the changes essentially in bill 55 with respect to municipal authority and those changes left the board with the sole authority as I said to determine operating areas and supply of vehicles now I understand that we have a poll question related to this slide so if you could just bring that poll question up there and here it is that if you are employed in a municipality will your municipality be making amendments to its bylaws related to ride hailing I'm just going to give this a few more seconds and then I'll share the results back with you okay great thank you just head back to the presentation and on to the next slide please I think we've already done this there we go okay with respect to the role of the passenger transportation board as I mentioned at the outset to this section of the presentation it is the board that makes determinations on applications from companies and there's really three parts to those determinations that the board considers and these did not change with bill 55 and these three parts are the board considers whether the applicant is a fit and proper person whether the application promotes sound economic conditions in the commercial passenger transportation industry in the province and finally in respect to the application there is a public need for the service so those are the three areas that the board considers with respect to an application and when the board receives applications those are posted publicly and so that any interested parties can make a submission on that application and the boards for the board's consideration as well and fees are waived with respect to submissions from municipalities okay next slide please now this past August last in August 2019 the board set out its policy in advance of the changes the regulatory changes and bill 55 changes coming into force the board's policies with respect to ride hail and there's really three areas here to the board's policies one is that instead of applying municipal boundaries to commercial ride hailing the board set out that there would be regional boundaries and there would be five of them and I'm going to talk about those in the next slide and as well there would be no initial supply limits to commercial ride hailing so that is of course in contrast to vehicle fleet size caps that are put on place right now and have been for since the this regime was put in place provincially back in 2004 for taxis and limos and then as well the board set out that there would be a minimum fare equal to the taxi flag rate for commercial ride hailing as opposed to specific fares for time and distance and so therefore from this surge pricing would be permitted in that peak period if the company so choose to operate a pricing model of that nature okay next slide please so here are the five regions that the board established with its policies so region one covers the lower mainland in whistler and then region two is the capital regional district the municipalities within that area region three is the rest of cover island outside of the capital regional district region four being the okinawa and kutni boundary caribou areas and then finally region five is the north central and other regions now I understand we have a a poll question here related this slide just to find out where folks are dialing in from with respect to these five regions here so I'll just give you all minutes or so to respond to this question right I'll close this one and I'll share the results as well okay great thank you okay just over to the next slide here and I just want to let everybody know in terms of applications made to the board to date since September 3rd when companies commercial interested commercial radio companies could make applications to operate somewhere in British Columbia there have been since September 3rd 17 applications and of those 17 applications 12 have indicated that they would they're seeking to operate in the lower mainland region one area nine of those 17 have indicated they would like to operate in region two the capital regional district 10 of those 17 have indicated region three would like to operate in as well as region four 10 of those 17 have indicated they'd like to operate there and then in region five five a total five of the 17 applications have indicated they would like to operate in the north central and other regions of the province so just to give indication that all five regions have been covered in applications received to date that the board is currently considering and with that I'm going to hand over the remainder of the presentation in this section here on what's changing to Michelle Yaggy Smith who is the registrar of the passenger transportation branch in the ministry of transportation so Michelle thank you Jeremy I'd like to thank participants on the webinar today for taking the time to listen in on the session so thank you this section is going to look at dated driven decisions and increased evidence to support decision making well the branch and the board chair acronym the passenger transportation board and the passenger transportation branch have separate distinct functions the passenger transportation board is an independent administrative tribunal appointed by government and there are six part-time members including a chair the board's primary responsibility is to make decisions on applications relating to authorizations for taxis limousines, show vans intercity bus authorizations and transportation work services or ride hail authorizations the board has responsibility for determining supply boundaries and race and as previously mentioned the passenger transportation board applies a three part test to assess if there's a public need the applicant is fit and proper and the application granted would promote sound economic conditions in the passenger transportation business the board will use data collected from industry to determine their assessment for taxi and transportation network services authorizations new data management system has been developed called the data warehouse so the data warehouse will be a requirement for the transportation network services companies as well as taxi companies to implement their ride data during the day and this information will assist in providing evidence for the board to support their decision making they'll also be able to look at fleet size and congestion impacts next slide please data collected from taxi and riders so there's a number of new pieces of information that we're going to be collecting and that's the category of trip taxi ride hail limousine, jar shift information driver license number vehicle registration number shift start time, shift end time this is all the information that we'll be gathering and will be based into the new data warehouse type, the vehicle type used whole type trip metrics, wait times GPS coordinates date and time, distance to pick up from hail location, trip duration and trip distance clients and enforcement monitoring will also be part of looking at this information the new passenger transportation regulation requires more responsibility from licensees licensees are now required to obtain issued record check certificates and a driving record eligible employees the licensees keep these records they're not provided to the branch drivers must present records where law enforcement requests they must keep a copy in the vehicle or on their app companies have these records on file and per trip these must be calculated and submitted by transportation network services licensees compliance and financial updates are a new component for the branch an audit framework is being developed will be a regulatory compliance risk-based matrix so that resources are focused on higher risk areas they're collected from taxi and ride hail ministry will be working with taxi and TNS sector to collect it this unique data driven approach will help the board in its decision making on boundary supply and fairness this information that we see on the slide this moment will be submitted at a minimum on a monthly basis and larger taxi companies will be submitting their data on a daily basis due to volume next slide please the current focus is on implementation of the data warehouse and collection of data it's a future goal to share the anonymized data with municipalities memorandum of understanding or information sharing agreement and this data will aid in municipal transit and infrastructure planning municipality will be able to regulate where transportation network services vehicles can stop and if drivers can use HOV lanes or not next slide please enforcement enhanced authority has been provided for investigations and audits the passenger transportation enforcement officers increased from three in the past year to nine there are now eight passenger transportation enforcement officers and one supervisor records will be reviewed by the BC passenger and transportation branch and or commercial vehicle safety and enforcement there's increased penalties for the passenger transportation act company can receive up to an administrative penalty up to $50,000 drivers can receive a daily fine of up to $5,000 per day of operation without a transportation network services license these drivers are also stripped of possible further sanctions not disclosing the commercial use of their vehicles to lease and insurance providers companies operating as a transportation network services can receive a daily fine of up to $100,000 per day of operation with a transportation network services license and finally a company can also have its transportation license cancelled currently with cooperation with Steve Haywood who spoke to us earlier in the panel on passenger transportation enforcement officers have been working with a number of areas and organizations and municipalities to provide education sessions they're working with law enforcement and other enforcement personnel to provide information on how to increase penalties and authorities for instigations is working next slide please slide please thank you very much accessibility right now the tax industry has only one option for people enter and exit accessible vehicles and that's by rear entry only with this regulation with rear and side entry accessible taxis and right hand vehicles will be allowed to ensure the industry has a wider resources and flexibility in purchasing this is so the accessibility community has access to more vehicles to supply additionally transportation network services operators will have an administrative cost of $0.30 per trip license applied to non accessible trips in right hand I'm going to turn this over now to my colleague Lynn thank you very much Michelle for clarifying some of the changes that are to follow during the development of bill 55 during the development of variety of stakeholders including UBCM and various local governments we recognized that after bill 55 and its associated regulations came into effect that municipalities may have to update their bylaws policies or procedures to respond to the new framework and changes in local government authority this led to the establishment establishment of minutes for working groups to leverage opportunities for a coordinated response to assist with the implementation for the framework of passenger directing vehicles first we establish a provincial working group to address pre and post implementation challenges some of the topics that this working group has discussed include business licensing issues enforcement data requirements and vehicle identifiers due to feedback from this working group staff would benefit from learning more about these details led to us arranging for this webinar to take place to which you have been invited other tools that have been developed that will be developed with the input of this working group will be a regularly updated FAQ page on the passenger transportation branch website, a one pager regarding municipal authority document comparing different requirements for taxis and ride hill vehicles that are in development as you can see on the slide, membership of this provincial working group is quite diverse includes staff from Fort St. John cities of Fort St. John Surrey, Kamloops, Vancouver Kelowna, Victoria, Prince George Richmond as well as TransLink and BC Transit staff this working group will continue to meet as there remain issues such as data sharing, accessibility and other implementation challenges that may need to be addressed with local government feedback we've also established for regional working groups throughout the province and those include ministry, municipal staff from the greater Victoria region the Okanagansi-Milkameen region and the lower mainland these regional groups are meant to facilitate coordination and discussions and the membership group was purposely drawn from existing inter-community business license partnership groups the three purposes of these working groups were first to share information between municipalities and the province regarding how implementation of ride handling may look like in specific communities and additionally the province sharing its plans for data requirements and vehicle identifiers secondly these regional groups serve as a forum for discussions regarding a regional response to the new framework in a manner which reduces duplication improves consistency and reduces administrative burden and finally we have discussed that these regional groups the possibility of expanding existing inter-community business life with partnerships to include passenger-directed vehicles these groups will also continue to meet on an ongoing basis as part of the province's commitment to reviewing how the system is working and to make any changes to deal with issues that emerge as ride handling comes into force this brings us to the next slide with Steve we'll walk us through okay thank you and as this slide states there will be a special committee review so everything we've discussed up to on this presentation here today we'll go through a review process that is legislated when bill 55 the passenger transportation amendment act where all is said this was an item that was straight into the legislation that a special committee would be appointed on or before January 1st 2022 to review all aspects of the taxi modernization and ride hail file such as and these are just some of the main points that are on this on this slide here but it's not limited to this the adequacy of supply of vehicles so is there enough vehicles in the communities within the province how has passenger and driver safety been handled with the act in regulations the effectiveness of the board's test that Jeremy went through in a great detail the employment within the industry including the wages that are being paid and then any impacts on public transportation traffic congestion and the environment as we have seen you know some issues with that across North America and this is really where that special committee will come in and have a look at the work that's been done and then provide any recommendations that need to be accomplished after that next slide please the slide that will be coming up next is there it is there's some passenger transportation branch contact information the branch is the lead portion of the ministry of government for any questions comments concerns related to taxis limo's ride hail in the future and everything we've talked about here today so on the slide you have some contact information please note the telephone and email those are the important areas Lynn mentioned the passenger transportation branch website has some incredible material on there in our frequently asked questions we have some areas that are to assist companies and some areas that are specifically related to local government and we didn't put that up on the slide here but the easiest way to find the passenger transportation branch website is through Google like any of our government websites it's generally much easier just to go through the search engine to get a hold of it next slide please with that Jessica that concludes I guess we can move into any questions and comments great thank you guys so much we have had 10 or 15 questions come in throughout the webinar so I'm not sure we'll be able to get through them all but if you guys are happy with that I'll just ask the first question that came in so some communities have indicated that they're not supportive of ride hailing and will not permit the use in their municipality how are they able to do this when the regulations give their ability to provide companies to regulate their numbers yeah so there has been as you stated some communities that state that they're not going to be permitting ride hailing unfortunately they don't have a legal ability to do that the passenger transportation act is provincial right legislation regulating ride hailing municipalities continue to have the ability to regulate businesses in their jurisdiction including the ride hailing business however the regulations must be consistent with their authorities under the community charter and those regulations must not conflict with the passenger transportation act itself so I think any communities that have stated that will be speaking with their legal advice and prior to likely following through on those items another question from you municipalities that don't currently have a bylaw for show brain is there anyone to accommodate by sharing companies that may want to operate in our municipality if so do you have any template elements that we should include yeah I can take this one again so no what happened with the act and regulations is that municipalities do not either or cannot issue show for permits for taxis limos or ride hail operators as of September 16th that now becomes a provincial requirement something Jeremy talked about a little earlier around the record check certificates for criminal record and driver record that are issued by the companies now as opposed to the municipalities so I guess that's a long way of saying no you do not need to enact any any regulations or any bylaws related to municipal show for permits unless you're looking at removing any existing but I think the question was more related to municipalities or local government that does not have any rules currently in place. Another question that came in was what will the PT board consult local government in determining whether there's a need for the service is it possible to get a general list of those consultations yeah so the passenger transportation board did some consultation over the summer with taxi companies in relation to their policies for ride hail that they published in August since that point as of September 3rd prospective ride hail companies were able to apply to the board for operations in BC and what the process for the board is is they post those applications publicly for a short period of time on their website for interested parties to make submissions on the applications whether in support or against what the application is in regards to so when it comes to the ride hail companies themselves we've had 17 applications come in 16 of those applications have either already been posted on the site board's website or are in the process are currently in in process of posted so they're that are available for folks to make submissions on when it comes to municipalities or local government the board has waived their submission fee for any submissions that are coming in on the ride hail applications but I would I guess recommend to the person who is asking the question to have a look at the passenger transportation board website and go into their weekly bulletins and that's where they publish the ride hail applications themselves so that interested parties can make submissions and another question is that are applying so is there a location or information available to companies application specific area I'm looking specifically for region four yeah same thing on the passenger transportation board website through the weekly bulletins and if you want you can also email the branch and we can get that information on that website on the address that we had up a few slides ago so that we can assist you if you're unable to find the location for the passenger transportation board and where they're publishing the applications and another kind of similar question for those companies that are making the applications do they have to operate in the entire region that they make the application for the board itself when they publish their the approvals for applications you know will dictate the region and we're not sure if they're going to dictate exactly the operating areas within that region it's not expected I think that's going to be up to the companies themselves depending on how they feel the market is and and whether it's in their you know their business interest to be operating within every area of that region the regions themselves are quite large so it's hard to say it's really going to be a business decision mixed with the approvals of the board places another came in can you give some examples of how the 30 cent fee that will be used better support disabilities yeah so we're this is a great question this is an item that when we came forward with the action regulations you know it was a notional as to you know how can this fee be used and region it was notional is because we weren't entirely positive as to what the board's policies were going to be we didn't know how many companies were going to apply to enter into bc nor how many vehicles and drivers would be out there including how many trips would be there so it was very difficult for us to state from the beginning without knowing how much revenue was going to come in how that revenue could be used now that we have been able to see what the board's policies are and the broad range of applicants for the ride hill industry it's giving us a bit of a better idea but we're just starting now to explore through consultation as to how those fees can be used to support accessibility there's a number of different ideas out there but we want to make sure that we you know have those discussions with the accessibility groups with the taxi and ride hill operators and other interested stakeholders such as municipalities so that we can make sure that that revenue is put to good use to supporting the accessibility community some of the ideas you know perhaps offsetting some of the cost of the accessible vehicles the vans themselves are quite expensive not the vans but the conversions you know to make it wheelchair accessible perhaps the money can be used for training perhaps the money can be used for you know to offset the cost of the accessible trip itself there's a lot of different ideas out there but we've got to go through that process now from now over the winter to really try to drill that down and then as we start to see approvals come out from the board and as we start to see operations happen we'll get a good sense of what that revenue is and and the trends in the growth in that revenue to be able to apply that to support the accessible community great thanks so much another question that came in given the significant regular regulatory requirements for ride hailing there would definitely be a lot of barriers for entry with small and rural communities many people currently have taxi services how can regulations be better for people ride hailing in small rural communities and in turn solve many of the economic challenges I'm sorry Jessica I wasn't able to hear the whole question you were cutting in and out of it I'm not sure if any other panel has heard the full question or able to answer sorry about that it was like in regular requirements for ride hailing there's been barriers within small and rural communities any of whom don't have taxi services how can the regulations be better structured to enable ride hailing in small rural communities yeah it's another good question and I think that's one that we're going to want to hear from the small and rural communities you know the regulations themselves are in line with a lot of other areas of North America you know when it comes to the criminal record checks the driver record checks the vehicle inspections that is some similar areas that are like I said across North America the class 4 license is fairly unique to BC and Alberta as well as New York has a license class designation so that part is likely a little unique comparatively and that's an area that I know that government has heard is something that was wished upon to be re-looked at but I think as this progresses as applications are approved as rides are starting to happen within the province that's where we're going to want to see where are the underserved markets and what can happen there whether it's ride hail taxi or otherwise and if I could just add to that Steve the special committee which you highlighted in that portion of your presentation I think is key here because services to rural and remote areas of the province is one of the key pillars of analysis in that review and so as you see they're adequately supply including small rural and remote communities as I said is a key pillar of that review another question has there been any indication as to whether TransLink or BC Transit will be utilizing the service of ride hailing companies there has been some discussions but I have not heard any indications one way or the other whether that will be formalized I really don't want to speak on behalf of their agencies I'm sorry that's not a problem a question that came in why are winter tires are required who would be determining that so winter tires are required based on signage that's on the highways themselves unless there is any municipal requirements for winter tires I'm not sure if there's any local governments in the province that do have that requirement but the ministry of transportation does require it to be used or winter tires or all season tires to be used on the majority of the mountain passes in the province and that's placed by highway signage it's between October 1st and April 1st I believe the majority of the areas as to when the tires are required but that is something that is by highway signage sorry just looking through the questions here what is the processing time to obtain a provincial chauffeur permit so the processing time itself is really dependent on the local police station when it comes to the criminal record check because what drivers will have to do so I live in Richmond myself I wanted to be a ride-hell operator I would go into the Richmond RCMP and I would ask for my criminal record check and then I would provide that to the company that I wanted to work for and then I would get my driver abstract and I would provide that to the company that I wanted to work for and then the company needs to as Jeremy said a little earlier needs to go through the requirements and determine if I'm eligible or not depending on whether or not I have a criminal record or in this case speaking of the municipal chauffeur permit the provincial requirement around that as issued by the company so the real the timelines there would be dependent on the availability of the police force and the speed in which they're able to get the criminal record check from them as well as if there's any issues with the criminal record check there is processes for if you have a similar name or a birth date to somebody that has some criminal issues you may need to go through a secondary screening to make sure that you're not that person another question about processing times do you have a do you know what the processing time will be for those 17 applicants that have already have provided any the board has indicated that they are looking at a likely six to eight week window from when applications are received until when they'll be making decisions so we're expecting based on that if the board is able to meet that timeline and that timeline is dependent on how many submissions they do get received but if they're able to meet the estimated timeline we could see we could see applications being approved or denied later this month and early into November a question along the lines of how things are going to work at airports in terms of who can pick up and drop off so airports have the independence to be able to make those decisions I know that curbside curbside management at airports is a very big concern it is a concern right now with the regular traffic and taxis and I think it's a concern with the advent of ride hailing but that's something that the airports themselves will be making determinations on and we have had some consultations with some of them already if a driver is denied by one company what measures are in place to ensure that the driver is not hired by another company the provincial requirements are the same across the province for each company so if a driver is deemed ineligible and let's say because of a criminal record then that driver would also have to undergo the same process with the next company and the next company the checks and balances that are there are through the passenger transportation branch itself along with CVSE and police during roadside stops but through audits of these companies is where there will be the determination as to if they have put a driver on the road that should have been deemed ineligible it will be caught during these audits and what is the makeup of the special committee so the special committee is to be appointed by the legislative assembly of British Columbia and it will be made up of members of the legislature and be composed of all parties so it will be an all party committee of members of the legislative assembly a question that came in concerning local governments are concerned about their responsibility to continually manually check the board's website to see if there's new applications in the municipality there are ways for local governments to be notified when they come in yeah and I think if anybody does want to get that extra level they can send an email into the branch and we've been through the working groups that Wynn talked about earlier both the provincial working group and the three local governments or regional working groups we've been sending it out to those groups when they have been coming in but if you would like to be included on any of that please do send an email in and we'll make sure that we're capturing those emails and sending them on any future mail outs that the board does sorry they don't do the mail outs but they do post it and when they have been posting it we've been sending out a link to those postings another questions come in similar to for driver licensing what measures are in place to prevent a driver from being licensed by multiple companies I'm sorry I missed part of that what measures are in place for to prevent drivers from being licensed with multiple companies oh there are no measures there is an ability for drivers to work for multiple companies just as there is that ability right now with drivers to work for multiple taxi companies or limo companies or trucking companies there's no limit on that however there is the requirement for maintaining hours of service for every driver that's a requirement and that's something we're looking to gather through the data warehouse that Michelle talked about earlier with some of that trip data we will be associating trip data to a driver's license number so through our audits we'll be able to determine which drivers are working from multiple companies and then gathering their hours of service from that great so we have had quite a number of questions come in you've done a great job answering those questions so I've tried to combine them but if anyone feels now that they have a question that hasn't been answered or they don't want to follow up with that question via email if you just to the question box now and we'll just keep these guys on the line for another couple of minutes just to make sure that everything is answered while people are thinking about those last questions came in can you comment on whether you're liaising with the minister Simpson on the accessibility framework sorry I cut out a bit again with minister Simpson on the accessibility framework from the development and poverty reduction yeah so the intention from pretty much now over the winter is to work with all of the different stakeholders related to accessible transportation and that's what we intend to be doing is trying to focus with a broad range of consultations with the effective stakeholders as to where those perturbs can be utilized for the criminal record check sorry local police able to charge a fee for the criminal record check yes most do charge a fee is my understanding I'm not sure Jeremy if you have any further information on this one really just cut out there could you just repeat the question the question is are local police permitted to charge a fee for the criminal record check oh yeah well they do now so with a few variations basically a vulnerable sector check or police information check cost $75 that your local police agency another question recently we received a consultation notice in regards to the vehicle identifiers I have feedback on this matter however have not received any notification as to whether the review agency has received our comments and how these comments will be reviewed and what criteria is used to determine if recommendations will be reviewed Michelle do you want to take that one absolutely can you repeat it again please recently we received a consultation notice in regards to the vehicle identifiers I've supplied feedback on this matter however I have not received any notification as to whether the review agency has received our comments and how these comments will be reviewed and what criteria is used to determine if recommendations will be reviewed so you're in and out but I think so essentially someone has submitted comments and they're not sure they're not they've been received and how the comments be assessed is that the just question yes that's my ending okay thank you sorry Jessica you were coming in and out there so for those on the participating in the webinar we have a consultation notice on the PT branch website and these were sent out to all of the stakeholders to indicate that the consultation was going up and it is available for five business days until next Tuesday October 15th and so of course all consultation submissions are going to be reviewed and assessed and there is an internal ministry working group committee that is also working with board staff and members of staff from municipal affairs and housing as well as our legal services branch ministry in general so all comments will be assessed and maybe if I Michelle if you don't mind if I can just add on as well when it comes to vehicle identifiers in the ride hail industry we are actually hoping that the vehicle identifiers or the intention for the vehicle identifiers is for law enforcement whether it is police or commercial vehicle safety or the passenger transportation branch or local bylaw the vehicle identifiers are meant for enforcement to be able to identify a ride hail vehicle when it comes to clients that have a vehicle on the app we really want to get the message out to not look for vehicle identifiers but look for the license plate of the vehicle and make sure that license plate matches the one that is on the app for the vehicle that was hailed because what we have seen in other jurisdictions is where clients perhaps are getting into the vehicle thinking it is theirs because they have seen the deck on the window and they are getting in the wrong vehicle and then we know when that happens so we are really trying to get the message out to clients if you are going to be getting into a ride hail vehicle make sure that you are getting in the one that the license plate matches on the app don't be looking for the trade dress trade dress is really for like I said for enforcement officers to be able to identify one final question I hope you can hear me okay is there any consideration being given to sharing fees charged to companies with local police departments to cover the act of regulations did not contemplate that the act allows for the fees to be utilized by the lieutenant governor and council for the cost of the administration of the work within government as well as for the to support accessibility there was not any discussion to date that I am aware of in regards to looking to get some of those fees back to local police or otherwise for enforcement okay and sorry one final question will there be an education campaign for individuals using ride hailing is there anything planned yes we have been trying to promote the branch website as much as possible in regards to the current requirements but as ride hailing does come out you will see coming from the ministry of transportation a number of media releases and what not to make sure that everybody is aware of the requirements as well as some of the aspects of safety like I just was mentioning around the license plate you know making sure that you're getting in the right vehicle those are items that we'll be looking to come out with once once the board has made decisions and we have an indication that the ride health companies will be starting to operate we want to make sure that that is timely so we didn't want to put anything out early so that it's forgotten by the time the ride start happening but that is what we'll be seeing likely in the coming month or two depending on when the ride health operations do start and if I just add to that we have set requirements for the information that the health companies have to provide on their apps so it is a fulsome list of the types of information like the vehicle color make model color license plate number so when an individual is hailing on their app have all that information and so that information will be available on the app and then as Steve has alluded to we'll also have information on the website and there will be media education in terms of for those citizens who haven't in other jurisdictions used to inhale so there will be some information of how that information is conveyed Fantastic thank you so much to our panel for both presenting the information that you had answering all those questions I'm just going to take control back here and just remind everyone that this webinar was recorded so if you are wanting to view it or go back to the information the webinar as well as the slide deck will be posted on our website www.bc.ca backslash economic development our panelists may also be sharing and posting it other places so you may see other places but it certainly will be posted in the next week on our website and because we did have so many people on the line from local governments I wanted to highlight a webinar that's coming up on October 24th will be joined by a number of individuals to speak about how you can create economic development opportunities with your local government legislation so that will include individuals from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as well as you'll hear some success stories from the town of Gibson and how they've been able to utilize that legislation and I just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to join this webinar if you have any questions obviously you've been given information for our panelists but if you have any questions for our branch specifically you can email us at economicdevelopment at gov.bc.ca so I'll be following up with the panelists after this just to share those questions that they had so they have everything marked or if anything else comes in if anyone has any questions please reach out to our branch and with that I'm going to end our session thank you for taking everybody thank you