Phillips urges Vaz to act on ride-hailing concerns

Opposition Spokesperson on Transport Mikael Phillips says the Opposition stands in solidarity with members of the transport sector whose businesses are being affected and whose livelihoods are adversely impacted by unfair competition from unregulated ride-hailing services in Jamaica, and called for the Government to act.

The comment came against the background of a call by the Jamaica Union of Travellers Association (JUTA) for Uber and other international ride-hailing/ride-sharing companies to be banned in Jamaica, arguing that they continue to operate outside Jamaica’s established transport framework.

READ:https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20261004/juta-wants-brakes-pumped-uber-lawrence-calls-locally-operated-alternativesSimon Lawrence, president of JUTA Montego Bay, says the country should instead develop a Jamaican-owned digital ride-hailing platform that delivers the convenience of Uber while keeping transport revenues in the local economy.

He claimed that Uber has already interfered with more than 45 per cent of the local ground transportation market, although he was unable to immediately quantify the financial losses suffered by traditional operators.

In a statement today, Phillips said the Opposition had raised the issue of ride-hailing companies and their impact on the transportation sector on many occasions, to no avail.

However, he noted the concerns of the tourism ground transportation groups within the tourism industry and called for Minister of Transport Daryl Vaz to take urgent steps to fulfil his outstanding commitments to the sector before a larger crisis develops.

The Opposition Spokesperson said the Minister had promised during the Sectoral Debate in Parliament in May that the Ride Hailing Policy Green Paper would be tabled within three months.

But Phillips said five months had now elapsed, and nothing had been heard from the Minister.

He said the matter was extremely urgent from both a regulatory and security perspective, while the Ministry deliberates and the Steering Committee established by the Minister to provide oversight and ensure stakeholder engagement throughout the policy development process has provided no update.

Phillips asserted that the Minister’s tardiness amounts to a gross dereliction of duty, as the industry and commuters have been raising the issues over several years.

He said while the Opposition was not, in principle, against ride-hailing, safeguards were needed in the interest of the public and industry players who had invested in transport for local commuters and the tourism sector.

The Opposition Spokesperson said these players were mostly small businesses and could not withstand the severity of unfair competition in an industry with heavy regulation from the Transport Authority and stringent qualification rules from the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo).

He said their complaint that the unregulated entities were undercutting the approved fares by as much as 60 per cent is, therefore, shocking.

Phillips also called for the Minister to support the operators’ effort to develop an app as an interim measure to stem the loss of business, as they claimed up to 45 per cent of the local ground transport market in tourism has been affected.

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