New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that the number of licenses the city grants to chauffeured transport vehicles (VTCs) would remain limited for another year, after a first year of testing.
The ceiling is likely to change each year, said the city councilor, but the municipality will set a maximum number, while there was no limit before August 2018.
Currently, the number of VTC licenses exceeds 120,000 in the American metropolis, according to a report released this month by TLC, the supervisory authority for taxis and vehicles with driver.
This is a new setback for the giants of the VTC, in particular Uber, which had already taken the justice to annul the first decision adopted in August 2018 by the city council. The procedure is underway.
The municipality also imposed, as of February 1, a minimum wage of $ 17.22 per hour for VTC drivers. A decision challenged in court by Lyft, Uber’s great rival, without success.
“The limit set by the mayor will create a new system of plates”, lamented a spokesperson for Uber in a statement, in reference to “medallions”, the licenses granted to taxis.
According to the group, drivers who do not have a license, but want to work for a VTC platform will have to rent a vehicle authorized to drive, which will induce “exorbitant” additional costs for them.
The Independent Drivers Guild union has estimated that if “preventing applications (VTC platforms) from flooding the streets with too many drivers (was) a good thing”, the town hall should allow drivers “to own their vehicles. vehicles rather than leasing it to rapacious leasing companies ”.
The mayor also announced Wednesday that the city would limit the time that VTCs could spend driving without customers, like taxis, to 31% of their overall service.
This last measure only concerns southern Manhattan, the most congested area of New York.
According to a TLC study, drivers currently spend an average of 41% of their time driving without a customer, which contributes to worsening CO2 emissions, said Bill de Blasio at a press conference.
The mayor estimated that this measure could increase the average speed of vehicles in this area by 10% and save drivers, on average, $ 6,000 more per year.
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