Jamaica Makes Rideshares (ride-hailing) the Scapegoat for the Country’s Failed Transportation System

The announcement, though pending legal advice, to ban ride share apps for a period of 12 months has put the spotlight on Jamaica’s failed transportation system. The uproar from ordinary citizens and civil society organizations has sought to point out the operational inefficiencies and insecurities that currently characterize, maybe even plague, the local transportation system. To understand the uproar of the ‘real civil society’ (not the EU funded NGOs parading as objective) it is imperative to have a baseline understanding of the players in the public transportation sector and how these players interface with local legislation. This paper will advance the argument that while ride shares aren’t good for government coffers, they are good for public safety and have improved the service quality and efficiency available to ordinary Jamaicans that rely on public transportation. Moreover, ride sharing apps, through their technological capabilities, offer a level of safety and security not widespread in the local environment. Instead, of banning ride shares, the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) should consider ways to improve the safety of other players in the transportation space by making pertinent information available, to help businesses including rideshares, in their vetting process, such as making the sex offenders registry list public.? ?

Players in the transportation sector

The public transportation sector is composed of route taxis, taxis, coaster buses, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) and what the locals dub as ‘robot taxis’. These players are governed by The Transport Authority Act which grants the authority to the Transport Authority, a body corporate, to regulate and monitor, public passenger transport throughout the island[1]. Under Jamaican law, to operate a public passenger vehicle (PPV) an operator must have a special type of license. The various licensing categories dictates how PPVs and other vehicles ought to operate. For example, a route taxi, which bears a red license plate, may carry passengers paying separate fares along a designated route. These licensees can stop to pick up or let off passengers along the specifed route. Route taxis must have ten (10) seats or less[2].? This is in contrast to the license for a private vehicle which is restricted to personal use and cannot perform any type of commercial activity.

Ridesharing not accounted for in legislation

Playing on a model similar to that of a route taxi, ride share applications, offer transportation services to the general public. An app user can request services and has the option to choose whether or not to allow other app users in the vicinity, who also want to use the service, to share; bringing down the cost of the service.? However, in Jamaica, users have tended not to use these applications in the way they were intended, that is ‘to share’, but have instead preferred to use these applications as a convenient way to locate transportation services. ?Interestingly, there is no category of license under the Transportation Authority (TA) which recognizes this hybrid service, which can be described as an amalgamation of the recognized route taxi and hackney carriage services. Given that the Transportation Authority Act was last amended in 2014, legally rideshares are not provided for or recognized under Jamaican law.

Rideshare applications like Uber and InDrive have essentially turned Jamaica’s licensing categories on their head, allowing licensees of private vehicles to offer what has traditionally been deemed? ‘commercial services’ liberalizing the sector, so that anyone with a driver’s license and a roadworthy vehicle can offer a transportation service.

Here it is important to point out that most of the operators offering services on rideshare applications, tend to be traditional taxi operators. Like customers (users) they have recognized the greater efficiencies provided for by the mobile application platforms and have simply incorporated them into their operations.

Every Rideshare is Unique

It is important to understand that each ride share application is unique, operating on differing models that appeal to a wide demographic of users and operators . For the case of Jamaica, I will make the distinction between Uber and InDrive, which are the two most popular ride share services available locally; unfortunately, Lyft has failed to elevate or lift in the locale.

Uber

Using Uber, passengers are connected with a driver going in the direction of the user’s intended destination. The Uber app calculates the fare, and no cash is exchanged between parties as the entire process takes place in the app; except, of course, for the physical ride.

InDrive

InDrive differs from Uber in that the application gives the passenger greater autonomy as it relates to fare and method of payment. Using InDrive, a rider can negotiate the fare with the driver through the app. Once the fare is agreed upon, the driver is dispatched with the user seeded with the car details. Additionally, users can pay with local hard currency, or they can pay using Lynk.

Advantages of Rideshares Over Traditional Operators

The popularity of rideshare applications among Jamaicans, has partially arisen from an outdated, insecure, and poorly monitored public transportation system. There are three main ways for the non-motoring public to secure traditional transportation services they are: flagging down a route taxi and or bus, waiting at a bus stop or calling a hackney carriage company or individual driver. Each of these methods of securing public transit poses an inherent risk to the passenger’s safety which has ultimately given rise to the popularity of rideshare apps, which have been used more as a locator tool,? than anything else.

Unlike the traditional taxis in which a phone call must be placed to a dispatcher, who may ask the user to call back later outside of peak hours, or a passenger standing on some unsafe part of the road waiting in hopes of seeing a vehicle offering services, a ride share app works by utilizing data to pair a passenger and a driver together. Once paired, the user enjoys the convenience of waiting in a location of their choosing, paying instantly, and is seeded with details such as the colour car, the driver’s name, and the car’s license plate number.

The data exchanged between the driver and the passenger has clear advantages as it relates to safety mechanisms not available via traditional methods of securing transportation i.e. flagging, calling and or waiting.

The other clear advantage rideshares have over traditional operators in the public transportation system, include improved transparency/ timeliness, and price competitiveness.?

Transparency/ Timeliness

Ride shares not only pair a passenger and a driver together but they also, using GPS technology, showcase the location of both parties. The transparency created by knowing just how far the passenger or driver is from each other, allows for people to better estimate wait times, as well as make decisions about the length of time it will take to get to a particular destination.

Fare Competitiveness

While Jamaica is devoid of data in many areas, and transportation is one of them, it can be gleaned from anecdotal evidence, as well as, the increased vocalness of taxi lobby groups that these new entrants to the market have brought down the cost of transportation services.? For InDrive specifically, customers have the ability to negotiate their own fares, rather than being subjected to fares[3]. This type of liberalization has empowered people, not only from the perspective of reduced fares but has also encouraged others to share their vehicles, for a small fee, if they so happen to be going in the same direction.

Public Transit Not Safe

The attention given to ride shares in recent times has focused, almost exclusively, on this question of safety – a consideration that seems not to apply for other operators within the said public transportation space. ?Each year according to the National Road Safety Council there are over 400 road fatalities of which public passenger vehicles account for? X percent. Almost daily there are media reports of coaster buses and taxi collisions that result in the loss of life. Often times, the operators involved in these deadly collisions don’t even have a driver’s license or have so many outstanding traffic tickets that they should have been removed from the roadway long ago.

Ignoring the above, the regulations ?that do exist within the public transportation space does not give anyone confidence in the sector.

Cars regulated, Drivers Not

Jamaica’s current legislation requires that route taxis, and in some instances, hackney carriages are outfitted with ‘red plates’. These differently coloured license plates are to allow customers to easily identify an operator regulated to provide services. While the car may be regulated to carry passengers, the vehicle’s operator may not. Take for example a route taxi, for this type of license to be issued, the intended licensee must apply, pay the requisite fee, have a certain type of insurance and in some instance must have a police/criminal background check submitted to the Transportation Authority. While these ‘red plate’ taxis may have gone through this vetting process, the operators of the vehicles may not be the owners of these cars. ?In many instances, the licensees get the requisite license for a particular vehicle, but the actual driver of the vehicle is not the same as the owner.? In many cases drivers are hired by the licensee and each owner’s vetting process differs greatly.

Corruption Undermines Regulations

Jamaica is 69 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) rankings, making the country among the most corrupt in the English-speaking Caribbean. Admittedly, such indexes focus on perceptions of corruption, as opposed to corruption itself, with the actual veracity of the problem remaining unknown. However, what is known is that corruption not only imposes a tax on public services and private sector activity; it also creates potentially severe consequences as it relates to efficiency as well[4]. ?In Jamaica, beyond the above outlined adverse effects, corruption also contributes to insecurity on the roads.? Anecdotal data, suggest that the very TA which has systems in place to ensure vehicles on the road are roadworthy, can be circumvented and often are, resulting in vehicles being outfitted with certification of fitness documents never having visited the examination depot. ?In a 2022 ?incident, for example, a Coaster bus that triggered an eight-vehicle collision on Constant Spring Road was described as not roadworthy, despite bearing a license disc and a certificate of fitness, issued by the TA. ?According to an insider source at the TA, the bus, was described as defective with eyebrows raised as to how the driver had secured a fitness certificate if the vehicle were not roadworthy. ?The corruption extends beyond the roadworthiness of the vehicles and extends to issues surrounding the purchasing of driver’s licenses[5]. It has been documented that in at least 10 per cent of serious collisions involving PPV vehicles, the drivers had in excess of 10 road traffic tickets. It is anecdotally asserted that bribery and conflict of interest ( the owners of the unruly vehicle driver are often officers paid by the government? to uphold the law) play a role in why drivers with an excess of road traffic tickets can remain operational.

High Profile Cases

There have been many cases in which passengers seen boarding public transportation vehicles have gone missing and in instances where ?the operators of these said vehicles have been robbed and, in the worst of cases, killed. Examples of the inherent danger of the public transportation system include well-publicized incidents such as the 2020 disappearance of visually impaired student Jasmine Deen and the 2022 incident in which the headless body of a 74-year-old St James taxi man was found after being reported missing.

Data Enables Safety

There is no fool proof solution to the matter of safety in the public transportation sector. However, rideshares, which rely heavily on real-time data, have the ability to provide information in the event of an emergency. ?It is data that is often not available when using traditional forms of public transportation. Data captured in apps can provide clues as to whether a passenger was picked up or not, the route travelled and other details that can assist with an investigation. The data capabilities of rideshare apps far exceed that of an traditional taxi, which is not likely to be outfitted with a tracker; or even a public bus, which is still stuck in the dark ages.

Pangs for Greater Transparency: Publish the Sex Offenders Registry

Increasingly, the Jamaican masses want to be elevated from the age of secrecy, characterized by the weaponizing of information which vests far too much power in institutions that are not accountable to the masses.? To bolster a safer society, the GOJ should consider making some databases, such as the sex offenders registry public. Having such a list in the public domain will provide a cost-effective solution, enabling greater transparency in vetting processes, that will reap benefits not just for transportation services but others looking to hire for in home services. Providing greater access to information, through the removal ?of unnecessary barriers, will enable better decisions among the wider public.

Rideshare Apps Also Have a Responsibility

While the GOJ has the greater responsibility, of helping to create a safer public transportation sector, ride-share platform operators also have a duty of care. As people move towards ride share platforms, increasingly these companies have a duty to educate the travelling public on how to stay safe. As government’s look to regulate and integrate these new players, a starting place can be a joint commitment to public safety. Governments, like the GOJ, ?should mandate that all companies in the space, provide information on how to keep safe, such as how to turn on data sharing and ways to signal distress.

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[1] The Transportation Authority Act 1987

[2] “Types of Licences” Transportation Authority. Retrieved June 1, 2024 https://www.ta.org.jm/licence-types

[3] "Our values". indrive.com .

[4] Krueger, 1974, Shleifer and Vishny, 1993, Bertrand et al., 2006

[5] Jamaica to crack down on illegal sale of driver’s licenses. Caribbean National Weekly.