Moratorium on new metered taxi operating licence and e-hailing licence applications
The Provincial Regulatory Authority of the Department of Transport and Public Works will not accept any new applications for metered taxis (including rank, base and e-hailing) within the municipal boundaries of the City of Cape Town until 31 December 2023.
The City of Cape Town, as the Planning Authority for metered taxis (including rank, base and e-hailing), is imposing a moratorium on new applications because no current national and provincial legislation, City by-laws, statutory documents or policies adequately address the provision of e-hailing services and the consequences of operators operating illegally. These consequences include oversaturating the market and jeopardising the sustainability of the industry.
The moratorium will:
- Provide the City with an opportunity to review and update existing City by-laws, policies, statutory plans and strategies.
- Allow the City to proactively plan how to bring existing City by-laws, policies and strategies into alignment with proposed amendments to the National Land Transport Act (NLTA) currently before Parliament.
- Allow the City to develop a method for establishing the demand for new metered taxi operating services (including rank, base and e-hailing) based on an inventory of metered taxi/e-hailing operating licences in the system, recent survey information, e-hailing platform trip information, and any other information which may be relevant. This method will inform the consideration of applications for new metered taxi operating licences (including rank, base and e-hailing). The envisaged system is expected to be similar the one that is currently used to determine demand for minibus taxi services.
- Provide the City with an opportunity to establish a Metered Taxi Inter Modal Planning (IPC) Sub-Committee to consolidate all the fragmented metered taxi operators under one umbrella. The aim of this forum will be to constructively deal with all metered taxi matters (including rank, base and e-hailing). This will assist industry consultation with government and advance the interests of the industry in light of the digitisation of the market, among others. Through establishing a working committee, this Sub-Committee is expected to play an integral role in developing the method for establishing the demand for the metered industry (which includes rank, base and e-hailing).
Until the moratorium has ended, existing and new e-hailing platform providers and any other business entities which wish to operate or wish to expand their business within the City boundaries are encouraged to approach existing metered taxi operating licence holders to sign up/ join their platforms should there be a need for more operators.
"The moratorium is only applicable to the City of Cape Town area," says Mark Skriker, Director: Operating Licence Adjudication (OLA) .
"We are still accepting applications for metered taxis and e-hailing operators in other parts of the Western Cape. We can only advise operators in the City of Cape Town that the City has a moratorium in place in respect of these services. If the operator still wants to proceed with the application, we are duty-bound to accept it," he adds.