Well,
trying to take a taxi in Thunder Bay can be a bit of a challenge. Several winters ago, a couple of hours before
our flight out we called for a cab and it just did not seem to be
arriving. In the end, we had to drive
and park our own vehicle at the airport which had not been our original
intention. When we discussed the matter with the company, they mentioned it was
mid-afternoon and a lot of their cabs were on “school runs” so it would be best
to call the night before to book a cab to ensure a ride. It turns out a lot of the business for cab
companies in Thunder Bay is from the broader public sector – schools, social
agencies etc…which limits their incentive to provide more and more immediate availability
for private sector clients.
Well, this
week my wife booked a cab on Monday for a trip to the airport for an early
morning flight the next day. She had to
call again the next morning as the appointed time passed and though the driver did eventually arrive he
mentioned he had postponed another fare to get her. So much for booking your cab in advance. And if you are out late on a Friday or
Saturday night - as university students are likely to be - and have had a few drinks and need a cab, be prepared for a long
walk as cabs in Thunder Bay are hard to get at that hour though I suspect it is
not because they are on a school run. Indeed, cab companies in Thunder Bay with
their dependence on what are probably lucrative public sector contracts, seem to
have little incentive to provide more or better service to members of the
public who need a cab.
Cabs in
Thunder Bay are frustrating because they seem to be difficult to get and they
cost a lot more than in other cities.
Case in point, I was on the campus of McMaster University late last
Sunday afternoon and called for a cab as I was walking to the corner of
Sterling and Forsyth. Within 5 minutes
the cab arrived, took me downtown and did so at about 1/3 less the cost for a
similar length of trip in Thunder Bay. And, I suspect this situation in Thunder Bay is not going
to get better any time soon as cab companies in Thunder Bay do not want more
competition if their public pronouncements are any indication.
To give you
an idea of how expensive cabs in Thunder Bay can be relative to other cities,
take a look at the following figures. The numbers come from a website called Numbeo (www.numbeo.com).
Figure 1 ranks the fixed cost of simply getting into a cab – the fixed
taxi start cost. It ranges from a high
of $4.50 in North Bay/Burlington to $3.00 in Guelph. Thunder Bay ranks 2nd highest (tied
with Oakville) out of these 15 Ontario cities at $4.25. Figure 2 ranks the
normal per km cost of taking a cab which ranges from a high of $3.00 in Burlington
to a low of $1.29 in Kingston with Thunder Bay in second place after Burlington
at $2.65 per km. It should be noted that $2.65 per km for Thunder Bay obtained from Numbeo differs slightly from a recent report of $2.50 in the local media as the cost per km. Finally, Figure 3 presents the total estimated cost of a 10 km
trip in these 15 cities. It ranges from
a high of $34.50 in Burlington to a low of $15.92 in Kingston with Thunder Bay
in second place at $30.75. While Thunder
Bay is not the most expensive of these 15 cities in which to take a cab, it is
pretty darn close and almost double what it takes to cab it in Kingston or
Windsor.
So, how to fix this? Obviously, the Thunder Bay cab market like so
much in Thunder Bay is not very competitive because the large public sector
component of the business and the absence of more alternatives to the available
cab companies means that not much work has to be done to earn a decent return. The best solution? More competition. More cab companies. Where is Lyft or Uber when you actually need
them? Maybe help is on the way.
