How you had YourSay:

We held a comprehensive conversation with the community and industry on impacts of 2015-16 reforms on on-demand transport, between July and September 2017.

The government received a strong picture of consumer and industry perceptions about impacts. We received them through 996 comprehensive survey responses, 1,641 people voting on quick-polls, 26 written submissions and meetings with 30 individuals.

Consumers described changes to their travels experiences, while industry participants described the effects of the reforms on competition, the viability of delivering their services, the ease of doing business, and other factors.

For a snapshot of what we heard and key insights from the community, check out the What We Heard report [pdf] [word].

For more in-depth information, read the:

What we looked at:

The ACT Government is committed to making Canberra an accessible, inclusive city and broadening consumer choices of travel by taking advantage of emerging, alternative technologies and travel business models.

It is important we have on-demand transport options readily available to connect our growing city and ensure we can keep it moving so that our community can safely and effectively travel from A to B.

During the evaluation, we asked the community what the impacts were of a range of reforms introduced to the industry, including the regulated introduction of rideshare services.

The evaluation looked at the quality of the passenger experience, safety, accessibility, any change in the competitive structure of the industry, viability of industry participants and trading behaviour of tradeable taxi licences, in the years since the reforms were implemented.

We specifically wanted to know how Canberrans had been affected by the reforms and if the changes meet the intended objectives:

  • Improve consumers outcomes from transport services (for example, in terms of pricing and quality of services)
  • Promote innovation and enable the creation of alternative travel business models (such as rideshare)
  • Ensure safe and accessible transport for the community
  • Remove unnecessary and burdensome regulation
  • Apply a risk based regulatory approach to support a more level playing field for industry competition
  • Align with the broader objectives for public transport

A discussion paper (DOC 151KB) or (PDF 295KB) was provided to assist with further detail on factors to consider.

You can learn more about the underlying reforms, on the Taxi industry reforms page.

How we used your views:

Your views were used to understand consumer and industry perceptions of the impacts of ACT Government reforms to the on-demand transport industry, including the nation-leading introduction of regulated rideshare services.

The government's evaluation considered the input of stakeholders, undertook additional observations and analysis (both internal and third-party) and produced a series of recommendations for follow-on reforms for the industry.

The recommendations were considered by government during September 2018 and a range of them will be adopted.

The government is now having additional conversations about a few of the evaluation's recommendations, including those on regulated caps on taxi licences and the regulation of taxi fares.