SEPTEMBER 2015
H
business elite canada
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bile app allows drivers to use private ve-
hicles to pick up fare-paying passengers.
Uber has been operating in Toronto using
professional drivers for about three years,
Hubbard said, but last year the company
launched its UberX platform that allows
non-professional drivers to pick up pas-
sengers at a lower cost than the original
service.
The City ofToronto attempted to shut down
the company this summer, but the effort
was dismissed in a ruling by an Ontario
Superior Court judge. In the meantime, a
class-action lawsuit has been filed against
Uber and UberX on behalf of taxi and lim-
ousine owners and drivers in Ontario.
“It’s not as complicated as people want to
make it,” Hubbard explained. “Uber does
the same thing that Beck Taxi does. Uber
connects riders with drivers and that’s ex-
actly what we do. You can call it a dispatch
company, you can call it a facilitator, a ser-
“I was a young teenager and I was like, ‘Come on, Mom. I can work there.
Pretend I’m the call taker and you can be the customer and you’ll see that I can
do it.’” Kristine Hubbard, Operations Manager
