An Innisfil resident needs council’s help so she can give Uber a five-star rating.
Raegan Montgomery provided a delegation to council at its March 13 meeting where she described her level of satisfaction at 80 per cent with the Innisfil Transit service. But when it’s bad, it’s awful, she said, causing undue stress and frustration, and often makes her — and others like her — late for work and appointments.
It’s the other 20 per cent, caused by flaws in the service, that she wants the municipality to work with Uber to make its partnership better for users.
“I’m not saying let’s get rid of this and take on something else,” she said. “There are a few tiny little bugs that need to be worked out over time.”
Montgomery’s delegation highlighted three areas of concern she feels need to be addressed to better serve Innisfil residents who utilize Uber as a method of public transportation, whether it's for business (the morning commute) or pleasure (locations like the library or town hall).
Montgomery falls into both categories, taking Uber daily to get to work and noting she used the service to get to the council meeting to make her presentation.
Every time she requests a ride to her home, she notices the first issue she wants corrected: the use of private roads as shortcuts.
To get to Montgomery’s address, the Uber app routes drivers past her street and onto a private laneway that’s easily missed. If she’s unable to alert the driver in advance to not follow the GPS directions explicitly, the vehicle could just as easily be in the lake rather than picking up a passenger.
It isn’t just an issue in her portion of Alcona, but also is a frequent problem for drivers servicing Friday Harbour, she said.
“There’s no need for an app that’s subsidized by the town to direct people and vehicles onto private roads,” Montgomery said. “That should be respected and there should be more communication with Uber to remove those unless you are picking somebody up on that private road.”
Montgomery called it a “lack of duty of care” for the municipality, given that the Uber app is subsidized by the town. In 2022, more than 6,500 Innisfil residents utilized Innisfil Transit’s door-to-door service, accounting for nearly 95,000 trips. The town’s subsidy for the service topped $826,000.
“It’s very clear that if you look at the revenue that Uber generates from this geographical area, it’s significantly higher now than it was prior to the town adopting this program ... that should motivate Uber significantly to take corrective action,” Montgomery said.
That could come with some building in of common sense to its program. She highlighted another way to improve the experience for users like her: re-evaluate the way ridesharing works in Innisfil.
Using the subsidized service, Montgomery’s ride could include a detour to collect another Innisfil resident whose final destination is either the same as hers or along the way. In some cases, it could take her all the way out to Highway 400 in the morning before reaching her final destination at the South Barrie GO Transit station. Other times, it could mean picking up another resident on their way to work at the end of the day.
This doesn’t make taking Uber either efficient or convenient, she said.
“When I call for an Uber, I have no idea if my eight-kilometre, 10-minute trip is going to be ... 10 minutes or it’s going to be 45,” Montgomery said. “And when it’s minus 20 outside, I don’t want to be very early and be standing out on the corner of Mapleview (Drive) and 20th (Sideroad) … I don't want to have to, on a daily basis, call for an Uber so early that I'm standing at that corner in literally the middle of nowhere for 30 minutes.”
But it doesn’t mean Uber isn’t living up to its service agreement, as trip delays of 20 minutes or fewer meet the standard. Montgomery gave the example that if a six-minute trip becomes a 26-minute trip, Uber has still lived up to its commitment to the town.
“It’s a nightmare and I’d like you to help stop that nightmare,” she said.
Several Innisfil councillors admitted they either rarely or never utilize Uber. They turned to staff for guidance on how to work with Uber to improve the service, particularly when it came to mapping, not only to exclude private roads, but also provide access to the Innisfil IdeaLAB and Library — one of the town’s hubs for Uber service — that doesn’t take drivers down a back alley that dead ends at a concrete barrier and chain link fence.
Town planning manager Brandon Correia noted the maps utilized by Uber drivers are provided by the ride-sharing company, and any requirement for drivers to adhere to the GPS-provided directions will have to be taken back to be researched. But the company is willing to have discussions with the town.
“It's highly automated through Uber's mapping system,” Correia said. “What they have indicated, because we have had meetings regarding some of these concerns, is that they can take, for example, some private roads offline so that it wouldn't come up on their mapping.”
Montgomery’s delegation was received by councillors without specific direction to town staff as a result of the information she presented.
