SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The city's largest and longest-running taxicab company says there are too many taxis on the road, one year after a third company entered the market.
City Cab Ltd. directors Van Duc Lam, directer/driver/shareholder, left, Mohamed Elmi, secretary-treasurer/shareholder, Ahmed Diblawe, president/shareholder, and Shirley McGrath, general manager, met at the company's Range Lake Road head office on Wednesday. - Thandiwe Vela/NNSL photo
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Aurora Taxi celebrated its first anniversary on April 5, one year after many people said only two taxi companies could survive in the city at a time.
"We've been in business for one year. Despite what they have said before, we've survived and we've gone on," said Aurora marketer and driver Lovingson Mtongwiza. "It's now one year and we're going strong."
Aurora was started last year by a group of Diamond Cabs drivers who said they were disgruntled by the company's policies and its owner.
More than half of Diamond Cabs' 24 drivers at the time left to take ownership in Aurora, which also drew at least four drivers from City Cab.
Today Aurora Taxi has 29 shareholders and drivers on the road, said president Gailani Dawoud.
"We're very busy," Dawoud said. "Now we're one year old and getting into the second year. We're not going anywhere."
He said the company is continuing to recruit more drivers from the competing companies and also training new drivers to increase the number of cars in its fleet.
"We have a lot of business now and we need more and more drivers and more cars on the road and we're going to arrange for that in the next probably two or three months," he said.
Directors of the longest existing company, City Cab, which has operated in the city for some 40 years, say there are already too many taxis on the road.
"This is a small town and there is a lot of cars," said City Cab president Ahmed Diblawe, who said the company has been calling for a freeze on livery licence plates in the city.
"(The freeze) is for every cab company. Even though City Cab is the dominant one, we all have the same problems," he said. "There is buses, private cars, shuttles, everything. There's too many cars on the road.
"Anybody who wants, he can open tomorrow another cab company but the question is how they are going to survive. It's a small town."
City Cab has more than 80 cars on the road and call traffic has not changed since the third company opened, said general manager Shirley McGrath.
Diamond Cabs owner Ted Yaceyko declined to comment on whether competition from Aurora Taxi has affected his business.
