Photo by Chris Reif
Despite assurances from D.C. officials to the makers of smartphone applications that hail taxicabs that their services will not be restricted by new regulations over credit cards in taxis, another such company is sounding the alarm. MyTaxi, a German company that entered the D.C. market last year, says it will have to stop accepting payments for the rides it hails on Sept. 1, the deadline by when the District’s 7,300 are required to install new meters that accept credit card payments.
MyTaxi isn’t being quite as dramatic as Uber, which earlier this month briefly threatened to cut off its Uber Taxi service over a requirement that the city’s cabbies choose a single payment service provider to process credit cards. In response the D.C. Taxicab Commission said that services like Uber would be exempted with language added to the new regulations that “grandfathers” in taxis’ affiliation with services like Uber, Hailo, and MyTaxi.
But MyTaxi isn’t convinced, and a company spokeswoman tells DCist that while it will continue accepting payments through the Sept. 1 deadline, after that, it will be forced to return to being only a digital dispatch service.
The myTaxi app lets you see which cabs are nearby.“They want to implement this special service, and that means we would have to implement another technology,” the spokeswoman, Lina Wueller, says in a phone interview. “The DCTC is basically restricting innovation like ours.”
Wueller says that it is “great” that D.C.’s technologically lagging taxi fleet is finally adapting to accept more non-cash forms of payment, but adds that in their current state, the the regulations don’t allow for MyTaxi’s system.
“The new regulations when they finally become effective, it is a loss for us because obviously our core feature will be missing,” she says. “If we cannot fulfill the requirements, will basically act like a dispatch service. But that will mean people in Washington won’t have this very secure way to pay for a taxi. Why do they want to stop us?”
But Taxicab Commission spokesman Neville Waters says the modified language has been added to the new regulations, clearing MyTaxi to continue taking credit card payments come September.
