Shortly after news that ride-hailing giant Uber will not operate outside of Metro Vancouver, a Canadian company has announced its plans to bring ride-hailing to Kelowna.
TappCar bills itself as Canada’s third-largest ridesharing company and currently operates in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Grande Prarie.
“Kelowna is a large market with a popular tourism sector and people are often traveling in without having a ride,” said TappCar spokesperson Pascal Ryffel.
“We plan to be there as soon as possible.”
Tuesday, Sept. 3, was the first-day ride-hailing companies could submit their applications to the BC government.
While BC has faced criticism from both Uber and Okanagan government officials for its requirement of drivers to have a Class 4 license, TappCar says it has no problem with the more stringent law.
“We were never opposed to the Class 4 requirement as it adds an extra level of safety for passengers,” explained Ryffel.
“The Class 4 license shouldn't be a barrier to anyone to obtain and we haven't found it to be an impediment to operating a company at all.”
TappCar says it has successfully completed more than 1-million rides.
If you get value from KelownaNow and believe local independent media is important to our community we ask that you please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter.
If you appreciate what we do, we ask that you consider supporting our local independent news platform.
