As riders in southwestern Pennsylvania will attest, driving firms and services such as Uber and ZTrip have rapidly transformed the way people move in and around the Pittsburgh area.
We can now travel to work-related destinations without parking anxiety, we can welcome out-of-state visitors knowing that we can get to the airport and that they can find their way around town, and, on certain nights in particular, we can enjoy safer roadways with fewer intoxicated drivers threatening our families.
Beyond providing a reliable and unique means of transportation, Uber also has brought the steel city renewed global attention with its decision to locate an advanced-technology center in Pittsburgh. That center, reported to be well on its way toward hiring more than 400 roboticists and advanced-vehicle-related engineers and researchers, has positioned Pittsburgh among an elite group of global cities racing to commercialize new ideas for the emerging mobility market.
True to form, as start-ups so often do, Uber has created a market disruption so powerful that consumers, competitors and regulators have raced to keep up with the swift pace of change.
Today, all of Pennsylvania’s so-called “network transportation companies” are operating on short-term agreements with the state Public Utility Commission. But these services will not be short-term, as we all know, so Pennsylvania lawmakers need to adopt common-sense policies that bring our regulatory framework into the 21st century. The Pittsburgh Technology Council looks forward to working with our policymakers as they contemplate the many complex issues associated with these reforms.
Unfortunately, even as that important policy work progresses within the General Assembly, the PUC is attempting to levy a $50 million fine on Uber, the largest fine in the history of the commission, for violations that it alleges occurred in the earliest days of shared-ride services in Pennsylvania.
The commission’s failure to long ago resolve this issue fairly is a disservice to its own mission statement, which directs it to balance the needs of consumers and utilities, ensure safe and reliable services at reasonable rates, and support and foster new technologies and economic development. If not through innovative service providers such as Uber, how exactly would the commission foresee any improvements to this industry?
The commission’s mission statement requires it to take a “balanced” approach to its duties. Where is the balance in a proposed $50 million fine? The PUC settled this same issue with Uber’s closest competitor for the far more reasonable sum of $250,000. In light of that settlement, it is long overdue for the PUC to put the past in the past, settle this dispute and look to the future.
Audrey Russo is president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council.
First Published: March 31, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
