Iowa City approves new rules for taxi cabs, ride-sharing services

IOWA CITY - Taxi companies and taxi drivers must follow a number of new rules after a vote by the Iowa City Council Monday night.

After very little discussion, council members unanimously approved a new taxicab ordinance.

The discussion on the policy started following a sexual assault investigation involving taxi drivers last year.

Several city leaders though it was time to make changes. Police said this new ordinance will help them investigate any future crimes involving taxicabs.

Among many things, the new ordinance requires metered taxicabs to post city-issued picture identification cards visible to all passengers, and it requires taxicab companies to have a unique and recognizable color scheme.

'Basically when you are looking at this - an incident where you have an unknown assailant, you are looking at a way to identify the cabdriver and company. There just wasn't a good mechanism in place at the time to do that,” said Captain Doug Hart with the Iowa City Police Department.

The discussion on ride-sharing also came up as the city worked to draft the new taxicab ordinance, so officials worked that into the ordinance too. In Iowa City, the new regulations for those companies are similar to that of a taxicab company.

Ride-sharing services, like Uber, connect drivers and passengers through an app on a smartphone.

City leaders said they've had discussions with Uber about the company's desire to come to Iowa City.

The city said it welcomes Uber and said it wrote the new ordinance after discussions with the company.

Uber told KCRG-TV9 last month it would not come to Iowa City if the ordinance was approved.

'Those comments we found a little confusing. A lot of the provisions in the ordinance were based on examples that [Uber] gave us from other cities in which they currently operate,” said Simon Andrew, an administrative assistant in the city manager's office.

Uber responded to several attempts at an interview with a statement, which read, in part, 'Iowa City is attempting to squeeze ride-sharing into a regulatory framework designed for taxis.”

Some aspects of the ordinance will begin as early as March 1.