GREATER LANSING AREA - The Greater Lansing Taxi Authority is proposing to incorporate local communities and township's to regulate taxi services.

If put in place, the taxi authority would incorporate five townships in the greater Lansing area, including Meridian Township.

The city of East Lansing currently requires a lot from cab drivers, in order for them to be on the road.

"Companies are going to have to be able to operate 24/7," said Marie Wicks, East Lansing City Clerk.

"The service we feel will be more reliable. At some point we'll probably look at the type of vehicle, or age of the vehicle."

Clark Cab's owner John Clark says that his cab drivers play by the city of East Lansing's rules.

"They go through the process of getting legal; licensed, background checks, having the vehicles inspected," said John Clark.
"That's where Uber should have to do the same thing."

The addition of apps like Uber have complicated the way East Lansing regulates its taxi services.

"When we went into moratorium, and we started talking about the regional authority, Uber was not in the picture yet," said Wicks. "We hadn't contemplated that. That through another consideration in, a huge one."

"The taxi cab authority that they're pushing through, you can read what qualifications are for us taxis. Instead of making it a fair playing field, it's not," said Clark.

"Uber, their regulations that they impose on their drivers; background checks, same types of things that we do, those are actually written into the Greater Lansing Taxi Authority articles of incorporation," said Wicks. "So as soon as we get a little further along in the process and we start promulgating the rules that we adopt, they will be subject to those rules."

Though local cab service owner John Clark say it should be otherwise, services like Uber are not considered to be a taxi service. This is because rides are supposed to be pre-arranged, and drivers are not supposed to pick up cab-hails.