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On Tuesday, July 27, the Greater Atlanta Limousine Association (GALA) held a quarterly membership meeting at Louisiana Bistreaux Seafood Kitchen in Atlanta. It was the group’s first in-person meeting since February 2020.
L to R: Jeff Greene of Greene Worldwide, Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore, Maria Priestly of Empress Elite Limousine, Hashim Abdi of MintLife Limousine, and Tiffany Morman of MARTI transportation
“People are anxious to get back together, even as busy as they are,” says GALA President Maria Priestly of Empress Elite Limousine. “They want those one-on-one interactions. There are members who we haven’t seen in over a year and a half.”
While the meeting provided a great opportunity for members to get reacquainted, there was also plenty of business discussed, chiefly the challenges faced by the luxury ground transportation industry at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
“With Atlanta being the busiest airport in the world, and one of the largest, it’s perhaps the only airport where limos don’t have an assigned place to pick up their clients,” says Priestly. “Everything on the lower level has been assigned to Uber and Lyft. We used to have a parking lot but they demolished it two years ago to build a hotel. Our industry is like the child that no one pays attention to.”
GALA members enjoy their first meeting in over a year
On hand to address the situation with GALA members was Atlanta City Council President and Mayoral Candidate Felicia Moore, who has been an advocate for the industry.
“We were fortunate to have Felicia here, as she has really been the only person supportive of our industry on the City Council,” adds Priestly. “We had a few legislations regarding Uber and Lyft at the airport and she was the only councilperson to speak in our favor. We just want to play a fair game.”
At the meeting, Moore spoke to the members about getting designated pickup areas at the airport, as well as the situation with illegal black car operators who are brazenly working Hartsfield with seeming impunity. Moore said that she doesn’t believe that GALA is asking for anything difficult from the city.
Also discussed during the luncheon was the innovative creation of an Excel spreadsheet that lists the fleet vehicles of each member company. This would allow operators access to an easy, up-to-date master list so they can prioritize affiliate work among GALA members.
While GALA unfortunately had to once again cancel their popular golf outing, the association has plans for two upcoming seminars dealing with PCI compliance/chargebacks and DOT compliance, the dates of which will be announced soon.
“We’re taking everyday as a new day,” says Priestly.
Visit galalimo.org for more information.
[08.02.21]
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The International Association of Transportation Regulators (IATR) has announced that it has rescheduled its 34th annual conference—which was expected to take place this September in Memphis—to December 13-17. Due to its global membership and the various stages of reopening in the travel sphere (with many restrictions still in place), the conference of worldwide transportation regulators will again be virtual for 2021. The decision was based on a member survey.
“On behalf of the IATR, I would like to thank our loyal and supportive members, sponsors and friends for their patience, understanding and commitment over the past year and a half, as we all navigated difficult regulatory terrain to help people in need during the pandemic. … We apologize for the delay in making these decisions, but as things started to change dramatically at the outset of the spring, we thought it would be prudent to wait and see how travel restrictions might evolve, with the hope of fulfilling our commitment to the hotel and to our IATR members who registered. We simply could not have moved forward with an in-person conference this year economically, due to the minimum contract attendance requirements; in addition, while we explored holding a hybrid in-person/virtual conference as well, we concluded that it would neither be feasible nor fair to our sponsors in terms of realizing a reasonable return on their investment,” read the announcement.
The theme chosen for this year’s conference is Regulatory Reboot!, reflecting on the past year of the pandemic and the renewed excitement around the globe among transportation regulators to pivot with the times and set a course for advancement and innovation within the changing mobility world. COVID lockdowns challenged even the most prepared systems, and the multi-modal trend that was already happening is accelerating.
IATR has also released its preliminary schedule of events, which includes many returning favorites. You can read more about them here.
5th Annual Regulator Bootcamp: The basic regulatory training for beginners will address several hot topics including urban air mobility (think: flying taxis), an electric vehicle primer, and regulation and optimization of food & package delivery services.
Plenary Sessions
- Is Carmageddon Coming & Are Regulators Prepared?: With the re-opening of businesses, ongoing fear of using mass transit, and the return of drivers, congestion on the roadways is back. This panel will compare and contrast lessons learned from other countries, and conduct a comparative analysis with what is happening post-pandemic in the US.
- Industry Perspectives on Disruptive Technologies and Service Models Shaping the Transport Sector (Sponsored by the World Road Association): This unique industry roundtable discussion is an outgrowth of the IATR’s partnership with the World Road Association (PIARC). PIARC aims to foster and facilitate global discussion, knowledge sharing and dissemination of best practices on road and transport policies and procedures on everything from Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) to electric vehicles to micro-transit, which will be addressed in this session.
- Shared-Connected & Autonomous Electric Vehicle (S-CAEV) Implementation—Proposed Guiding Principles & Model Regulations (International Hearing): Building on the work that began at IATR’s 2019 conference on this project, this session will include a presentation on the proposed guiding principles for regulators seeking to implement and/or experiment with Robotaxis or S-CAEVS. Going beyond the various testing laws and issues, this project is focusing on the socio-economic and regulatory issues that need to be navigated for full implementation in the for-hire sector of S-CAEVS.
- Pandemic Regulatory Reboot—Lessons Learned—What Policies Will Stay & What Will Go? (Regulator Star Trek 4.0): For the 4th straight year, the IATR will continue and expand upon its popular spotlight session for new and emerging regulatory talent, where mobility regulators will focus on initiatives in their jurisdictions, or a potpourri of issues each regulator is tackling, and new initiatives and perspectives to share with the regulatory community.
- Driver Compensation—New Labor Models For Transportation Workers: In the aftermath of California’s passage of Prop 22, and the continued existence of AB5, compelling many drivers for taxi and limousine companies to become employees, this panel will explore where we go after all of the enhanced unemployment runs out and drivers return to work in fall 2021.
IATR’s 6th Hack-a-Thon: IATR, City University of New York’s University Transportation Research Center at the City College of NY (UTRC), and the University of California at Berkeley have partnered to organize yet another hack-a-thon competition with partner universities and other private industry stakeholders using available public data. This year’s theme, Transportation Equity—including safe, reliable and affordable service to underserved communities—has now become a top priority for not just many cities, but for the federal government in the US and worldwide.
The tentative conference program can be accessed here. IATR also has a limited number of sponsorships still available, which can be found here. Registration is now open for regulators and associate (industry) members at iatr2021.heysummit.com.
Looking ahead, IATR expects that the 2022 conference will be held in person at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and is scheduled for September 22-25, 2022.
Visit iatr.global for more information.
[08.02.21]
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The National Limousine Association (NLA) announced the launch of the new Ground Reservation Exchange Standards (GRES). These standards, which formalize common and frequently used language as official terminology, were developed to improve and optimize communication for operators and industry software providers on both an internal and external basis.
"These standards have been in development for several years, and we are thrilled that they are finally a reality," states NLA President Robert Alexander of RMA Worldwide. "This collaborative and consequential initiative undoubtedly enhances and benefits intra- and inter-company communications and introduces more efficiency and understanding, as evidenced by the support from our industry software vendors and providers. Our next goal with the GRES is to educate the industry on the importance of everyone speaking the same language—regardless of geographic location or company size."
NLA President Robert Alexander
Developed by the NLA Technology and Social Media Committee, the GRES standardizes terminology that the industry uses every day, but has never been formalized, to improve communication and understanding between chauffeured transportation operators and software providers. The standardized terminology, which pertains to vehicle types and trip status (such as pre- and post-trip), will also enable a seamless integration between reservation software vendors. From an internal perspective, communication between operators' staff will be simultaneously reduced and optimized, eliminating any miscommunications or language barriers and making things more efficient. Externally, with regard to their global affiliates, operators will not need to enact any changes, as their reservation software will be able to automatically transmit a reservation to any software vendor using the same language.
"The goal of creating and implementing the GRES is to align with how the airline, hotel, and rental car industries have operated for decades. When you book a standard king room at a hotel, you know exactly what you are getting," says Jay Erlich, co-chair of the NLA Technology and Social Media Committee. "Now, when you request anything from a luxury sedan to a motorcoach, all parties will have the same understanding and expectation of what vehicle will be dispatched."
Fasttrak President Eddie McCoy
"It is our hope that all global operators will be able to streamline and simplify communication between affiliates when farming in and farming out," says Ken Carter, co-chair of the NLA Technology and Social Media Committee. "We all need to be doing more with less, and this is one of the best ways to make that a reality."
To date, five software vendors have already pledged their support of the NLA's standards and will be integrating them into their platforms, including FASTTRAK, GRiDD/GNet, GroundWidgets/SantaCruz, Limo Anywhere, and Livery Coach.
"This effort by the NLA's Technology Committee should be applauded for helping providers exchange and work together with less service failures, says FASTTRAK President-Founder Eddie McCoy. “When fully implemented, the industry providers will more readily accept and employ software applications integrated to these standards."
NLA Technology Co-chair Ken Carter
"The NLA's GRES further simplifies global ground transportation companies to standardize their use of common terms, common data, and to further support interoperable business processes and systems for their affiliate business," adds GNet Founder & CEO Amir Zafar. “GRiDD Technologies looks forward to our continued work with the NLA, our global software partners, and our GNet Members to further support GRES and to enable GNet to better provide seamless integrations for the synchronization of real-time accurate reservation and trip data as powered by GNet and further enabled by the GRES standard.”
"GroundWidgets and SantaCruz are committed to the GRES project and creating a uniform coding system for the industry at large,” states GroundWidgets CEO Apurva Patel. “Simplifying the mapping is a key step towards automation and consistent communications that lays the foundation for seamless delivery of service levels to the traveling passengers in different markets as affiliates are leveraged for fulfillment. We applaud the NLA Technology committee on this initiative and look forward to supporting the standards and moving our industry forward."
NLA Technology Co-chair Jay Erlich
"Content and connectivity standards are paramount to accelerating operational and technological efficiencies, particularly within travel and transportation,” said Limo Anywhere President Sean Arena. “We are pleased that the NLA has taken a leadership role in spearheading this effort and honored that Limo Anywhere has been solicited for our input and expertise as to how these standards should best be applied throughout the ecosystem. We expect that this initiative will streamline workflows, reduce service issues, and ultimately improve the customer experience. As the industry continues to rebound from the challenges of the past year, we must continue to collectively pursue advancements that will further fuel growth and profitability in a sustainable and meaningful way."
"Connectivity is an essential element in the survival of our industry and adopting standards in terminology is one of many steps that will help operators streamline processes, lower expenses and be more profitable. From FleetBook to GNet, Livery Coach has a long history of supporting efforts to build independent, reliable and open connectivity, and we are pleased with that NLA Technology Committee solicited our advice and put in the hard work to make this a reality," says Livery Coach President David Hirsch.
Visit limo.org for more information.
[07.29.21]