National ride-hailing policy coming — Vaz

Transport Minister Daryl Vaz has announced that Cabinet has given approval for the development of a national ride-hailing policy that will establish the foundation for a comprehensive regulatory framework necessary to guide the operations of ride-hailing in Jamaica.

“Ride-hailing services remain a pressing concern for this Government as we seek to modernise Jamaica’s transport sector and ensure safe, regulated, and accessible mobility for all citizens,” Vaz told Parliament Tuesday during his contribution to the 2026/27 Sectoral Debate.

“A steering committee has been established to provide oversight and ensure stakeholder engagement throughout the policy development process. The next stage is to develop a policy Green Paper,” said Vaz.

The transport minister said work is actively underway to advance the development of the Green Paper which he anticipates will be ready for tabling in Parliament in the next four months.

Declaring that his ministry is committed to transparency, Vaz shared that the draft policy will be exposed to public scrutiny, ensuring that the voices of citizens, operators, and stakeholders shape the final framework.

“The national ride-hailing policy will not only regulate emerging services but also safeguard the public interest, promote fair competition, and enhance mobility across the island,” said the minister.

He also had a warning for individuals and companies operating in the country: “What I can say without fear of contradiction is that there are laws and regulations that govern the transport sector in Jamaica and nobody, no matter how big they are, is going to come and undermine that. You either work within the context of that, or we will have to deal with it accordingly.”

Vaz said he and Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett have agreed to meet with stakeholders based on requests they have received for a meeting “to see what can be done in parallel to the policies that the Government is implementing”.

On June 4, 2024, Vaz announced a ban on the increasingly popular ride-sharing or ride-hailing apps with immediate effect.

The action was taken a day after the police announced that remains they discovered in Salt River, Clarendon, were believed to be those of missing St Peter Claver Primary and Infant School teacher Danielle Anglin.

The teacher went missing on May 13 while on her way to school from her Hellshire, St Catherine, home, where she had reportedly chartered a cab via a ride-sharing app.

At the time, then Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey said the suspect believed to be responsible for Anglin’s kidnapping and subsequent murder was arrested back in 2015 on sexual assault charges. He also lamented that the lack of communication between the police and rideshare companies “poses a serious challenge to our investigative efforts”.

In July 2024 the police announced that forensic tests confirmed that the skeletal remains found on June 3, 2024 in Salt River, Clarendon, were those of Anglin. Convicted sex offender, 45-year-old taxi operator Lascelles Morgan from Willowdene, St Catherine, was arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping with respect to Anglin.

Morgan died in November that year, 12 days after he attempted to take his own life at Portmore Police Station.

Vaz had announced the ban while making his contribution to the 2024/25 Sectoral Debate, saying he was moved to act after being written to by a senior member of the police force.

“My recommendation as of today, which will obviously have to be vetted for legal purposes, is that a ban on all of those ridesharing apps [be implemented] with immediate effect until such time as we can come to the table and work out properly, how these apps will be regulated in terms of making sure safety, background checks of the drivers are done not only by the rideshare apps but by the Jamaican authorities — the police or the Transport Authority,” he said then.

The national policy is expected to address much of the shortcomings in the sector including safety issues while creating a level playing field for all operators.