For the sake of our global brand, Toronto taxis need to have a consistent brand - the same car, the same colour. I’ve thought about this before and written about it somewhere, but it’s worth repeating.

I was driving around downtown on Saturday night and I started to compare the ratio of cabs to non-cabs on the road. As is typical for any weekend night, most of the cars were cabs. And yet they’re a complete hodgepodge of different car types and colours.

The cab companies, of course, like it this way. They want to be differentiated. But from a practical standpoint, does this even matter? Sure, I might call a specific company to pick me up somewhere, but when I’m hailing a cab on the street I go for the first available car. I couldn’t care less what company it is. 

The result of this heterogeneity though is that we’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to brand our city. New York has its yellow cabs, London has its black cabs and all of Germany has its beige Mercedes Benzes. In our psyche, those cars symbolize those cities.

Just like companies, cities today compete with one another for talent and capital. It’s been said many times before that the vast majority of Millenials now choose where they want to live (which city) before they even start looking for a job. Toronto needs to be on the top of that last.

Taxi branding may seem like a small detail, but it’s not. As a comparison, take for example the Shangri-La Hotel company. The first time I stayed at one of their hotels was in Vancouver. I remember asking one of the staff members about the fragrance that seemed to permeate the entire building.

He told me that it was the “Essence of Shangri-La" and that it was actually diffused throughout the entire building, as well as around the perimeter. The purpose of this was to give global travels a familiar feeling - that feeling of being home - wherever they are in the world. Now that’s consistent branding.

Similarly, being in Toronto should make you feel like you’re here and in no other city. Our lumbering streetcars certainly help with that, but our cabs don’t. In a time where globalization is making cities feel more and more alike, we need to be doing everything we can in order to differentiate.

Hell, in addition to having the same car and colour, maybe we should even create an Essence of Toronto scent for our cabs.